[UA] Post-Modern Consumer, Take 2 (minus the required accounting degree)

[R. Menzi]

Here's the latest take, I want to hear some feedback
before I give Types the headache of replacing the
posts.  So... let me know what you think.


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Two words: “irrationally exuberant”
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Attributes:

Everybody buys what they need, but our society thrives
when people buy what they don't need.  The Impulse
Shopper doesn’t buy according to necessity, but
according to whims.  Not just their own, but also
those projected in advertisements and marketing
campaigns.  The check out line is her shrine, and
every candy bar and taboid placed there attempts to
attract her favor -- the goal is not to inspire
gluttony or gossip-mongering; it's to get the consumer
to plunk down their cash for something that's not on
the grocery list. The Impulse Shopper is the active
participant – the willing dupe – in a system that
rewards magazine spreads and sound bites over product
design and articulate opinions.  For followers of this
path, the advertisements are true: buying things makes
you happy, makes your problems disappear, makes you
better.

Impulse Shoppers form the engine that runs economic
booms.  Not the old sensible business cycles, the new
irrationally exuberant ones.  Two words: “dot com.” 
In the 90s, people bought into sporting the magic
suffix, regardless of its business plan (or lack
thereof).  It is believed that the current take on the
“Consumer” role was installed during the early 1980s,
and seemed damn near unstoppable during the late
1990s.  Those in the know widely consider her rise to
be the result of a grand coup on the part of the
Merchant, as the two were historically considered
quite opposed to each other.  After 9/11, many thought
there would be a mounting challenge from the Patriotic
Purchaser, but the fact that most goods are produced
overseas seems to have hobbled his efforts.


Taboo:

Every day, an Impulse Shopper must make completely
unnecessary, un-researched purchases or buy new
versions of things she already owns.  After a Shopper
buys, she has twenty-four hours to make another
purchase or start falling out of favor with her
Archetype.  Unnecessary purchases made to activate one
of the Archetype’s channels do not count for this
resetting the taboo clock.

Furthermore, doing intensive product research can
weaken a Shopper’s connection to this archetype. 
Watching advertisements or asking a salesman is safe,
but if you look things up in Consumer Reports, you’ll
start falling out of step with the Impulse Shopper. 
(Very often, Impulse Shoppers are married to a more
fiscally-responsible partner, or very far in debt, or
both.)


Symbols:

Candy, porn, advertised brands, and mail-order
catalogs are traditional symbols of the Impulse
Shopper; malls, supermarkets and mini-marts are their
usual shrines.  The Home Shopping Network used to be
the “new” shrine, but the last several years have seen
certain internet sites become the place for impulsive
purchases.  The vast amount of research material
available on the internet makes it a doubled-edged
symbol, but eBay and porn memberships are the totems
de jour.  Some say that the stock market is under her
sway, as people buy, sell, or hold according to their
instincts and biased advice instead of their objective
research.


Masks:

Living beyond your means. Any brand of blatant,
irresponsible consumerism.


Suspected Avatars in History:

Imelda Marcos, who built vast social power in the
Philippines based on shoe purchases alone.  A great
many lesser Avatars have appeared on Oprah (and Doctor
Phil) to address how the lifestyle is destroying their
families.


Channels:

01-50:  “Shopping Therapy”
For Impulse Shoppers, the act of buying makes
everything seem right with the world.  Once a day, the
Avatar can make an unnecessary purchase and erase the
effects of traumatic events on their psyche.  A simple
success can erase a Failed notch.  A matched success
allows the Impulse Shopper to erase a Hardened notch
or a Failed notch.  A critical success erases two
notches of the player’s choice.  

This channel can also be used as a kind of
anti-depressant, putting a shopper in a good mood for
the next 24 hours, or until her next stress check.  If
that stress check is a failure, the Shopper does not
panic, but still gains a failed notch… but that can be
fixed later.  This alternate use of the channel allows
the related purchase-action to also satisfy the
Shopper's Taboo.


51-70: “The Glimmer of a New Toy”
Impulsively purchased items can be used rolling the
Impulse Shopper Skill.  A dress can be used for
Distracting Physique; guns for Firearms; sneakers for
Sprinting/Dodge/Sport; holsters for Fast Draw; brass
knuckles for Struggle; knives for Knife-Fighting; cars
for Drive; cameras for Photography; suits for Getting
Bank Loans; etc.  This channel can only be used within
a month of purchasing the item, and only on a single
skill check for each item; it’s only new once.
 
An especially expensive/important item or a complete
set provides an additional positive shift on the
substituted roll.  Clone brands, pre-owned items, or
things only weakly associated with a skill may suffer
a negative shift.  Trivial or “vintage” items (a
thrift-store dress; a white lab coat; driving gloves;
a lens filter; a brush) may only provide a small,
one-time positive shift to the skill’s roll instead.


71-90: “The Best Medicine”
Buying things now provides physical as well as mental
well being.  Buy something you don’t need, make your
Impulse Shopper check, and you get better.  Trivial
purchases (less than $100) restore 3 wound points,
cure colds shakes off the effects of drugs/alcohol. 
Minor purchases (between $100 and $1,000) restore the
sum of the dice rolled, set broken bones, stabilize
serious injuries, and make your breasts perky for a
whole week.  Significant purchases (more than $1,000)
restore a Shopper to perfect health, even staving off
terminal chronic diseases or altering the Shopper’s
apparent age by a number years equal to the sum of the
dice rolled (the latter options last for a number of
days equal to the Shopper’s Avatar rating).

This Channel can also heal psychic damage, such as
from Pornomancer blasts or Astral Parasites.


91+: “Net Worth”
At this level, buying things really does make you a
better person, or at least a smarter, stronger,
tougher, and faster.  By making an unnecessary
significant purchase (spending $1,000 or more), an
Impulse Shopper can add 5 points to their stats. 
These points can be allocated between Mind, Body,
Wound Points, and Speed.  Stats cannot be raised
higher than the Shopper’s Avatar rating by using this
channel.


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