Steampunk

[RangerWickett]

At Dragon*Con this year, Steampunk seemed like the in-thing for costumers. I don't have much experience with the genre. The closest I've gotten novel-wise is Mieville's Bas-Lag in Perdido Street Station, though E.N. Publishing did release 'The Fantastic Science' - a 3.5 book with technological gadgets that definitely could fit the steampunk theme.

Do you read, or play, or dress steampunk-y? How do you like it?

How broadly do you define the term? Does it need 'steam,' or a 'Victorian' sensibility? Is it the mixture of brass rivets and lots of leather and earth tones? Must a setting use technology in place of magic, or can magic and technology mingle?

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 'mainstream' example, though it's pretty low key. I read a few issues of Battle Chasers back in the day, which had a similar aesthetic, but it was all clearly magic. Could you theoretically lump in Final Fantasy 7 with its magitek?

What do you think? I haven't seen a discussion of the genre on this site for a while, and I'm curious if the style appeals to people from a gaming perspective. Guns and gadgets vs. dungeons & dragons?

 

[Samurai]

I have enjoyed steampunk games for a long time, starting with Space 1889 and Castle Falkenstein. CF is my favorite setting, and it combines magic, dragons, dwarves, and fey folk with massive Aerodreadnaughts, Verne Cannons, clockwork men, and Babbage Engines. What's not to love about that? I use the FATE3 engine (seen in games such as SotC or Dresden Files) as the rules system.

And the basis in real world cultures and geography means anyone can play with a minimum of world explanation. A new player to a fantasy game won't know what the City-State of Tyr, Waterdeep, or the Principality of Glantri are like, but they can probably get an idea what "1890's England and Prussia + steamtech" might be like.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I run a weekly steampunk game using Spycraft 2.0.

Steampunk, to me in the least, is about the dehumanization of the dawning industrial era.

It is about the dichotomy between the upper and lower classes.

It is about nascent technology, and yes, anachronistic invention.

It is about the preservation of a doomed status quo, of privileges that are being outstripped by the expansion of the mechanistic classes. (Which is also what spurred the Morlocks of Well's Time Machine.)

It is about nihilism and dystopian society. I draw a good deal on the movie Metropolis - which has most of the earmarks of steampunk, though a fair time before the term steampunk was coined.

That said... what I actually end up with is steam era pulp stories. Currently I am running a game based loosely on Disney's Gargoyles, set in an industrial city near Blackpool, named Blythe, but most often called Blight.


Steampunk Dystopia by dennisobrien.rm, on Flickr


Moloch Engine Take 3 by dennisobrien.rm, on Flickr

The Auld Grump

 

[Khairn]

Like many others Space 1889 and Castle Falkenstein were my original introduction to the "steampunk" genre. Since that time I've had an an on again / off again fascination with the genre, with Etherscope, Iron Kingdoms and Imperial Age being my current steampunk inspirations.

IMHO 'Steam' and 'Victorian' are themes that strongly influence the genre, and were clearly cornerstones in its development, but they are far from necessary. Much like 'high fantasy' there is a lot of than can be dome with the genre that lies outside the most widely held interpretations. Magic, western, sci fi and even outer realms themes (Etherscope as an example) can be incorporated into a setting.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I tend to prefer my steampunk with the "punk" left out. "Gaslight romance," they call it. So basically, the Victorian aesthetic and the naive optimism about technology remain, but the whole social dystopia aspect is left by the wayside.

That's what I wrote Engines & Empires to do, anyhow.

 

[The Shaman]

Do you read . . .

No.

. . . or play . . .

No.

. . . or dress steampunk-y?

HELL no!

How do you like it?

I don't.

I'm a fan of planetary romance and adventure writers like ERB, Edwin Lester Arnold, Talbot Mundy, Otis Adelbert Kline, and many others - I have a small shelf of ERB first editions which I received when I was about ten or eleven. I think Space: 1889 is the coolest roleplaying game I never played, and I fiddled around with a Mutants and Masterminds planetary romance setting.

"Steampunk" is just a marketing phrase.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I enjoy steampunk and its antecedents, but I don't dress in it, and I'm a big fan of Space:1889, Etherscope and For Faerie Queen & Country in the RPG world.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

No.No.HELL no! I don't.

I'm a fan of planetary romance and adventure writers like ERB, Edwin Lester Arnold, Talbot Mundy, Otis Adelbert Kline, and many others - I have a small shelf of ERB first editions which I received when I was about ten or eleven. I think Space: 1889 is the coolest roleplaying game I never played, and I fiddled around with a Mutants and Masterminds planetary romance setting.

"Steampunk" is just a marketing phrase.

Then why the heck did you bother posting?

And I respectfully disagree - there is a quantitative difference between ERB (who's works I very much enjoy) and the likes of William Gibson. The Barsoom romances of ERB lack the nihilistic leanings of The Difference Engine of Gibson.

Steampunk is adding dystopian or cacotopian themes to steam age trappings - having as much to do with cyberpunk as it does with Verne (another author who's works I adore). Dehumanization was a very real problem in the Victorian age, addressed more solidly by the likes of Dickens than of Verne. (Better still, look to books such as The Victorian Underworld by Donald Thomas. )

I will agree that the term Steampunk did likely originate as a marketing ploy, in part because of the reputation that Gibson had in Cyberpunk. However, it has expanded since that term was coined, and, as Metropolis displays, predates that term being coined at all.

And because I forgot to link to it in my above post: The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vORsKyopHyM]YouTube - The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello[/ame]
(Warning - 25 Minute Video.)

Which does indeed have the dystopian flavor that I was alluding to.

The Auld Grump

 

[The Shaman]

Then why the heck did you bother posting?

I'm sorry, did I miss something which says we should only respond to questions with an answer of yes?

I did actually describe, with some specificity, where and how my tastes diverge.

And I respectfully disagree - there is a quantitative difference between ERB (who's works I very much enjoy) and the likes of William Gibson. The Barsoom romances of ERB lack the nihilistic leanings of The Difference Engine of Gibson.

Steampunk is adding dystopian or cacotopian themes to steam age trappings - having as much to do with cyberpunk as it does with Verne (another author who's works I adore).

Yes, it is, and since I don't care for the source literature, I'm not likely to enjoy it as a roleplaying game, either.

I will agree that the term Steampunk did likely originate as a marketing ploy, in part because of the reputation that Gibson had in Cyberpunk.

And look at that, we've stumbled onto common ground after all.

 

[Umbran]

I will agree that the term Steampunk did likely originate as a marketing ploy, in part because of the reputation that Gibson had in Cyberpunk.

The earliest known use of the term I can find is in a letter to Locus Magazine:

Dear Locus,

Enclosed is a copy of my 1979 novel Morlock Night; I'd appreciate your being so good as to route it Faren Miller, as it's a prime piece of evidence in the great debate as to who in "the Powers/Blaylock/Jeter fantasy triumvirate" was writing in the "gonzo-historical manner" first. Though of course, I did find her review in the March Locus to be quite flattering.

Personally, I think Victorian fantasies are going to be the next big thing, as long as we can come up with a fitting collective term for Powers, Blaylock and myself. Something based on the appropriate technology of the era; like "steampunks", perhaps...
—K.W. Jeter

Call that marketing or not, as you wish.