I'm sorry, did I miss something which says we should only respond to questions with an answer of yes?
My apologies - that was intended to be humorous. Looks like I rolled a 1 on my Perform [Comedy] there. Looking at it now, even I could not tell you why I thought that it was funny. (Other than, perhaps, lack of sleep.)
I did actually describe, with some specificity, where and how my tastes diverge.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.
Actually, to my reading, no, you did not describe where your preferences lie. You mention authors, and how old you were when you got their books, but not how those tastes in any way inform your dislike of steampunk. You may have meant to, but even on rereading, I do not pick up on that. I suspect, but have no supporting evidence, that you dislike the genre for the same reasons that I like it. The real 1800s was every bit as dystopian as any cyberpunk setting.
As for RPGs - I had a great deal of fun playing Space:1889 - though it lacks that dystopian edge I mentioned. More Vernesian fantasy than steampunk. For the Steampunk game I am running with Spycraft 2.0 the PCs tend to be agents for hire, though the longest running campaign was closer to Scoobypunk than steampunk proper. (For some reason the PCs took it in their heads to run around solving mysteries and doing good deeds. In the entire 17 levels of the campaign they had exactly four fights, and one of those was fisticuffs.)
And look at that, we've stumbled onto common ground after all.
Though, since the term seems to have originated with an author, rather than a publisher, we are both wrong in thinking that it began entirely as a marketing ploy, instead we have an author exploring where future sales may lie. Whether that is any less cynical is open to debate....
Read - yes. Play - yes: I'm currently running Deadlands, which probably fits the description. Dress - occasionally.
Steampunk dress is pretty popular, if for no other reason that most of the pseudo-Victorian stuff folks have lying around from mingling with Goths can be repurposed. The same cannot be said for, say, retro-future styling - no so many geeks have silver lame jumpsuits or bubble helmets lying around.
There is also the strong sense of whimsy, compared to modern dress sensibilities.
The term is broad - like any genre definition. Certain forms of mysticism were quite common in the Victorian era, and magic in those styles fits well in the genre. Note that the US "Wild West" period is also Victorian era, so there's some mixing.
Sometimes, you'll see "steampunk" without so much "punk" - meaning without a strong dystopian aspect. Some folks call that "gaslight romance", but I'm not too much of a purist in terms. I have seen one example of modern fantasy (city setting, vampires and werewolves) mixed with Victorian comedy of manners, referred to as "urbane fantasy".
I would also set planetary romance (like Edgar Rice Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars") stuff a little apart from steampunk - call them related genres.
And then there are the period Edisonades, such as Steam Man of the Prairies. Using new fantastic inventions in pursuit of that most American of goals: money.
(I prefer Vernesian fantasy to that of the Edisonades, but both were contemporary with the period.)
The Auld Grump
*EDIT* As for dressing up, steampunk style... no, not yet....
. Steampunk doesn't seem to hold any set beliefs that really make it anything thing more then, as it has now grown to be, a cosplay fad that has hit big.
