A Steampunk Request for Suggestions Thread

[Reynard]

oh man, if you ever track down the original SNES version or the PS1 version (which is the same, but ads some animated cutscenes) - it's amazingly large storytelling given the tech constraints of the time.

I don't like JRPGs as a rule, though recently I bought Octopath Traveler 2 based on how much Mortismal Gaming loved it (and I have pretty much never disagreed with with his takes). I have not yet loaded it up. And I guess Expedition 33 is technically a JRPG, and I mean to get to that.

 

[djotaku]

I don't like JRPGs as a rule, though recently I bought Octopath Traveler 2 based on how much Mortismal Gaming loved it (and I have pretty much never disagreed with with his takes). I have not yet loaded it up. And I guess Expedition 33 is technically a JRPG, and I mean to get to that.

That is fair. To me it's the apex of the series. But that doesn't mean it's for you if you don't like jrpgs.

 

[coyote6]

Pinnacle has their Rippers setting for Savage Worlds; IIRC, it's steampunk horror. Deadlands also has some steampunk flavor, with the weird science stuff.

Castle Falkenstein is a fairly early steampunk RPG, AFAIK - released in 1994. It's available in PDF and POD via DriveThruRPG. Also, there was a GURPS Falkenstein.

Steve Jackson Games also has GURPS Steampunk books/pdfs for both 3e and 4e.

Space: 1889 might be the OG "steampunk" RPG, maybe? It was published in 1989. There have been many versions, using at least five different systems: the original system from 1989 (unique, AFAIK), a Ubiquity engine version, a Savage Worlds version (subtitled Red Sands), a D&D 5e version, and a system called Empyrean.

 

[jdrakeh]

City of Clocks by Battlefield Press might be of use. It's a systemless setting book, so you can use it with 5e or any other edition of D&D you choose.

 

[Baron Opal II]

There was a 3pp supplement that examined magical invention and innovation. It looked at different inventions and ideas from interesting theory through disastrous calamity caused by the same theory. Unfortunately I don't recall the name and I never picked it up. From what I remember it should be easy to reskin.

EtA: "A Magical Industrial Revolution "?

 

[JConstantine]

Point of Order: Eberron is not Steampunk. It is magitech/aetherpunk.

If we're being accurate, Eberron is best summarised as "industrialised magic". While it's certainly not steampunk, "magitech" and "aetherpunk" miss the nuance of Eberron's approach.

Semi-serious question - magitech - could you do Final Fantasy 6 in Eberron?

I've only played Final Fantasy 7 and 8, so I can only go by what I've read about 6. Eberron and FF6 are superficially similar, in that they share trappings like airships, but the specifics are important to what makes Eberron distinct, to my mind. To explain, a comparison:
Steampunk tends to take technology of the Victorian era and explain its function as broadly the same, but being powered by steam, regardless of the feasibility. Clockpunk does similar but with clockwork. Magitech/aetherpunk typically has technology being powered by magic. Eberron, however, starts with D&D magic and applies the industrialisation process to it.

For example, the real word had the telegraph. Steampunk would have the telegraph with the electricity required to run it being provided by steampower, meanwhile magitech would have lightning spells providing the electricity.
Eberron, however, isolates what the purpose of the telegraph was (long distance communication), looks at what spells and magic items provide that in D&D (Message, Sending, sending stones) and applies industrialisation to it to get the end result. In this case, the House Sivis message stations containing speaking stones.