D&D General D&D is now Steampunk (poll)

[GMMichael]

4) Victoriana
Steampunk in general is a lingering fantasy of an even better version of the Victorian Age, which was a fair sight better than some of the previous (and later) eras. Lemme know when armor largely falls to the wayside in the Forgotten Realms in favor of Petticoats and men wearing high heeled shoes. We'll at least be getting closer.

i consider muskets and pistols a little early for steampunk. i usually consider steampunk arms to be more late victorian - repeating rifles, shotguns, revolvers, and weird steam-powered contraptions.

D&D isn't Victorian? Tell that to this guy's handlebar moustache:

https://cdn.media.amplience.net/i/wizardsprod/players-handbook-2024-product-07?w=1920&fmt=auto

Is that an Art Nouveau buckle I see? Anyway, D&D might not be explicitly steampunk, but it's a whole lot closer to that than its Lord of the Rings roots.

 

[Tonguez]

I think it's already shifted from the original notion of juxtaposing the preceding word with societal collapse and dystopia, to a more general term meaning 'aesthetically evocative of' the preceding term. That said, from there on out the term has been pretty stable. Steampunk evokes the age-of-steam aesthetic, solarpunk evokes a sustainable future society, etc.

Yeah Solarpunk and Hopepunk are the two big offenders, at least earlier variations could lean in to the dystopian, anti-establisment vibe of "punk" aesthetic - solarpunk takes it to utopianism abd a complete inversion of the Punk label

 

[Cadence]

For reference, rough estimate of when different technologies hit in real life.
D&D General - Technology in D&D, the IRL Timeline, and Pausing It.

Also, I would love a Brisco County era Steam Punk meets old west version of the PHB.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

D&D isn't Victorian? Tell that to this guy's handlebar moustache:

https://cdn.media.amplience.net/i/wizardsprod/players-handbook-2024-product-07?w=1920&fmt=auto

Is that an Art Nouveau buckle I see? Anyway, D&D might not be explicitly steampunk, but it's a whole lot closer to that than its Lord of the Rings roots.

I would that it really has no specific LotR roots, Lord of the Ring is one of many well springs whose waters fed the thing that is D&D. Every new editions and often within editions in setting books D&D reach out into the pop culture fantasy mind share and grabbed something or several somethings and added them to D&D.
So, there is some Middle Earth, and planetary romances, sword and sorcery, martial arts movies, westerns and the list goes on and on and new stuff gets added all the time.

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

Of the settings, Eberron has the most potential to be punk. I run it a lot like a cyberpunk game, actually. It has emergent tech disrupting society, megacorporations monopolizing that tech, and the protagonists are usually a motley crew of ne'er do wells getting on the wrong side of those megacorps and governments, which unearthing dangerous knowledge.

Eberron is explicitly punk, and a case could be made for Dark Sun, but those settings are "punk" in contrast to the default assumption of D&D which hovers somewhere undefined between Greyhawk, Mystara, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.

 

[Reynard]

Eberron is explicitly punk, and a case could be made for Dark Sun, but those settings are "punk" in contrast to the default assumption of D&D which hovers somewhere undefined between Greyhawk, Mystara, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.

Dragonlance: The UnPunkest Setting

 

[Steampunkette]

D&D isn't Victorian? Tell that to this guy's handlebar moustache:

The Handlebar Moustache's earliest appearance is in art from Iron Age Celts (the iron age of course being 1500 to 500 BCE).

But even if the handlebar moustache was "Victorian" that still doesn't make it Victoriana. It just means that the artist (and whomever commissioned the art) doesn't know, or just doesn't care, about ensuring perfect "Medieval" authenticity. Which is good. Because D&D has -NEVER- been about perfect medieval authenticity.

With clothing styles ranging from the Iron Age to the late 1700s, Full Plate and the use of Slings being contemporary to each other, and the presence of FREAKING DRAGONS AND MAGIC it very much isn't, nor has it ever been, medieval fantasy.

Of course, neither was the Lord of the Rings, in truth. Which combined concepts from many different eras together in order to battle against machination and industry.

D&D is not "Closer" to Steampunk than it is to Lord of the Rings. It's its own thing that takes bits and bobs from other genres and concepts and periods that it likes and mashes them all together into something new. It's Kitchen Sink or Katamari Damacy Fantasy.

Not Steampunk.

Having a handful of Victorian-Era items or fashions in it presented as contemporary to Iron and Dark Age and Renaissance technologies, social structures, and fashions doesn't make it Steampunk.

I think the issue is you're approaching it wanting one thing and getting a whole lot of "Else" and then trying to square the circle.

 

[cranberry]

Since D&D went officially multiverse, it's anything and any time you want it to be.

It's only a matter of time before they add Metroville, a land where current technology exists.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah Solarpunk and Hopepunk are the two big offenders, at least earlier variations could lean in to the dystopian, anti-establisment vibe of "punk" aesthetic - solarpunk takes it to utopianism abd a complete inversion of the Punk label

Does steampunk lean to the dystopian?

 

[Bolares]

D&D doesn't have steam based technology and is not focused in punk narratives, so it's not steampunk.