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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 9739976" data-attributes="member: 6796468">So... here's the list.1) Steampunk is Fantastical, but not Fantasy by defaultThere is Steamfantasy, but Steampunk doesn't typically have elves and dwarves and magic and the like in it by default. Consider the play Orianna, for example. A man makes a mechanical dancer from gears and springs and porcelain and the like, and falls in love with it. It's practically Pygmalion with clockwork, and it's one of the earliest works of Steampunk fiction. No magic. No Elves. Just implausibly complex technology mimicking human expression.Of note: That play was written in the late 1800s/early 1900s. Which one might recognize as Victorian Times. Because Steampunk is not automatically retrofuturism. It certainly is, today, as we apply modern principles to steamtech, but. Y'know.2) "Full Plate" armor came about because of gunsThe first European Firearms were cast and used in 1320 and consisted primarily of bombards and hand-cannons held on the end of a pole for bracing to fire. Full Plate Armor started appearing 100 years later in 1420, around the same time black powder started getting towards being standardized enough to -aim- a cannon, hand or otherwise, and have a reasonable chance of hitting what you're aiming at because of lower variation in range based on the size of the charge.3) Clarke's Law is cute but not applicableThe technology hasn't become so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic in D&D settings, magic just happens to exist AS magic.4) VictorianaSteampunk 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.All these, and more, are why D&D isn't Steampunk. Even without the pointless cogs as decorations.</blockquote>

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