Steampunk [again]

[Azure Trance]

I have some sort of fascination with it, I think. There's so many connotations with the word Steampunk, and the most important would be technology. I've never played in a SP setting within D&D and desperately would love to see how it would all fuse together for a wonderous effect. It's the old Magic vs/with Tech again, but any new tensions in the game world just heighten it's sense of appeal and adventure.

Steampunk is, as I believe it, a late-19th century setting and therefore should have at least some of the effects we ourselves experienced during that time period. I'm not even sure where to begin myself ...

-The common worker. No longer associated with the countryside, they've moved to the newly industrialized cities seeking work in factories. While laborers as is had little say regarding their working conditions or hours, race becomes another factor to deal with. Why even use humans, for example, when half-orcs are just as good at doing the menial tasks and for less pay. Inject an attempt by the masses to unionize every once in a while and it starts to look like a volatile situation.

(Imagine Elvish economists praising the glory of capitalism while in another country an ex-patriot half-elf begins to write "The Communist Manifesto")

-Technology. Steam power, gunpowder, pocket watches, and perhaps even gas lights on city streets (although I'm not sure on the time period for that). The best would be toilets of course (yay!). Steam amalgamated with magic could create a type of super steam engines making railroads which could travel nonstop from country capitals in record time. Harnessed electricity within wires would create telegraphs, combined with printing presses would make newspapers which would have nation-wide news in the morning. All this talk though leads to ...

-Business. Big business. Robber baron could become a true title. Newspaper owners. Retail CEOS. Department stores pop up in this era as well - one place to buy all your clothing, for real? Chain stores appear as well. For those who don't like retail I'm sure they could pick up a SEARS-esque catalog to mailorder their purchases from. Other businesses would be utilities. Sewars, electricity, water, etc. If their not owned by the city government they automatically make you a power player its politics. Who owns the Waterdeep Express line, taking you from Waterdeep to Cormyr at 50MPH? And transports all of the mundane items to feed thriving cities all over the continent for that matter. Railroads in particurlar need an enormously large amount of capital to build even a short provincial line let alone a country to country one. Who brings up the cash?

-Stock Markets. Sell stock, take out a loan or sell a few bonds. A generous government could even offer subsidies to help offset the costs, or they could be antagonistic as Germany once was with their stringent requirements that alienated their railroad business a great deal. Imagine the reward a party gets for doing a favor for a noble is 1000 10sp shares of his company. Wow, visions of prehistoric shadowrunners. Gives me a funny tingling sensation.

-Immigration. Think of the mass waves of immigrants coming to the US during this time period. Then pretend it was happening all over the civilized world, with countries and different species criss-crossing the ocean. Immigration can be a powerful effect. At one time New York's population was 80% immigrants who weren't even born in that country. This creates ethnic neighborhoods (I can't remember what it's called, de facto something). The lower east side could be all Elvish, while the north would be the somewhat scorned halflings from the country of XYZ.

That's all the important things that are coming to my head right now. An explosive population, poor inner-city conditions, and the creation of the absurdly rich I believe could make a very fun campaign. Of course not everything would be city oriented. "Thar Be Dragons" would hold true, and some areas of the wilderness are meant to stay that way, not to mention old beliefs which predate this technological upstart, whether from the gnomes or humans or dwarves.

I think if you make the world big enough, then if you keep on walking you'll eventually hit the 'normal' D&D theme again. A castle, a town, trolls, a mysterious mountain which clouds itself in fog ... except the castle might have a telegraph, the town might have a (small) sweatshop, the trolls could have really big guns, and the mountain, well ...

 

[Viking Bastard]

Well, you could check out my COPS & ROBBERS story hour if ya like (in my sig). I have a bit of a steampunk-ish theme going on although it doesn't follow the rules above exactly.

 

[The Cardinal]

If you love Steampunk then you should definitely get

GURPS Steampunk (cool genre stuff)
and
GURPS Steam-Tech (even cooler devices)

 

[Jack Daniel]

I run steampunk

My Mass House Rules Thread has some in-the-works rules for technologist characters and firearms.

 

[Azure Trance]

I'll look for it. I'm comfortable using Ken Hoods firearm rules since they are simple yet detailed enough. Unfortunately I can't use most of them since I only plan on utilizing flintlock type muskets to help limit their potential. However, I never found a good 'technologist' class though.

 

[Carnifex]

There are some steam-punk elements in my story hour (link in sig). They haven't been very pronounced thus far, but when, for instance, the PC's encounter things like the Black Knights of Zhatan (who wear steam-powered suits of armour), then it'll become a bit more evident.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Decide whether you want SteamPUNK or SteamTECH, there is a big difference. Most people want SteamTECH, and don't give a damn about the 'punk...

If you do want the 'punk, that means introducing certain historic elements into society, like repression, and oppression, and most importantly, placing the PCs in the roles of rebels against that society, whether they want to destroy and return to a more peaceful-appearing past (Luddites), or whether they want to change it stop the overclass ruling the workers whilst sitting in their steamcars shipping champagne. Things like poor-houses, steam-age textile factories, indeed, factories as a whole, and the unpleasant and dangerous nature of steam-age tech are good things to do research on...

It's a very good basis for a campaign, basically, the 'punk, but some people love Victoriana, and like to paint over the less attractive aspects, like the way the industrialization present in any steam-age setting tends to gut the countryside and force millions into dangerous, slave-labour-like conditions, instead focusing on the whole "gentlemen" angle, with scientists, discoveries, amazing journeys, and so on.

If you're seriously thinking about running a SteamPUNK Fantasy/D&D campaign, I recommend a book to you, Perdido Street Station, but if you just want steam-age technology, go to the library, I'm sure you'll find some good stuff...

I'd disrecommend as GURPS Steampunk, it's a very empty book, with technologies that will offend the vast majority of Steampunk enthusiasts (like reactionless thrusters), and not enough on interesting stuff like Charles Babbage's difference engine (there's another book to check out, The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling also Steampunk).

There are earlier forms of "Steampunk", too, like so-called "printing-press-punk", that a campaign can easily be formed around.

Anyway, as I said, I think the most important decision to make early on is "SteamPUNK" or "SteamTECH", are the PCs going to be heroes out to change society (through modernisation or destruction), or out to maintain the status quo against such people?

Magic Vs Tech is likely to be less of an issue, as unless magic has special guardians and restrictions on use, it will likely be subsumed into a from of technology/science...

 

[Carnifex]

I'd second Ruin Explorers suggestion to read Perdido Street Station - it's an excellent book indeed, and provided me with plenty of inspiration for my campaign. I ahevn't gone so all out, but the biothaumaturges and Remaking were inspiration for the Manipulators in my campaign, among many other things I drew from it.

 

[Broken Fang]

Try to find a copy of Castle Falkenstein. Its a great steampunk game. System is way different than D&D but it is still a fun one!

I love it it my campaign. Dwarves, not gnomes...I hate gnomes, are the technological race in the world. If you were to enter a real dwarven city...not the outer area quarantined for outsiders, you would find steam driven railroads, magicall ypowered water wheels, zepplins, etc.
Its amazing what you can do with elementals and just a few spells!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Etc

Steampunk is kinda neat. My first big experience was with Final Fantasy 6...think Anime + Steampunk. There's a conflict of technology and magic here, and a bit of a Revolution (though it owes more to Star Wars than Marx), and some wacked-out Nifty Journeys a la HG Wells and others of the type.

Basically, magic is extinct, and an empire is gathering vast forces in powerful robotic suits to hunt down reportedly magic stones in the far corners of the world. The empire's greatest weapon: a girl, reportedly born with the gift of magic. But, of course, she is freed from their slavery and abducted by the revolutionary Returners, who proceed to attempt to destroy the empire's abusive world-domination scheme.

So it's got anime (Robot-Suits!), steamtech (ooh! Magic!), steampunk (viva le revolution!), and a sweet villain ("There is nothing quite like the sound of a thousand voices screaming in unison..." said the harlequin figure, nearly breathless with anticipation).

So my D&D games have kind of inherited some of the steampunk edge of the game. It's more minor elements (my dwarves have a working subway system), but it's still there. And, at some point, I'll have to run a campaign in the world of Final Fantasy 6....mwahahaha!