At Dragon*Con this year, Steampunk seemed like the in-thing for costumers. I don't have much experience with the genre.
To be honest, neither do most of the costumed folk. You'll have to pardon my crotchettyness that I suspect will suffuse this post.
Darn, I didn't think to see if anybody here was going. Next year.
Do you read, or play, or dress steampunk-y? How do you like it?
Read, occasionally, play, no, dress -- it had become too popular and diluted (see earlier snark about the depth of most of the costumed folk's experience with the genre) by the time I had shifted into a headspace to do much costuming for me to divert my efforts that direction.
How broadly do you define the term? Does it need 'steam,' or a 'Victorian' sensibility? Is it the mixture of brass rivets and lots of leather and earth tones? Must a setting use technology in place of magic, or can magic and technology mingle?
I define the term fairly broadly, though I take issue with many others' definitions of the term/genre. By that, I mean that I include several things that aren't particularly obviously Steampunk because they are Steampunk in theme but not necessarily the popularized aesthetic.
I do not think it needs "steam," nor a "Victorian" sensibility. The mixture of brass rivets and lots of leather and earth tones has become the popularly understood definition of Steampunk, to the detriment of the term and depth of the genre, IMO. A setting can mix technology and magic, as far as I'm concerned, though by its nature, the magic is likely to be considered to be and treated less.. mystical, and more industrially oriented.
Case in point for that magic bit: there's an old SSI game called Thunderscape which has a really delicious flavor to it. It has enough clockwork golems and proto-technology (mechanical lifts in the dungeons, etc) to be readily recognizeable, even by today's diluted standards, as Steampunk, but it's a fantasy setting at its core and has all the traditional magey things. However, the magic is treated industrially -- it powers or directs several of the clockworky gizmos, for instance, in what's presented as a mad new blend of traditional magic with industrial applications.
I'm going to reference the product of a series of discussions with a scholarly literary buddy of mine, which I found both insightful on his part and which helped to clarify and solidify in my own mind the vague impressions and gut feelings I've held towards the various *punk core concepts and distinctions.
What we collaboratively settled on as what defines Steampunk, then, is the genre whose central themes or originating postulations focus on the advancing frontiers of science and society at the early moments of industrialization. It's about the pioneers changing the world by applying their weird new science to the problems and ills they find around them.
Now, many here have pointed out that *punk generally implies dystopian works. I disagree, though I readily concede that dystopian visions seem drawn to *punk frameworks, particularly to Cyberpunk and, to a lesser degree, to Dieselpunk. It's a familiar and easy element to work with in any *punk framework, though, because *punk is, as a rule, very concerned with societal implications.
One interesting thing to point out (again, this was a revelation of insight on the part of my buddy) is that this definition reveals a lot of things that simply looking at historical timelines or aesthetics of the setting would overlook. The most startling instance is Dollhouse, which, as my friend points out, deals with the industrialization of neuroscience as MRIs and biology supplant the likes of Freud and Jung. It poses the question of what is it to be human when one's mind can be put on the assembly line, as it were?
As such, my definition is clearly rather broad, and thus includes many of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jules Verne.
I think that it's important to look at the themes, rather than simply the aesthetics in which a story is dressed up.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is a 'mainstream' example, though it's pretty low key. I read a few issues of Battle Chasers back in the day, which had a similar aesthetic, but it was all clearly magic. Could you theoretically lump in Final Fantasy 7 with its magitek?
I agree, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is an oft-used example which, I think, misses the mark overall. Sure, you can point to the Victorian era and Captain Nemo's vessel, but again, I believe that's missing the point in order to praise a specific aesthetic or trappings.
Not familiar with Battle Chasers, but FF6 (haven't played 7 through all the way, so no comment) is pretty decidedly Steampunk, despite having magitek. (In fact, the use of magitek is what places FF6 so decidedly in Steampunk -- there are several instances in the story, and the characters, of experiments being done in scientifically analyzing and manipulating magic as a source of energy)
What do you think? I haven't seen a discussion of the genre on this site for a while, and I'm curious if the style appeals to people from a gaming perspective. Guns and gadgets vs. dungeons & dragons?
I've grown indifferent to Steampunk of late. Its meteoric rise in popularity amongst a geek crowd that latches onto the trappings and aesthetic has resulted in what I consider a lot of "bad" Steampunk, in which the aesthetic is catered to and showcased at the expense of good writing, because the themes aren't held in high regard alongside it. Thus, you get abominations like the Wild Wild West movie, where somebody said "hey, a clockwork spider and bizzarre pistols would look really cool!" and attached said features to a terrible story.
Don't get me wrong, I like clockwork and goggles as much as the next guy. I've pretty solidly decided that, were I born a hundred and twenty years ago, I would most assuredly have fallen into the watchmaker's profession. But throwing them onto a corset with some gear-shaped jewelry does not Steampunk make.
Fortunately, I've found a haven in Dieselpunk. It's closer ties to post-apocalyptica or other varieties of dystopia have kept it a bit truer to its core and the interesting themes that suffuse it. For the record, I define Dieselpunk as concerning itself with the frontiers beyond (or replacing) a society or empire in decline. This can be a literal decline, as in post-apocalyptic scenarios, or one of corruption, neglect, and/or decay, as in, say Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, where adventure and sinister plots await in the new frontier of the Sky and the far reaches beyond the power of the rotting British Empire. Sky Captain, the Fallout video games, Warren Ellis' Ignition City, Mad Max, and the old FASA setting, Crimson Skies are some of the highlights of this genre to me, where I find a lot of excitement and promise.
For the record, I'm a big fan of Cyberpunk, too, but I suspect that it's become a less interesting subject for, say, authors and a more difficult one for game designers as our real world rapidly approaches the societies in which information transfer and trade becomes the dominant, society-shaping factor for the themes to revolve around, so I suspect its best work has essentially been written already.
To bring this full circle back around to your original post's interest in how these can be applied to gaming, I play Shadowrun some, still (though, again, in many ways we're catching up to it!), and I've recently become very excited at the notion of working Dieselpunk themes into a Spirit of the Century pulp format. I'm also beginning to analyze Diaspora (also a FATE system from Evil Hat) to see if it's suited to a new Dieselpunk-fueled spacefaring setting that's been slowly congealing in my head for the past year or so.
