Steam-punk, who's doing it?

[Leeham]

Is anyone runningt a steam-punk campaign right now? I've started to move my existing campaign setting towards it and i was wondering if people could give advice.

[bosssmiley]

Ran one in the 1990s (using the "Difference Engine" setting and an Interlock game system homebrew), not running one now.

As with any *-punk game the primary question you have to ask is: what theme do you want to explore? Is the game themed around the costs of progress? The failings of imperialism? The conflict between tradition and science? etc. Answering that will point you in the right direction for point of divergence, technology and intended plots.

[Vortling]

I'm in preparations to run one. A couple of questions to answer for us and to ask yourself. What's your vision of a steampunk setting? What's your current campaign like now? What are you hoping to accomplish with the transition? Are you going to significantly change the underlying gameplay with the shift in theme? If yes, will your players be happy with the shift?

[Halaster]

I'm playing Castle Falkenstein right now, and have done so before. From that perspective you should ask yourself:
- what is the role of and relationship between tech and magic/fantastic elements
- how advanced is technology, i. e. do you have more or less historical tech (trains, spinning jennies, cap &ball guns), possibly with magic/fantasy in it, or is it a copy of modern tech, like in CF (cars, helicopters, computers, fax machines) based on steam, or, something totally different (like the flying steamships of Space 1889).
- how Victorian is your society? The progress-obsession of the Victorians was quite central to the rapid technological development of the time. If your world is different, you should consider why the steampunk age comes along.

[Storm Bringer]

on top of their questions, I'd suggest a emphasis in the flavour text that brings the mix of mundane and fantastical in sharp relief. You know, drinking tea while 30,000 leagues under the sea, discussing the cricket/blood bowl/sport of choice while waiting for the zepplien to stop arsing about and bloody well land already, having a steam powered supersconic cargo plane loaded by sweating london dockyard hands, etc. It is, in my opinion, this mix of very advanced techology with historical ways of doing things and attidudes that marks steampunk apart form classic sci-fi. where else can i see a classic pre-drednaught battleship enguage in a long range gunnery duel with a land battleship straight out of H.G. Wells?

oh, and have one piece of steam punk be as absolutly amazing to the locals as well as the players ("a flying machine that uses no lifting gas? impossible!")

[Chunklets]

I'm working on a steampunk campaign right now, and hoping to get running it sometime in the not-too-distant future. I'm looking at having magic be present, but heavily restricted, and generally replaced in day-to-day life by steamtech of various sorts.

One piece of advice that I would humbly offer to people who are setting up steampunk campaigns is this: read China Mieville (Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council). He produces excellent descriptions of his particular fantasy world, and I have found myself incorporating some of the elements of that world into my own campaign setting (translation: I'm nicking stuff... ).

[Waspinator]

You might want to look into Dragonmech by Goodman Games. It's a setting where a fairly standard D&D Lord-of-the-Rings-y fantasy world undergoes an industrial revolution in order to survive a massive natural disaster. The setting is blatantly steampunk, with stuff like giant robots and cyborgs being powered by steam and clockwork.

[Leeham]

I was thinking of "advancing" my existing campaign setting into a steam-punk style. Sort of... the people adjusting to this new concept of steam power.