Everything's better in Steampunk

[Dangerious P. Cats]

What settings or setting types would work as steampunk? I've always liked the idea of doing an ape uprising setting with steampunk or a steampunk robot rebelion.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats

What settings or setting types would work as steampunk? I've always liked the idea of doing an ape uprising setting with steampunk or a steampunk robot rebelion.

My steampunk campaign was superheroes in the world of Space 1889.

Bill Stoddard

[younglorax]

At a steampunk exhibition last weekend (Nova Albion in Emeryville, CA, USA), I went to a talk by a fellow who made a steampunk version of Tolkien's world.

It was set during the rein of the Witch King.


ETA: As an actual answer to your question, I think most setting would. Steampunk is an applied aesthetic more than anything -- if you make it brass, leather, wood, and powered by clockwork, it's steampunk.

[David Johnston2]

Steampunk planetary romance. Mars is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to get marooned there.

Steampunk milsf. What? The Prussians are building an army of giant steam robots?

Steampunk murder mystery. On a transatlantic airship, the number of suspects are limited, and getting more limited every hour. Who's next?

Steampunk horror. Sure sunlight burns vampires. But when's the last time we could see the sun through the exhaust of the dark satanic mills? Maybe that's the point...

[RyanW]

This is relevant to my interests

Specifically, I'm planning a Steampunk space campaign. Ether ships, sapient automata, Martians, Venusians, psychical abilities.

[aesir23]

Most any setting can be steampunk or steampunk-ish, as others have said.

May I direct you to Steampunk Star Wars?

I'm reading Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld right now, which is Deiselpunk vs. Biopunk in an alternate WWI. It works wonderfully as a setting.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by younglorax

As an actual answer to your question, I think most setting would. Steampunk is an applied aesthetic more than anything -- if you make it brass, leather, wood, and powered by clockwork, it's steampunk.

That's what it has come to mean now, yes. But it used to mean other things. A bit over a year ago, Jess Nevins and I were both on a panel about steampunk, in which we quite baffled the audience by talking about realistic alternative technological histories, pastiched Victorian and Edwardian literature, and a bunch of topics that had no relation whatever to costuming or the visual arts . . . because that's what "steampunk" meant when we got involved and, indeed, when I wrote GURPS Steampunk, back in the Mesozoic sometime.

And my own understanding was not the earliest; I had a heated exchange with John M. Ford, who couldn't understand why I wasn't talking about Tim Powers and James Blaylock, who apparently invented the word in the first place . . . though in Powers's fiction, at least, there's not a steam engine in sight.

Bill Stoddard

[smurf]

Napoleonicpunk

Replace steam engines with magic stuff.

Golem armies.

Helicopters, submarines.

And mages with rapid firing guns.

[Anders]

Could you do DF steampunk? What would that be like?

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

Could you do DF steampunk? What would that be like?

Two words: Dwarven Artificer.

Hand-cranked gatling guns, Etheric Vortex Projectors, pith helmets and stiff upper lips.