Variations On Fantasy

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Yeah, there's generally no "punk" in Steampunk games. One of the earlier ones actually fits the punk trope better, even if it isn't enormously explicit. Space 1889 has a very Victorian age world, with steampunk space travel. This leads to things like the Belgians running a horribly vicious colony on Mars where they exploit the local Martians for resources. So shining a light on the real world colonial abuses of the portrayed time through the lens of science fiction. It's quite easy to fit in some "fight the oppressors" stuff in the setting because there's a lot of oppression there.
And yet, punk style would be considered gauche and outre in Space 1889. But yeah, the punking of all things annoys me almost as much as the term "sci-fi."
 
I think good steampunk would involve copying plots from old victorian pulp novels and adding the fantastical technology to them. Like take the plot of The Riddle of the Sands and replace the battleships with zeppelins.
 
If you were to go right back to Sterling and Gibson's The Difference Engine it could also involve reproducing 20th/early 21st century technological revolutions but in a different social context. - That's the science fiction aspect of it.
 
Hmm, and I would have considered Deadlands very close to steampunk...

that's what meant - it's the rare exception to most of the "steampunk" fare out there. The conceits of the setting are melded to the mechanics. Rather than say suddenly show-horning into an established fantasy game... then things feel "off".
 
And yet, punk style would be considered gauche and outre in Space 1889. But yeah, the punking of all things annoys me almost as much as the term "sci-fi."
Wasn’t it considered such by many in the 1979s as well? Anyway, I’m less concerned with the aesthetics and more with the ideas of revolt, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, anarchism, non-conformism etc. You can do those without having a Mohawk.
 
Actually playing a cyberpunk stlye game with characters from the street in a steampunk setting actually sounds like it could be fun. In general it's the whole assumption of upper-class Britishness, and the steretypes around it, that I've seen in steampunk games I've played in which makes me associate the genre with tedium.

I'd much rather play cockneys and colonials using a difference engine to hack the the encryption of the vault in the Royal Society and rob it blind.
 
Actually playing a cyberpunk stlye game with characters from the street in a steampunk setting actually sounds like it could be fun. In general it's the whole assumption of upper-class Britishness, and the steretypes around it, that I've seen in steampunk games I've played in which makes me associate the genre with tedium.

I'd much rather play cockneys and colonials using a difference engine to hack the the encryption of the vault in the Royal Society and rob it blind.
Space 1889 has Social Class as a stat, like Strength and Endurance and Intelligence. It also used mainly point buy or a fixed array for stat generation (although you could randomly roll as well). The effect being that the higher your social class, the worse you were at other things. Upper class Twit codified in the rules of the game. Many of the careers you could have were also far from the upper classes, and if you were playing say a manservant then you’d have an aristocratic idiot with you as an npc who you could bamboozle into financing your various adventures and schemes.
 
Wasn’t it considered such by many in the 1979s as well? Anyway, I’m less concerned with the aesthetics and more with the ideas of revolt, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, anarchism, non-conformism etc. You can do those without having a Mohawk.
The problem is that "punk" became a style instead of a philosophy. Similarly "cyberpunk" was a broader and more interesting literary genre that was about stripping stories down and doing away with lengthy exposition, relying on the reader's ability to infer and figure things out that was diminished to a vinyl and electronics future.
 
Wasn’t it considered such by many in the 1979s as well? Anyway, I’m less concerned with the aesthetics and more with the ideas of revolt, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, anarchism, non-conformism etc. You can do those without having a Mohawk.
Michael Moorcock's The Warlord of the Air and its sequels could be mined for inspiration. It's steampunk long before that word existed, with anti-colonialism and rebellion baked right in.
 
Space 1889 has Social Class as a stat, like Strength and Endurance and Intelligence. It also used mainly point buy or a fixed array for stat generation (although you could randomly roll as well). The effect being that the higher your social class, the worse you were at other things. Upper class Twit codified in the rules of the game. Many of the careers you could have were also far from the upper classes, and if you were playing say a manservant then you’d have an aristocratic idiot with you as an npc who you could bamboozle into financing your various adventures and schemes.
See this is really just encouraging it.
 
Anybody noticed Kickstarters are nuts for "punk". "Snowpunk", "Victorian-punk", "Dogpunk", etc

Somebody even satirised it:
 
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