What game do you think captures best the overall feel and style inherent to steampunk?
I know that “feel and style” can be a bit subjective, and I am open to most interpretations, but I mostly mean the generic/cliché feel of airships, giant steam engines powering giant clockwork automatons and bizarre inventions. They don’t need to be strictly tied to a “realistic” setting, and so some more gaslight fantasy games could fall in this category.
Some Steampunk games I know would be:
- Space 1889 (more toned down steampunk, alternate history, but ticks most of the boxes. Also the one I have the most experience with)
- Airship Pirates (Read it, but never played it)
- Castle Falkenstein (Read it, does have magic and Steampunk, unusual card mechanics, never played it)
- Tephra (fantasy and steampunk, I don’t know much about it) - Victoriana (steam fantasy, like above: don’t know much)
- Thyria (quite old and only in German, again steam fantasy, played it once and it was fun)
- Victoriana (steam fantasy)
Those are the ones I run/played/found that would fit the bill. Honorable mentions could be Deadlands or Cthulhu by gaslight, which may count if you are willing to stretch the term steampunk a bit (in case of Cthulhu you would need to stretch it big bit, but nevertheless)
Alright. Now that I have rambled on for way too long: What do you think is the best one, included in my list or not, steampunk game? Not just by setting, but also by rules and how flawless they match with their specific flavor of steampunk.
Preferably games that aren’t too hard on the DM work-wise, but that’s just a bonus.
Blades in the Dark is pretty close. It’s “whale oil punk” more than steampunk per se. The vibes are there though (think Dishonored).
Ah yes Blades in the Dark. I heard some praise about that one. But I never knew the setting was steampunky (or whale-oil-punky).
It’s kind of alternate Victorian postapocalyptic with ghosts, but you can customise the setting however you and your players want. It’s relatively simple rules-wise so definitely worth a try.
Lady Blackbird is like a steampunk version of Firefly. It’s free and was written by the same guy who made blades in the dark! linky
The only I know (and roughly, like played 2 one-shots) is castle Falkenstein.
The card mechanic is really interesting as it mixes randomness and choice. If you have bad cards in hand you’ll still have to accept to fail some action at a point. The lore is also kinda interesting, like all the invention from Vernes book are real, Napoleon IV sits on the french throne, so a kind of history branching-out.
So it is actually fun to play? I was never really sure what to think of it, but maybe I need to give it a chance at the table (even so the rule book is a bit …unusual structured… if I remember correctly).
From a player perspective, yes it’s fun. I am a nice public though.
That said, I am more a Sci fi /WOD lover, so I wouldn’t join a campaign if I have other options but it’s more an agenda thing
Electric Bastionland is weird fantasy in an age where they just invented electricity. Very simple rules.
There is Kerberos Club which comes in three editions: wild talents, Fate and Savage Worlds. Think of it as a super hero game set in the Victorian era similar to the league of extraordinary gentlemen. I’ve the wild talents edition which has an awesome system but it’s really niche.
I’ve read the Victoriana 2nd edition and it reminded me a little bit of Shadowrun in the Victorian era, but without the crunch. I quite liked it.
As I am mostly at home in Savage Worlds rules Kerberos Club sounds very nice, I will look into it (and into wild talents as I never heard of that one before).
I’ve always been intrigued by Skyfarer - made by FailBetter Games (Fallen London, Sunless Seas, Sunless Skies, Mask of the Rose). It’s a Sunless Skies TTRPG. I haven’t tried it but it definitely seems to fit in the steampunk genre.
Skyfarer, the Sunless Skies TTRPG, has a strong steampunk aesthetic. I thought I had posted this earlier but maybe not.
You did, on your sh.itjust.works account.
Well. That’s embarrassing. Sorry for the double post.
I am a big fan of Iron Kingdoms, which is steampunk fantasy (somewhat similar to Victoriana in that way, though it often bleeds over into dieselpunk). The game is not very easy on the GM though, so I use Savage Worlds to run it. While it may be a stretch to call Deadlands “steampunk”, the rules do handle steampunk really well.
The Bioshock series, especially Bioshock Infinite might be the most mainstream games in the steampunk genre.
I (mostly) played them! But again, they are not ttrpgs. I probably shoud have clarified that in the title, and not just assumed everyone would guess that I meant ttrpgs…
I see it in the title now. Sorry about that. I’m a Kickstarter backer (yuck!) of Leviathans by Catalyst Games which promises to be a fun steampunk tabletop game. It might be of interest to you.
I’m curious, do you have any specific examples of rules that specifically work well in a steampunk setting? I always struggle to figure out what people are talking about when they say stuff like that.
I, of course not speaking for everyone who ever used that phrase, mean mostly that the rules facilitate with their mechanics the kind of things you typically would want to do in that kind of setting. So a good airship combat system or flexible Rules to build machines are important to have if you want to make this specific activity rewarding for the players to engage with (This is the advantage of more focused rpgs, as generics tend to have less rulings for very specific things or just many, many rulings and get a bit bloated). So basically has at the right amount of (good and fun) rules, that a game you play more or less naturally evolves into the story of said genre.
A bit of flavouring also helps, just to get the mechanics out of the abstract into the actual game played (for example calling the Savage World Bennies something fitting to the setting).
I am rambling again, so here is a quick example of what I mean (for Deadlands for Savage Worlds, not directly steampunk, but I like the idea and it is fresh on my mind): To cast a stronger Spell than usual, a player (character) can “Dealing with the devil”. It is resolved not by a simple dice roll, but by playing a short game of cards, to determine the success. This is a mechanic that to me feels very fantasy/horror-western in mechanics and flavour. (Of course those extreme mechanics should be handled carefully, too many different ones would be confusing )
I hope I am making sense. If not, feel free to ask for clarification.
Thief: The Dark Project was my first experience of the genre. It’s heavy on the fantasy, so I wouldn’t call it the epitome of the genre, but it was early days for the idea as far as widespread exposure is concerned so the novelty really stuck with me. I didn’t much like it at first, being a fantasy purist, because all the anachronism seemed like fault over style, but once it gained a bit of credence in my head as a genre in its own right I grew on me big time.
That is a video game, isn’t it? Maybe I am too stupid to google (wouldn’t be the first time), and there is a ttrpg of the same name I cannot find. Or you mean the video game, then it is not really what I meant ( I am looking for ttrpgs, maybe I should have clarified that in the post) but the game is on my list of games I need to play someday anyway, so thanks for reminding me.
Yeah, it’s one of the first sneak-em-ups I came across. Sorry, I read wrong.
