Steampunk Technology Help


Homebrew and House Rules


I'm working on my upcoming (this Sunday) E6 Steam Punk game. I don't know a whole lot about Victorian London and in the short Steam Punk game I ran before, I sort of glossed over the setting in favor of the fantastic elements.

In this one, because we will be playing it for a while and because the party will be level one, I'm trying to come up with a good feel for the technology and society.

Because of the alchemy that allows Steam Tech, technology can be a little weird and professional scientists and engineers will be more common.

So imagining an overall 1880's feel, but open to creating the world with more tech, what should I include?

Telegraph: are police stations connected?

Telephone: Are police connected? Who owns them? Are they available on the street?

Power Plants: Coal fired? What can the power be used for? Is this still gas light or electric light? I'm partial to gas light myself.

Airplanes: I know the first combat plane didn't get a kill until 1915, but the image of red baron style fighters buzzing around the airships is pretty cool.

Repeater Rifles: I know they are invented. How popular are they? I think the british military was still using muzzle loaded rifles in the Boer War.

Machine Guns: I guess I need these if I'm also going to do aviation.

Help? Ideas?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Remember the distinction between steampunk and magic tech.

Steampunk. ... Punch Card Computers powered by steam engines and coal. William Gibson's "Difference Engines"

Magic Tech. ... Technology powered by magic, elemental driven windships and train.... Eberron


"Steampunk. ... Punch Card Computers powered by steam engines and coal. William Gibson's "Difference Engines""LazarX

Colonial expansion is helped by repeater rifles, maxim machine guns and howitsers that wipe out the indigenous population.
The telegraph connects continents and no villain is safe - every police station in britain has one!
Perhaps anarchist cells have stolen the recipe to Lyon Playfairs cacodyl cyanide artillery shell and plan to bomb the royal carriage!
Opium dens and squalid gin joints create the perfect hunting grounds for pimps, blackmailers, thieves and white slave traders...
If you have a cough or feel down, go to your local drug store and buy some Heroin (courtesy of Bayer pharmaceuticals )
The race for naval superiority is on. New battleships are obsolete the moment they first leave the shipyard etc.
Coal fired power stations (hydrocracking coal produses hydrogenxxx - hydrogenxxx lifts the Armoured Zeppelins of the Reich)


Thanks gents. Very helpful.

So the Difference Engine. What's the big deal? All it does is compute polynomials quicker. Sure, there are some really rocking polynomials, like infinite sums, but they already knew how to solve them. All this thing was suppose to be for was to cut down the time it took to fill out a chart of them. What was the crown waiting on that they needed the charts produced cheaper and quicker? What difference would it have made?


cranewings wrote:

Thanks gents. Very helpful.

So the Difference Engine. What's the big deal? All it does is compute polynomials quicker. Sure, there are some really rocking polynomials, like infinite sums, but they already knew how to solve them. All this thing was suppose to be for was to cut down the time it took to fill out a chart of them. What was the crown waiting on that they needed the charts produced cheaper and quicker? What difference would it have made?

I think they mean this rather than Charles Babbage's actual difference engine.

Personally, I'd go for that design sense where any tech the players deal with is out-moded by, but just as functional as, modern technology.

In specific:

Telegraph rather than telephone, but police stations and wealthy residences are wired into the system. (Morse Code as a language option, maybe.)

Electricity is called "Galvanic Force" and is only accessible on the the level of magic items.

Airplanes are some sort of awesome class feature on a par with a paladin's mount, much more rare than dirigibles.

As for repeating rifles, are an awesome genre equivalent, ditto hand cranked gatling guns for machine guns.

Just spit-balling, hope it helps :)


Im running this with Pathfinder. If someone could move this out of the closet to House Rules or off topic I'd be thankful.

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