Quote from: Anon Adderlan;642940Wow, long analysis for what is essentially a craft culture that emerged out of the Goth movement.

Steampunk is entirely a visual movement, and has no inherent philosophy, or even music, associated with it. I find that quite extraordinary, and am still not sure what that says about our current culture.

The more you post, the more it becomes obvious to others that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.  It was a literary movement well before it was a visual movement.  The visual movement was copying the literary, not the other way around.  And you not knowing that is kinda surprising, given you call yourself a long time RPG fan, and RPGs were exploring this territory well before the first former-Goth decided to tinker with some watch parts.

And, even the visual movement has some inherent philosophy.  That philosophy is that things made in the earlier industrial era placed importance on aesthetics in addition to utility, and that is better for society.  It's akin to the resurgence of the art deco era.  It's the reason why you see 1940s refrigerators and 1950s stoves on TV even in the most modern genre show - because the aesthetics of those appliances is superior to the modern utilitarian look of current appliances.  

It's a philosophy that says that how things look can be just as important for our mindset as a society, as their utility. It emphasizes a balance between the form and function.

And if you don't think that's a meaningful philosophy - go look some time at the towering gray Russian blocks of buildings built during the Stalin era purely for the utilitarian housing of people with no consideration for a pleasing architecture, and compare that to Los Angeles art deco buildings and Arts and Crafts movement architecture like the Bradbury and Union Station.  

There's no question that the gray behemoths depressed and fostered massive pessimism and hopelessness, while the artistic architectural works like those of Frank Lloyd Wright and others inspired people to further greatness at places like the World's Fair in Chicago.  Form which inspires innovation is also an element of Steampunk - and the literal practice of the visual movement is to use old items to make new, unique functional creations.

So yes, even the Steampunk visual movement has a philosophy behind it.  At it's heart, it's the same philosophy driving Apple to be the #1 company in America, despite it being a lesser company in terms of technical performance.  How things look has an impact on how we think about the world.

As for the "punk" part of the word, I don't think it's a joke or a misnomer.  As this excellent article states:

"The “punk” designation of any movement refers to its anti-establishment, counter-cultural leanings. Steampunk is unique in that the culture it rebels against is one of laziness, selfishness, disrespect and a low-minded resentment towards anything exceptional.  Thus, in order to be revolutionary, Steampunk returns to an older philosophy of bearing and personal excellence; of class and attention to detail; of mankind’s inherent greatness and that siren which calls us to ascend, progress, and advance beyond the limitations of nature."

As for music - of course there is Steampunk music.  Go look it up mang.  It's a thang.  It sort of fuses "folk, gypsy, jazz, blues, and industrial".  It's nor primarily musical in nature, and it's still a young and evolving genre of music, but it certainly exists and is making inroads.

Quote from: The Butcher;643798Castle Falkenstein is to steampunk as Shadowrun is to cyberpunk.

Love me some CF. Pity it's been OOP for so long, never really got around to snag a copy.

Yeah, and the extant copies all have really crappy binding I'm afraid. I haven't seen one w/o pages falling out in a decade.

One of the funnest RPGs to read, though.

Why hasn't it been reprinted? Anyone have any idea on the game's current owners/legal status?

Quote from: Mistwell;643825And if you don't think that's a meaningful philosophy - go look some time at the towering gray Russian blocks of buildings built during the Stalin era purely for the utilitarian housing of people with no consideration for a pleasing architecture, and compare that to Los Angeles art deco buildings and Arts and Crafts movement architecture like the Bradbury and Union Station.  There's no question that the gray behemoths depressed and fostered massive pessimism and hopelessness, while the artistic architectural works like those of Frank Lloyd Wright and others inspired people to further greatness at places like the World's Fair in Chicago.

Yes, that was a style known quite aptly as 'brutalism', and has blighted many cities since then. They may as as well have "Lose all hope, ye who enter here" stamped on the lintel, intent on crushing the human spirit. It wasn't utilitarian incidentally, but quite deliberately harsh, they went out of their way to make it look that way. The lot should be bulldozed forthwith.

Quote from: Brad Elliott;643809From my Massive Steampunk RPGs List:

http://steampunkrpg.com/

Ok, thanks for the link and info.  I saw this on Amazon before, looked at the ad and skipped it.  Not enough info on it.  So it's really bad huh?

Quote from: flyingcircus;643865Ok, thanks for the link and info.  I saw this on Amazon before, looked at the ad and skipped it.  Not enough info on it.  So it's really bad huh?

You bet, Flyingcircus! You can use my Steampunk RPG List to look at all the various games and their websites (if their companies still have them, that is.)

As for Uber-Goober Steampunk, I can't say I like it much either. You can take a look inside the book and see sample pages which should give you an idea of its layout and ideas. I have personally skimmed the book itself (my sister is a game store owner) but chose not to buy it... because this is a game that doesn't know if it wants to be a toolkit to build a roleplaying game setting or have one. Mostly the former. My tastes run to having an actual world presented, which Uber-Steampunk does not do. Perhaps in its other supplements?

Quote from: TristramEvans;643835Yeah, and the extant copies all have really crappy binding I'm afraid. I haven't seen one w/o pages falling out in a decade.

One of the funnest RPGs to read, though.

Why hasn't it been reprinted? Anyone have any idea on the game's current owners/legal status?

There was a Polish print not long ago, which means that someone bothered to sell the licence - so may be a sliver of hope for reprint.

Quote from: TristramEvans;643606Um, you do realize steampunk was a literary genre decades before anyone decided to cosplay it, right?

If by that you mean previous works have been collectively categorized as such. I'm talking about when Steampunk became a 'thing'.

Quote from: Mistwell;643825The more you post, the more it becomes obvious to others that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Yes, it's not like I actually attend things like The Steampunk World's Fair, or report on it, or talk to the people involved, or anything.

Quote from: Mistwell;643825And, even the visual movement has some inherent philosophy.  That philosophy is that things made in the earlier industrial era placed importance on aesthetics in addition to utility, and that is better for society.

***

It's a philosophy that says that how things look can be just as important for our mindset as a society, as their utility. It emphasizes a balance between the form and function.

Bull. Shit.

Have you seen Steampunk fashion? It's all tophats, gears, and googles. And you know what they all have in common in the context of Steampunk? They're all used EXCLUSIVELY for decoration and are functionally useless.

So if anything it's a movement against efficient functionality. How the way something works, if not optimal, is an artistic expression in itself (if that).

Quote from: Mistwell;643825And if you don't think that's a meaningful philosophy - go look some time at the towering gray Russian blocks of buildings built during the Stalin era purely for the utilitarian housing of people with no consideration for a pleasing architecture

***

There's no question that the gray behemoths depressed and fostered massive pessimism and hopelessness, while the artistic architectural works like those of Frank Lloyd Wright and others inspired people to further greatness at places like the World's Fair in Chicago.

Funny you mention that, because that's the kind of architecture that pops up in SteamPunk's kissing cousin, DieselPunk.

Quote from: Mistwell;643825At it's heart, it's the same philosophy driving Apple to be the #1 company in America, despite it being a lesser company in terms of technical performance. How things look has an impact on how we think about the world.

Yeaaah, there's a lot more behind Apples success than that. Apple is successful because they took advantage of how we naturally interact with technology and each other. It's the reason Apple stores are run like restaurants, and the employees use Apple devices to do the work there. Also their performance is usually better than competing devices too, so not sure where you're getting that from either.

Quote from: Mistwell;643825As for the "punk" part of the word, I don't think it's a joke or a misnomer.  As this excellent article states:

"The "punk" designation of any movement refers to its anti-establishment, counter-cultural leanings. Steampunk is unique in that the culture it rebels against is one of laziness, selfishness, disrespect and a low-minded resentment towards anything exceptional.  Thus, in order to be revolutionary, Steampunk returns to an older philosophy of bearing and personal excellence; of class and attention to detail; of mankind's inherent greatness and that siren which calls us to ascend, progress, and advance beyond the limitations of nature."

While nice, that's reading a HELL of a lot into the movement. And no, SteamPunk is NOT unique in that respect.

Quote from: Mistwell;643825As for music - of course there is Steampunk music.  Go look it up mang.  It's a thang.  It sort of fuses "folk, gypsy, jazz, blues, and industrial".  It's nor primarily musical in nature, and it's still a young and evolving genre of music, but it certainly exists and is making inroads.

You mean, for example, Abney Park, the EX-GOTH band? Who's lead singer I'm told (by someone far more involved in the movement than I) has never read Jules Verne or any other Steampunk lit?

Yeah, calling music 'SteamPunk' is nothing more than an effort to cash in on a popular brand, and doing a lot of revisionist classification to add existing works to the genera. And this is most definitely NOT what happened with Punk Rock or even Goth.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;643958If by that you mean previous works have been collectively categorized as such. I'm talking about when Steampunk became a 'thing'.

Well, the term originated in literary circles in the 1980s, coined by JW Jeters. It was a well-known subgenre of science fiction by the early 90s, with Gibson's The Difference Engine usually cited as the work that gave the term widespread acceptance. It was first used in the title of a book in 1995 with DiFillipo's Steampunk Trilogy. GURPs steampunk was written in 2000. Castle Falkenstein and Forgotten furtures predate that, and GURPs Steampunk was a reaction to a huge trend towards Steampunk in gaming at that time, also evinced by the Planescape setting.

Meanwhile, the steampunk as fashion/craft trend is cited as beginning at Burning Man in 2006.

So...16 years after it was popularized by Gibson, close to 30 years after the term was coined.

Quote from: Anon Adderlan;643958If by that you mean previous works have been collectively categorized as such. I'm talking about when Steampunk became a 'thing'.



Yes, it's not like I actually attend things like The Steampunk World's Fair, or report on it, or talk to the people involved, or anything.

Conversation kind of begins and ends here when you display that level of ignorance.  Steampunk became a 'thing' well before YOU think it became a 'thing', and huge segments of it you remain entirely unaware of.  So when you didn't even know it before it was fashion (which was decades after it was a 'thing'), it's no surprise you're still so unaware of much of the movement that you think people mentioning parts you are not aware of must be bullshit.

How about you look deeper into this topic you claim expertise on.  More than one person here is telling you you're unaware of a huge segment of it, and decades that happened prior to your apparent awareness of it.  

Shit dude we've been talking about this topic in terms of RPGs since at least 1988 (and RPGs were a tad late to it in terms of the literary movement). That's almost 20 years before it became a fashion movement.

Quote from: TristramEvans;643835Yeah, and the extant copies all have really crappy binding I'm afraid. I haven't seen one w/o pages falling out in a decade.

One of the funnest RPGs to read, though.

Why hasn't it been reprinted? Anyone have any idea on the game's current owners/legal status?

They should reprint it, but if they do, Comme Il Faut should be included in the core book.

I could never find a copy of the Book of Sigils.

What I saw of Sixguns and Sorcery didn't really inspire though.

I had to rebind my copy; i think it's because the fluff part of the book is printed on better paper than the rules part.

Quote from: The Traveller;643838Yes, that was a style known quite aptly as 'brutalism', and has blighted many cities since then. They may as as well have "Lose all hope, ye who enter here" stamped on the lintel, intent on crushing the human spirit. It wasn't utilitarian incidentally, but quite deliberately harsh, they went out of their way to make it look that way. The lot should be bulldozed forthwith.

Hey!

Brutalism fucking rocks, man. It's an awesome style of architecture.
But you're quite correct that it was intentionally harsh-looking, thus the name.

Not to say I don't like Art Deco as well. Allthough I generally prefer Art Nouveau/Jugend.

Quote from: Anon AdderlanFunny you mention that, because that's the kind of architecture that pops up in SteamPunk's kissing cousin, DieselPunk.

Gotta say, I'd be more interested in DieselPunk than SteamPunk.

The thing is, any movement that says "make your own stuff" (be that "stuff" your look, or your technology, or your lifestyle) is by definition a political movement.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;644616The thing is, any movement that says "make your own stuff" (be that "stuff" your look, or your technology, or your lifestyle) is by definition a political movement.

RPGPundit

It's not a movement.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;644633It's not a movement.

Just because the agenda is to make funny hats & goggles rather than free pandas or fight for freedom of Vietnamese burglars, doesn't make it less of a movement.

Quote from: Rincewind1;644636Just because the agenda is to make funny hats & goggles rather than free pandas or fight for freedom of Vietnamese burglars, doesn't make it less of a movement.

Steampunk as a literary effort or as an RPG usually has political undertones, some intentional, some not. China Miéville for example has wheeled out numerous steampunk works with a blatantly hard left bent to them, which is more hijacking the genre for his own ends but still.

Steampunk as in the ex-goth types doesn't really have an agenda, it's just fashion like emo kids.