First, let's lay out some of the areas where great advancements were made during the Victorian era (the era to which "Steampunk" fiction is generally understood to correspond) or immediately before or after. We can discuss in the comments why these advancements may or may not be desirable in the setting. Next, we'll explore ways to meld them with the fantastic setting using staples of the genre (most notably magic). The comments section will also provide an area to discuss how the arcane arts might in turn be affected by the advancement of science, and propose and discuss methods of or approaches to magic which might be unique to Disposable Steampunk World.
Technologies
- Transportation - The steam engine made railways and steam ships possible, and canals and stage coaches came into widespread use. Airships are another staple of steampunk, with the first dirigibles having appeared before the Victorian era and rigid airships not having truly made an appearance until shortly after. The earliest automobiles also made their appearance during this time.
- Communication - The first postage stamp, the telegraph, the telephone, and photography all made an appearance during this time. Advertising reared its ugly head.
- Computing - The analytical engine and the difference engine were both described during this era, and various attempts were made at building both with differing amounts of success.
- Sanitation - There were major advancements in sewage and water supply networks. Soap was one of the items most associated with the new art of advertisement.
- Quality of Life - Gas light and gas heat both made their appearance.
- Medicine - Anesthetics (such as ether and chloroform) and antiseptics both came into widespread use during the Victorian era.
- Weaponry - What every gamer has been waiting for - how are we killing one another? With single shot, muzzle loaded flintlock firearms for one, even including the occasional rifle. With the heavy polearms required to face men wearing the advanced plate armor which is available in this age. With dueling blades or pistols, in our leisure time.
- Transportation - Teleportation: let's talk about it. It seems to me to suck some of the fun out of the steampunk genre, but at least one of you has a well-formed and compelling argument in favor of teleportation. Coaches drawn by tireless constructs, airships pulled by flying monsters, there are almost too many interesting possibilities here.
- Communication - Telegraph stations could be replaced or augmented by magical messaging stations, or by some fantasy equivalent of the pony express. Photography might compete against permanent illusions peddled by enterprising sorcerers.
- Computing - I'm at a complete loss, here. Anyone?
- Sanitation - Several staples of the fantasy genre might have an effect here. The bag of holding, the ability to create clean water...
- Quality of Life - Light is a small feat for the average wizard, so some upper-class homes may be lit magically. Heat is slightly more difficult, but doable.
- Medicine - This is a difficult one. Magical healing in many fantasy settings completely replaces medicine. I think that, in Steampunk City, spellcasters have to be rare. Sure, there are hundreds of clergy, but a very small percentage of them are spellcasting clerics. Enough so that magical healing is present, but not available on a widespread scale.
- Weaponry - Of course. +1 Pistols and a Thundering 18 Pounder. Emberstone itself might be a pseudo-magical material, infusing many of the technologies it powers (including firearms) with a trace of magic.
1. Teleportation - This is only an issue, traditionally, in higher power(higher level if you will) games. It's prohibitively expensive at least until upper-mid-level if you allow NPC casters to be hired, but if you want to keep it rare you can always require a rare component. Or keep it unreliable. Make it the province of techno-magical experimentation utilizing chambers of brass covered in strange runes and fitted with bubbling glassware filled with distilled demon blood. Or make it require some kind of fixed reference point to land, such as a beacon of some kind or a stabilized teleport "pad" set up in important places.
ReplyDelete2 Point to point magical communication could easily be something that happens here. You could even blend magical transmission of a voice over distance with technological recording of messages in the form of a miniature phonograph. Runners might bear a message in the form of a metal or crystal(maybe this technology was developed courtesy of our crystal dudes?) tube that plays back the voice of the original sender.
3. Simple computers could be responsible for running various mechanical things. Doors/vaults/safes, switching train tracks, controlling boiler pressure, that sort of thing.
4. It seems like magically-enhanced sanitation would remain the province of the wealthy and powerful. Coupled with their physical elevation and more efficient sewers that would keep the richer neighborhoods of the city much, much prettier than the rest.
5. Endure elements to keep the chill of winter and balmy heat of summer at bay!
6. Perhaps the churches don't handle much in the way of healing? They can, but only a select few focus on that as a matter of faith, and then you have the doctors and chirurgeons who ply their trade in the mending of flesh and bone almost exclusively.
7. Well, weapons. What CAN'T you do there?
1) I am with Dan on the Teleportation issue. It really only comes into play for the very wealthy who are in an extreme hurry to get from point A to point B and willing to accept risk to make it happen. I imagine there is at the very least a stigma associated with that sort of thing. Victorian nobility could be about the creature comforts of a beautiful train or dirigible. So between it being rare, expensive, and an /inelegant/ mode of travel, there just might not be an effective market for it. Instead of making spellcasting in general rare, you could just say that high level spellcasting is rare. You have the 'magical sweatshops' where level 1 wizards mass produce level 1 scrolls (I am mostly kidding here, but funny idea) but finding someone over level 8-10, let alone getting a second of their time to talk, let alone convincing them to take a spell slot out of their busy schedule, could be a real challenge. I also like the idea of Teleportation having fun risks or quirks associated with it (see 'The Prestige' for a real fun example. Mirror of Opposition! Or Star Trek for that matter).
ReplyDelete2) The idea of communication adds a note of complication on world building since it means that the party would be well aware of events occuring outside of their city (which makes more work if you explore it). On the other hand it makes for great opportunities for plot hooks. I know I had a great time reading Eberron papers that John put out over email. Not to mention propaganda pamphlets, religious books being easily available, and information in general being far more accessible. Also, the Sending spell just begs to be done by telegraph.
3) The idea of simple computers seems like it is supported by the existing game (at least to me). Mindless undead and constructs are essentially basic computers. They follow instructions and simple programming. They screw up because of garbage in garbage out. They can be hacked by the right spells or abilities. So they could easily be looked at as basic magical computers that could potentially be built on. It opens up opportunities for giant robots (iron golems), Frankenstien's Monster, and Doctor Noritorium's Amazing Clockwork Brain. The computers could essentially be treated like Undead/Constructs with dash intelligence and serve the same essential functions that they do and Dan describes. Guarding things, watching things, or simple repetitive tasks.
4) I'm with Dan on the sanitation stuff as well. Yes, there were great advances in indoor plumbing and waste removal, but the issues that were still /horrible/ were 'what do we do with it now that we have it out of the house'? This tended to be 'dump it in the nearest river'. It is very expensive to renovate an existing city with new underground technology. You have to block off streets, tear them up, and lay down pipe. You have to tunnel, drill, or dig. If it's new technology it's also imperfect, sewer backups happen, and let me tell you - this is a good plot hook. Nothing motivates rich people to throw money at things quicker than sewage backup or overflows in their streets or homes (a mf-ing gelatinous cube plugged up the outflow, again - sorry ma'am, there was an unregulated casting of Control Weather and the pipes are overwhelmed). I might be a tad bit interested in this whole concept, but it's my career, so sue me if the idea of magic sanitary and storm sewers makes me giddy. Fun things (to me at least) to also consider on this count...
ReplyDeletea) Are all parts of the city downhill from said river for waste dumping? There might be Pumping Stations to move things from point A to point B or keep the pipes from getting too far underground. These make fun places for terrorists to attack for said sewage backup reasons.
b) Indianapolis is a big city modern, and it rarely has sanitary pipes that are larger than 72". That being said, in any fantasy or even modern campaign that features sewers the sacrifice of realism needs to be done to allow for sewer dungeon crawls. You can come up with options here, like maybe they just tied the system into an existing cavern (and the creatures deep underground are getting pissed at the humans for shitting on them for a decade) or they are man-made but for some out of date or archaic purpose. Nothing pounds the point of advancement home like people caring so little for the underground transportation of yesteryear like sealing it up or using it for sanitation.
c) Are the rich bothering to treat (Wastewater Treatment Plants) the outflow from their sanitation at all? Even if they do, or care enough to try, it is still going to pollute downstream water sources. The primary source of pollution is microbes taking oxygen out of the water, killing fish. You also have disease causing bacteria, smell/odor, and color. It's easy to see some downstream druid getting *pissed* and plotting vengeance.
d) Sanitary sewers are designed primarily for stormwater runoff and not actual sewage. This is because no matter what you do, stormwater /will/ get in, and it is so much more intense than sewage that it ends up defining pipe sizing even when only 10 percent of the stormwater makes it into the system. The very first sewers were called Combined Sewers, because they didn't even bother to seperate the water. In any decent city where it is mostly impermeable surfaces you have a LOT of water to get rid of after a storm. Which gives you a good excuse for making the darn things bigger. And makes them a helluva lot more dangerous. One good intense rain for twenty minutes while you are in one of those things will lead to you being 'flushed' along with all the crap that's been settling or backed up for weeks.
4.5) Also slightly off subject. Have you thought about magic being regulated? Ties into Law themes. Wizards have to register, have to be licensed, and could have their permitted ability to use magic revoked or even be arrested. I mean, in a world where one guy can, with no visible weapon, kill twenty people with a few words and a gesture three times per day, there should be a lot of bureaucratic red tape. Which leads to fun counters like fake IDs or framing someone for magical misuse. Also it reminds me of Harry Potter what with underage magic use (whoops, a 15 year old sorcerer just hit puberty and blew up his aunt).
ReplyDelete5) No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air.
6) I do not think this is as much of a problem as you might believe. In the era, even with advancements with medicine, and even with the existing magic system, there are major problems that makes even relatively common magic unable to keep up. Population, availability, and human perception.
A 5th level Cleric, for example, who is fairly experienced, can cast Remove Disease once per day. Remove Disease cures the subject of the disease that is inflicting him. It doesn't do anything to make his living conditions better. He's just going to go right back to whatever was causing it in the first place. Likewise, if there is anything resembling a widespread or spreading disease then the clerics quickly become overwhelmed by people wanting help that they just can't give in the numbers necessary. Worse still, the common man might just think that any cleric who can cast magic *should* be able to fix his boy, and doesn't understand why they aren't doing it (Is it because I'm a dwarf? It's because I'm a dwarf, isn't it!).
Compare this then with a doctor practicing medicine. Sure, it's not as quick, it's not as sure-fire, but he can treat twenty patients a day. The same argument goes even for magical healing to a lesser extent. That same 5th level Cleric can cast a lot more Cure Light Wounds spells in a given day, but not nearly as many as what might be needed or what people might think that he can cast. Then it becomes a question of who do they cast on. Which leads to limiting factors like maybe you have to make contributions, you have to belong to the church, you have to know the right people, or you have to be lucky enough to run into one of the rare truly selfless people in this world.
7) I love the idea of magically modified gunpowder weapons. I will take my +3 Thundering Flaming Burst pistol please. It seems like you have a good handle on this stuff, but it certainly changes the normal melee of standard DnD and smacks it in the face. Anyone who brings a knife to a gunfight should regret it. This can be fixed of course by making guns loud as crap, not as reliable (without regular upkeep and technical maintenance), and bureaucratically regulated.
I've been thinking more about the computers issue in the magical technologies section. Just think of all the things computing does for us in this day and age, scale it back a bit, and you can have a niche for magically enhanced analytical or difference engines in a magical steampunk world. Imagine a techno-magical computer that controls the postal network in Steampunk Cityville. There's a room somewhere that's full of silver and copper tubes and wire, glass vessels and jars, mithral boilers and a lattice of magically reactive crystal that processes all the minutiae that need to be addressed for a large scale postal system to run.
ReplyDeleteI am looking through old Dragon Magazine pdfs and found an article on 'Magical Pollution' (DM 350, pg 32) which could be useful. It includes monsters like Alchemical Undead (made from excess dumping of alchemical crap and failed experiments meet corpses), Corrupted Creatures (Template to apply to creatures when magic goes awry), and Toxic Ooze (also the result of Alchemical dumping, maybe a mine shaft where hazardous waste has been dumped for years?).
ReplyDeleteWow. Replying to this is a daunting task! I'll try to hit your points in order Steve, and again thanks for all the input.
ReplyDelete1) Teleportation - Looking at things, I think you guys are right. There's no need to kick it out entirely, or probably even to restrict it beyond what's already been done. It just needs tweaked to fit in thematically.
2) Communication - Long range communication presents some huge opportunities to anyone wanting to run a "sandbox" style game, which is what I intend to try out with this setting. Newspapers with blurbs on the goings-on in far away cities, communiques from outlying towns, intercepted telegraphs and the like all make for plot hooks that the players could take or leave.
3) Computers - Simple computers, magical or otherwise. I went through some of the roles they could fill, and I think that they may not get a ton of "screen time" but they'll be important to everyday life in Steampunk City (Dan's postal computer, for example. While the PC's may never see it, it's essential to the communication network).
ReplyDelete4)Sanitation - Wow. There is a wealth of info here, Steve. Your expertise is appreciated. We'll certainly have to include several sewage plot-hooks. Our potential for sanitation-related adventures is limited only by the players' appetite for slogging through shit.
4.5) I had intended for magic to be effectively self-regulating. Since the wizardly arts are by nature a communal pursuit it will build a framework where they police their own, so to speak. Sorcerers and the like, being more rare and disorganized, are more likely to draw the attention of the authorities who (while in the original concept didn't strictly regulate magic use) take a very poor view of destructive magic and have the means to track down and punish transgressors.
5) ZING!
ReplyDelete6) Healing vs Medicine - I think that we're essentially on the same page, I just may have communicated poorly in the original post. The population issue is a good point, and when I said "rare" I meant, "not so common that they could create a stock of scrolls that would magic away plague outbreaks and the like." Have to safeguard our plague outbreaks, as GM's. Those are important.
7) Weaponry - Yes. No doubt melee will still have a large place in the game - it wouldn't be a fantasy game otherwise - but gunpowder ought to lend a bit of additional punch to ranged combat. I'm excited to see how it changes the dynamic.
Addendum to 4.5) The reason I had intended it to work this way is that I was thinking one of the other powers in Disposable Steampunk World would be a magocracy, where magic was both more commonplace and extremely heavily regulated.
ReplyDeleteJohn here, I could potentially add a lot when it comes to urban details (including sanitation), just let me know how historically accurate you want to make it. The "sanitary revolution" occurred roughly mid-19th Century with early modern sewer systems being established around the 1850's in primarily the largest cities (Hamburg, Paris, London..). Landfills started routine incineration around the 1880's. If it is a crucial detail, I can look back at my class notes but it coincided with the increase in the industrial revolution and the new concentration of populations in cities.
ReplyDeleteI am not 100% sure, but I think that pumping stations were a latter advent (though still occurring during the Victorian era). A very significant detail about urban life was that it was very dirty, cholera and other diseases were common, and there was still very little concept of germs (germ theory was essentially published in the 1890's).
For my money, the accuracy just needs to be "ballparked." I think it's generally just best to go with the Rule of Cool - whatever seems coolest is the way to go. That being said, we certainly do want something that makes sense and is internally consistent. I think we want sewers and incineration, pumping stations I can take or leave, but we DEFINITELY want disease. Can't have a good fantasy/steampunk urban sprawl without it.
ReplyDelete