In every Dungeon Master’s career, there comes a point when you, or one of your players, get the idea that throwing yourself and your campaign into a world filled with magical based technology, unleaded zeppelins, and dragons with monocles.

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In other words, you’ve decided to dive headfirst into a tabletop steampunk campaign, perhaps using the Dungeons & Dragons system, or perhaps using a different system. Get ready to tackle what’s involved with the inner gears of steampunk and how you make it all connect together, leaving your players and yourself wanting more.

10 Define What You Want Out Of Steampunk

Ask yourself, “what makes steampunk stand out above every other niche setting?” What about the steampunk mythology do you enjoy enough to share with people? What is it about steampunk that you want to create a world for others to live in? Use these answers as a base for your campaign.

When you’re stuck at an idea, think back to these and use them to move forward from it. It helps to physically write them down as you’re going along so they’re always in your face. These can also be asked of your players, but if they’re not familiar with steampunk they may just shrug and that’s okay, but asking them gives you the input you need and makes them more engaged.

9 Find A System That Works For You

Dungeons & Dragons is great; it’s a mastered tool used for creating low and high fantasy tabletop role-playing gaming fun. It does not, however, come equipped with the native ability to handle steampunk, and that’s okay. Sometimes you need a delicate brush to paint happy little trees on a canvas, and sometimes you need a flat roller to repaint a wall.

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There are countless steampunk systems ready for a group to use. Privateer Press’ Iron Kingdoms, R. Talsorian Games’ Castle Falkenstein, and Arc Dream Publishing's The Kerberos Club are just a few. There are also steampunk rules for GRUPS and Pathfinder if none of the base systems look interesting enough. If you can’t find a system that works, you can just build your own, but that’s another article.

8 Breathe Life Into Your World

If there’s one thing about steampunk that always has stood out, it's that steampunk worlds are in constant motion. Not in the literal sense, but in the sense that there should always be movement. Things on the side of a merchant cart, pipes on the side of a fishing boat, the castle’s towers, or even the generator hooked to the farmer’s barn.

Everything in the world is powered by steam, and everything moves because of it. Think about what an inn looks like in a normal fantasy setting. Now amp it up with those three questions you asked yourself earlier. Make that inn move or maybe make the entire city move, maybe even in a literal way! It wouldn’t be the first time a city moved because of steampunk.

7 Remember NPCs Are Steampunk Too

Look at your innkeeper or merchant, those NPCs that your players will get to know the most: the person selling weapons and the person selling a soft bed. Now, how do they react inside of this steampunk world? It’s normal to them and are they tired of fixing the spring-loaded mechanical flumberhop for the eighteenth time this month? What do they do in their spare time? Do their workplaces smell differently because of the steam?

Think about how a regular character would use the technology you’re giving the players in the way your players will be trying new ways to use it.

6 Lions, Tigers, And Bears, Oh My

Outside of your moving cities and fog-condensed towns are something a lot of DMs forget about: local fauna. It’s easy to overlook the idea of deer prancing through an open glen or birds calling back and forth on the daybreak, but those animals are there. They were there before the steam engines arrived and they have continued to survive after if that’s what one would call it.

How has the local wildlife reacted to your steampunk revolution? Do they stay further out than before? Are herds thinner because of deforestation? Have things mutated because of magic caused by the steam? Is there anything left to hunt during the harvest before the snow? Figure out how your local wildlife has handled things, for better or worse and incorporate it into the world-building, regardless of how much or little it affects the campaign.

5 Have Adventures And Goals That Make Sense In The World

You can take any adventure and steampunk it up. Look back at those questions you first asked yourself, then take an adventure hook of your own making or off the Internet, and then merge the two. You can make the distressed damsel in a tower about a blimp-flying space pirate who kidnapped the mayor’s daughter for ransom.

Make that dungeon a moving maze created by a Dwarven engineer who went mad trying to find his way out. That dragon is actually a steam-powered toy, a gift for the newly born Storm Giant prince, and it needs delivery. Normal adventuring is fine too, but no one signs up for a steampunk adventure if you’re going to let all the steam out of every session.

4 Your Big Bad Evils Are Steampunk Too

What stood out about all of the great villains that you've made or encountered? It’s usually what they do, who they’ve killed, or what they plan on doing that makes them memorable. What kind of monsters does a world run on steam technology create? Does your Big Bad roam alone, wearing a monocle, or has he sworn against science and magic? Is it a person or a group?

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Think about Shinra Inc., from Final Fantasy 7. They were a huge company that controlled the Midgar government and was draining the planet of its energy. Everyone in Shinra, including Karen in Accounting, is evil. Is there a company controlling the steam in your world and how can or why would your players bring it down? This image is a piece of art by Jiuge.

3 Maps And Props

If steampunk is definitely not dull. You can spend hours looking up clothing and technology with a steampunk vibe to it, but why not add some of that to your maps? If you’re using a digital map, move things. Remember that steampunk worlds move.

Also, give players fancier character markers (probably gear-based) or make NPC portraits look more like low-tech holograms. If you’re using a real-life battle map, then constantly move things manually. Give your players gear-shaped bases for their miniature. Make handouts that reflect your setting. A little bit of preplanned presentation can boost a good game into a great game and steampunk is a perfect setting for it.

2 Subvert Tropes

Tropes are devices used by writers. They are basically something that always happens in a given genre, and they reoccur because, good, bad, or indifferent, they work for that genre. You’re already subverting a trope by using steampunk with a low fantasy backdrop; it usually has more of 1890 to post-World War I time frame.

What other steampunk tropes could you break? Maybe everyone hates the steam tech but they deal with it because of government pressure (pun not intended). There is a lot out there, but also remember subverting everything means you may be missing out on things that your players like or are expecting.

1 Setting

A lot of the above has mentioned setting because steampunk lives and breaths in setting and worldbuilding, like most speculative fiction subgenres. You can have minor steampunk applications in a normal adventure but if you’re going to run a steampunk campaign you need a living steampunk world for it to work.

A group of adventurers armed to the gills with steampunk looks off-putting in a world not prepared to handle it. Take your time coming up with the setting before you start with anything else and as you build other things, ask does it fit into the narrative of the world.

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