What's the worst setting and why is it always steampunk...

I thought Wild Wild West was cool (the movie) because it didn't go totally overboard on steampunk.

By that, I mean only two people in the U.S. had access to steampunk, so it wasn't like every peasant had access to a steam powered repeating crossbow. Steampunk was pretty low-key throughout the movie imo.

>Kevin Kline playing Kevin Kline impersonating Kevin Kline
>not loving this film

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that each steampunk fan considers himself the only one with a legitimate understanding of steampunk. All the steampunk stuff they don't like is not just bad steampunk; it's not steampunk at all because it's not good, and by their definition steampunk is good. It's the No True Scotsman fallacy taken to its uttermost extreme.

Some time I should shoop a frame from Double Down into this style.

...

>using Bleeding Cowboys for your book covers

Bleeeeeeck. It's almost as bad as Papyrus.

first results on image search that was decent size

I think more broadly it's that "steampunk" is kind of a nebulous term. Is it a genre with themes, like cyberpunk? Does it just refer to a particular aesthetic? Victorian England with advanced technology? Simply "the past but with advanced tech"? Is it all of them? Some of them? None? Question mark?

Dresden Files at least has a coherent cosmology behind all the magic- how it works, why it works the way it does, all the various political ramifications, etc.

Not , but I think he's talking more about things like Twilight, True Blood, or other shit urban fantasy, where it's just 'Vampires exist, end of sentence."

This No True Scotsman fallacy also affects the steampunk haters, with anything that could possibly be seen as good steampunk being sectioned off into its own genre so they can keep saying that steampunk without exception sucks.

>What's the worst setting and why is it always steampunk? I can't think of steampunk being done well ever outside of maybe Arcanum.
Because you are looking at Steampunk as a single setting and not looking at the settings within the Steampunk genre . Any time you use a genre improperly it is going to look like shit.

Give an example of good steampunk that people try to categorize as not steampunk.

Hard mode: nothing that was actually current or futuristic at the time it was written, like Wells and Verne.

>And sure enough, a giant fuckin spider shows up

No matter what anyone responds to this with, you'll just say it has to be good and anything that gets brought up is bad.

So rather than try, you give up and excuse yourself by saying "you're going to shit on me anyways and I don't want my fragile feelings hurt :'("

I don't think Veeky Forums is for you.

Veeky Forums isn't for anyone. People shouldn't be on this website

I want less steam and more punk in steampunk

Dishonored. "Whalepunk", my boypuss

>trunk full of Star Kist brand tuna

I thought the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes movies did steampunk well. Even if you don't think they count as "true steampunk" you can't deny that the soundtrack is pretty much the best steampunk-y music ever: youtube.com/watch?v=RPKV5zfXYa0

Steampunk has nothing but an aesthetic and its fans are all equally shallow. Most of them are basically just hipsters. That's why.

This is so true. Especially the ones who get butthurt when you don't refer to their specific sub-genre of steampunk correctly. It's a shame, because the aesthetic is really cool and has a lot of potential to be used to create a great setting.

It was more like "not steampunk but panders the steampunk audience".

Also I could start with the "it's not punk" thing but I will not.

I enjoyed the movies and the soundtracks a lot by the way.

My thing with steampunk is that it has the potential to be awesome, either as a place to explore the effects of industrialization, class struggle, bigotry, colonialism, and societal standards, or as a parallel to cyberpunk, a thoroughly optimist sub genre where things are great, adventure is everywhere, and new exciting things are happening every day. Sadly, it seems it's only ever a window dressing on a setting, or even just a fashion statement.

No slight to you; just whoever designed the covers.

>Give an example of good steampunk that people try to categorize as not steampunk.

Not that guy, but the first thing I thought of was Sebastian O. If you've never read it and you're still on Veeky Forums you should be upset with your life choices prior to this point.

I really feel you here, man.

>tfw you just want to run a game about a group of factory workers who lost their jobs after losing limbs while on the clock, build juiced up steam-prosthetics and form a gang of domestic terrorists fighting for worker's rights but the only people open to games are either cogfop retards or entrenched in the "it's steampunk so it's shit" mindset

Are their any steampunk rpgs worth playing? Between Victoriana, Wolsung, Tephra, etc. I figure there has to be something. If I can make steampunk good for my group, that would be amazing.

I feel like Steampunk can work as long as it isn't overly childish like "Hullabaloo."

See League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (comic, movie is pretty good imo, I can see its flaws, but it works in a lot of places).

This.

I really can't stand the whole "oh, all the world's myths from Gilgamesh to Santa Claus are real, but they're all hiding in secret! Don't tell your parents or the cops, they won't believe you!!" schtick writers do like in the Percy Jackson novels or Jake Long, American Dragon.

Reminder Will Smith turned down the role of Neo to create this movie instead.

Well, there's always this; the original alt-future what if the Victorians had computers thing.

Which actually had London as the reeking literal shithole it was before the sanitary movement, and didn't have steam engines be basically magic.

So, China Mieville posts on /tg now?

Also remember that Tim Burton's Superman movie got turned down to create this movie instead.

Arcanum (the pc game) did pretty much this, but really it's sadly only steampunk thing that comes to my mind when thinking about those themes.

But really the worst setting has to be all those D&D cloning fantasies and sadly they seem to be most popular.

>Tim Burton's Superman movie got turned down
>implying this is a bad thing