Steampunk is really overplayed. Has anyone ever run a game with a Dieselpunk setting? If so, how did it go...

Post collapse post cyberpunk desert world with people relearning and scavenging computer parts with solar batteries being the primary reliable energy source.

What is this terrible solar array design? Any logical mass production of solar energy system would at the very least allow for rotation of the solar collector. Half of the collectors don't even get sunlight for half of the day.

You could just play 'realistic' dieselpunk... which is pulp. Which is like, Crimson Skies or the Rocketeer or whatever.

Any logical mass production of solar energy besides orbital stations gets cancelled because it's a shit tier power source that has been hyped by feelgood hippies.

Obviously solarpunk is just steampunk with more 19th century steam cooking sun dishes around.

Mirror's Edge.

>None of the players had a clear idea what is or why we were playing Dieselpunk.
"Ok, so you know steampunk, right? So imagine that, but like, it's the 40s instead of Victorian times"

Doesn't seem that hard to get the gist of

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Explain?

Not saying you're wrong, just want to see some reasons/articles on why from you since I'm interested.

Boktai: The Sun is in Your Hand

amazon.com/Wild-Blue-Yonder-1-6-ebook/dp/B00GG2VPYQ

Reminds me of this. I picked up the first issue years back and loved the concept and start but never kept up on it. One of the flying carrier cities in that is solar powered and it's basically a game changer because it doesn't need stupidly hard to come by fuel.

Yea I've run a Dieselpunk game. I just used DnD since thats all my players are capable of playing in. It was pretty fun. They were essentially all veterans of that universes equivalent of WW1 and were stopping a conspiracy to start WW2.

Would the Scythe board game's art count as diesel punk, specifically?

It's all... Mecha-WW1 and WW2-esque stuff in not-Europe. Seems pretty awesome to me.

Please guys what do you think of my setting?

You'll be surprised how the biggest problem was making my players understand how dieselpunk is an hopeless setting, not like Steampunk where science is glorious and the future brighter each day with innovation. Dieselpunk has innovation, 90% of it aimed to the military field, and everyone knows that a global mechanized war will be the only possible conclusion.

Nazis just waited to reach their "quotas" and in 1939 launched blitzkrieg versus the entire Europe.

Rest of Europe is unprepared their tecnological evolution resulting primitive compared to Nazis.
America is the only one able to oppose the Nazis military in numbers but they will gathered a sufficent tecnological advancement only by observing the war for 2 years.

Not sure how to position Russia here, probably an isolated regime with no alliances with the other forces, ready to battle, crude in their tecnology but effective with numbers.

The teathers of the war will be similar to those of the real WWII, with America in need to close the conflict before the Nazis find a flaw in the supposedly unbeatable American naval system and exploit it to launch the first invasion of America in the human Hystory.

Nazis are unopposed in Europe and rule with the iron fist. They know if Russia and America end up striking an Alliance their war would be compromised.

I decided to set my game in this scenario: Each day could be the end of the conflict for the tecnology sometimes gets obsolete even before getting to the assembly line.

Gestapo in Europe suppresses heavily any kind of freedom, from speech to music.
America is still democracy n1, no one would never expect things to turn badly for them, so jazz all the way.
Russia is still Communist, following it's own agenda.

There is only one final gear to place. Somewhere, someone speaks of a new power, a power so great it could give absolute victory to the first one able to dechipher it, the Atom.

Oh and pollution, everywhere

Let me dump some images

Here's a question I ask in trades similar to this: how do you get around to explaining the strange tech in your setting? Magic? Aliens? Pseudo physics?

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Diesel related tecnology, explained like fallout explains the power of atom

>Not sure how to position Russia here, probably an isolated regime with no alliances with the other forces, ready to battle, crude in their tecnology but effective with numbers.

Communist Russia only joined with the Allies after Nazi Germany violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-agression pact.

Stalin was trying to get the best deal between the opposing Western blocs. The MR pact was signed days after talks for a Franco-Anglo-Russo alliance fell apart. Russia was looking out for Russia.

Well its not all that imaginative, and putting it in 1939 with the Germans being the most advanced nation in Europe is kind of amusing to anyone who knows anything about WWII, it'll probably somewhat trigger anyone who's fed up of the "Murrica won the war for everyone" narrative (not to mention the rest of the US stuff like never having been invaded), but overall it doesn't sound too awful or anything - plenty of opportunities for operating in Nazi Europe and doing secret agent things, for example

Yeah secret ops are my main goal, steal that, destroy this. Anything could be decisive to end the war or stop an Invasion attempt in time

That's a pretty good example of dieselpunk,actually.

Loved those books

Solarpunk should be ancient greek retrofuturism.

Archimedes' sun towers!
Sun dials!
Lots of sun dials!
Complex machines powered by intense rays of light or altnernations of light and shadow.

Romans can't even compete

wait
is early Silimiarillion solar punk?
Light translates to power,and you have a lot of weird tech that wasn't present anywhere later

You even got the punk part right

Id say Dishonored too.

I want to see an ancient egyptian reteofuturism. Manpowerpunk.

Literally everything has a box attached, where a slave stands, turning a crank.

Their most complex machines are simply powered by thousands of slaves, kept out of sight. Their tiniest machines are powered by beetles on a treadmill.

Eh, in Dishonored there's more magitek and weebbly-wobbly stuff.
I think that war is essential for dieselpunk.
If cyberpunk is about corporate oppression, and steampunk is about nobility oppression, then dieselpunk is about occupant oppression.

>machines powered by little people inside it
Have you ever read a short story by Lukyanenko called "Doctor Lem and nanotechs"?
It's about Lemuel Gulliver who returned from his travels and brought a bunch of liliputians from there, where they are bred and put to work in small machines.

For example, a tape recorder is just two small liliputians sitting inside a box and recording everything they hear.

What oppresses the masses in atompunk?

Gravitons

Communism

Of course! I should have known.

I finally got to read Behemoth and Goliath. Finished it last night and now I feel lost and with no purpose in life.

The government, constantly rounding up anyone suspected of communism/capitalism.
Basically pre-war Fallout.

reminds me of Discworld where tape recorders and cameras and such are powered by tiny demons

Current state of catalog

You should have showed them some art beforehand, I mean in a media without almost any visual side to it, like roleplaying, it's kinda hard to make a setting based on some stylistics unless the players already know what's it about.

If that's not-Europe then why do these troops have a polish flag and national crest on them? Or do you mean not-Europe like Europe but with alternative history?

I played in something very similar, though instead of stopping conspiracy we were looking for some ancient arcane super-batteries Indiana Jones style. The Drachen Kaiser was interested in their power for some reason. The whole campaign sadly ended waaaay too early after an awesome showdown in a Wolfenstein-esque castle. We strapped some TNT to one of the arcane batteries and basically deleted the castle from existence after fighting a black dragon with a dwarven tank. Alas we had veered too far off the GM's plans and he was caving under the 'pressure0', so that became the campaigns endpoint.

We were all quite surprised when we planned our next steps and he basically told us that it was over. Loved that setting. Really frustrated to let it go.

That sounds quite shitty, he shouldn't have abandoned you like that if you all were having a good time and stayed true to the setting. Games rarely go as planned, GM should be prepared to change the plot when needed.

The knowledge that all life could end at a moment's notice due to Atomic War.

Not the same user, but the production of solar panel materials requires precious metals (which in turn demands mining) and the creation of glass sturdy enough for SPs involves toxic chemicals and waste materials. Solar panels can only harvest 15-20% of the energy that hits them, making them space inefficient compared to other energy producing technologies. Solar panels degrade rapidly in less than ideal conditions, erosion and scuffing of the glass will gradually reduce their ability to soak up energy which means they require a huge amount of maintenance in the long term. Solar panels aren't the worst energy source, but in their current form they're nowhere near the best and without significant refinement they'll eventually fall by the wayside.