Mad Brew Labs, one of my favorite roleplaying blogs, is hosting this month’s topic for the RPG Blog Carnival. The topic of Steampunk & Klokwerks is a difficult genre to define that intrigues me, but I honestly haven’t delved that deep into. It is probably due to the fact that my group is into two settings, fantasy and sci-fi. We don’t delve out of those two areas much just because our group is comfortable there. With the limited time we have to play we like to play it in zones we know we’re going to have fun with.

When you do go into a zone that you aren’t familiar with and may have difficulty visualizing, I think watching movies, TV shows, and reading books will give you the best chance at making an unfamiliar game setting come to life for you. If you’re going t play a game that has steampunk roots or even just elements of steampunk, like a Deadlands or Unhallowed Metropolis, you want to draw inspiration from areas that will help that setting become alive for you. Which brings me to Steamboy…

The best steampunk movie I’ve ever seen was an English-dubbed version of the anime movie called Steamboy. I watched it on my laptop one night while I was working on several posts for RoleplayingPro. If there were ever a realistic cartoon movie to give you an idea of what a steampunk world could be like, this would be it. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in steampunk & klokwerks that hasn’t already seen the movie. You can watch the entire video at Crackle.com for free!

It has a great storyline that follows extended debates on the ethics of science, government and personal responsibility. The English version stars the voices of Anna Paquin (X-Men), Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2, The Da Vinci Code), and Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men)!  While it might not have the complexity of an anime like Akira, it is a state-of-the-art anime movie. I’ve read that it was one of the most expensive anime movies ever, actually. Since steampunk is often something that looks cool, but in practicality usually doesn’t actually work, an anime movie is a great vehicle for showing what ‘could’ happen in a fictional steampunk world. I highly recommend if you like steampunk and haven’t seen the movie Steamboy, go check it out.

Side Note: If you want to learn the phrase “Gas Mask Victorian Punk“, you have to check out Kurt Wiegel’s review of Unhallowed Metropolis. It also contains some elements of a steampunk & klokwerks setting, but with a twist!