There are several roles that players can portray in the Steampunk campaign. The following are just examples:

The Enforcer

This character works for one of the corporations, or maybe she's a mercenary. Whatever the case, the enforcer's job is to destroy the corporations enemies, get revenge on data pirates and corporate spies, and to protect the corporate elite from rival companies' enforcers.

The Data Pirate

The data pirate is a maverick who knows the ins and outs of analyzing machine design and programming. Data pirates break through the codes in rival companies analyzing machines and steal the data. Unlike the data pirates of the Cyberpunk world, Steampunk data pirates can't jack into their analyzing machines. Instead, they operate just as any user would, through its keypad.

Corporate Spy

The Corporate spy attempts to get hired by his company's competitors and steal their information. Sometimes corporate spies steal from the companies they work for and sell it to the highest bidder.

Law Enforcement Agent

The character is a police officer, or maybe a detective with Scotland Yard. Her job is to stop corruption, protect the upper and middle classes, and to stop enforcers and corporate spies from waging open war in the streets. Usually a thankless job, especially if the character tries to defend the rights of the lower class.

Nobility

The nobles are supposedly the rulers in Steampunk Europe, but it is the Corporations that are the true rulers. Most nobles fall into the respectable category, though a few refuse to follow court culture and are thus considered not respectable. Nobles almost always have the advantage of money and Court politics play a large part in their lives.

Reporter

With the steampunk information net in place, reporters have access to large pieces of information, research, and telecommunications over telegraph lines. The reporter will want to be the first to get the story, and will often take chances to get her story.

Several common traits in the steampunk campaign are Money, Respectable or Not Respectable, Addiction, Analyzing Machine Knowledge, Analyzing Machine programming, codebreaking, stealth, alertness, and contacts.

Women in Babbage's World

In the Victorian Age, women were considered frail and men thought that they needed to be protected. In Babbage's World, the harsh existence of the underclass, Coupled with the Corporations need for intelligent and driven people, has freed women from their social chains much earlier than in our world. While men still think that women need to be protected, they recognize many positions of power are now filled by women.

Some Options for the Steampunk Campaign

The steampunk campaign is fun and interesting in its own right, but when any of the following optional cam. paign extensions are used, the campaign takes on new depth and excitement:

Magic Works

In this Steampunk campaign, magic actually works, and just about everyone knows it. The players could be magicians, working for the corporations. If magic worked in the steampunk campaign, then trains and steamboats would be obsolete, since magicians could probably teleport across the planet. Analyzing engines could be connected to each other through specially constructed magic portals, and spells would exist to protect analyzing engines. Of course, spells would also exist to break into them!

Ether Space

The Victorian scientists were right: Ether really does fill the vacuum of space. Using an analyzing machine, a group of scientists develop a way to travel through the ether. Thus characters could take journeys through the ether to other planets. Victorian people believed that people actually lived on Mars and Venus, and it was during the Victorian Age that people believed in the canals on Mars. Maybe they were right!

Revolution

The underclass just isn't gonna take it anymore. They rise up and try to overthrow the monarchy. "Me Corporations side with the European nations, and people found supporting the revolution get public executions. Corporate enforcers are used to hunt down the revolution's leaders. PCs could either be revolutionaries, or they could be trying to stop the revolution.

America, Home of the Enslaved

In a tragic turn of events, the corporations in America wield enough political power to overthrow the US government. Within a matter of months, the new US akes over Canada and Mexico and starts a campaign to annex Central America. The PCs are trying to set things right, or maybe they're just trying to survive.

No matter if you use these options or not, the Steampunk campaign can provide many adventures for your PCs. With the gritty Cyberpunk morality, mixed with Victorian technology, the PCs are likely to be shocked many times by the complexity of the stories you can weave.

Babbage's World

The Steampunk Campaign
Adventuring in a Babbage Campaign
Further Readings on Steampunk