Steampunk or Arcanepunk

I confuse my players on a regular basis. I do not mean to, but I know what I like and do not like in my medieval fantasy RPGs, and you will have to come up with something better than "it's tradition" or "we did it this way in last edition" or my personal favorite, "you're ruining your players' agency!" to get me to allow things into my game that I don't approve of. So I don't like bards, because I believe that if you can make magic by singing, why can't I make magic by painting? Or carpentry? Or lighting my farts on fire? So I am weary of gnomes and half-elves/-orcs, due to the former not having a strong enough racial identity, and the latter just beg the question where are all the other half races at, because I wanna see what a half-halfling, half-elf looks like. So I don't like dragonborn because we had half-dragon as a perfectly viable template back in 3e (and honestly, in a game called Dungeons and Dragons, having a mostly dragon character race means too many people play them... think of it like Star Wars, everyone plays Jedi, and now Jedi are boring and not special), and warlocks are still just creepy if you aren't a part of their religion. Don't get me started on monks, I'll let GM Word of the Week tell you about that one. And last but not least, while I love me some arcanepunk, I really don't like steampunk in my games.

First off, let us explain some of our terminology here. When I say "steampunk", to most people that is a mix of our own world's and history's technology from about the Victorian Age (or is it Era, I can never remember), but instead of changing over time to petroleum distillates and electricity, taken even further down the steam engine rabbit hole where everything - vehicles, communication, computing devices, and even military technology - is powered by steam. "Arcanepunk", on the other hand, to most people means that technology develops just as we know it up to a certain point - basic metal working and forming, simple machines like horse drawn carts, and military technology no higher than hand spanned crossbows and swing arm trebuchet type catapults - and anything beyond that has a magic element tied into it, as "magic" replaces "physics" and "chemistry". Printing presses become powered by imps and Mage Hand spells, photographs are taken by devils bound into a box, air ships float through the air with air elementals tied to the ship, trains ride rails of magical lightning, and so on. Everyone tracking? Good. This is where it gets tricky.

The "steampunk" that bothers me in D&D, or at least what I think of as steampunk when I run into it, is science from our world that goes too far past the basic metallurgy of decent weapons and armor, and basic physical machines like catapults and crossbows. Anything considered to be chemical, really, like black powder and explosives. I know, that's not actually steampunk, but that's the best term I can find in common use. Why does it bother me? Yes, I realize that Pathfinder has a class that makes their own black powder analogue, and even 5e has an option for it in the DMG, but to me, that is just too anachronistic to the setting. I realize how odd that sounds about a fantasy RPG setting, trust me I do, but trying to talk about firearms in a D&D world just does not sit well in my brain. Think about it - why would you waste time researching the right mixture of sulphur, charcoal, and saltpeter, when your local wizard/sorcerer can cast Magic Missile all day long, and Fireball just to add flavor? Ditto with explosives. Why go through all the trials and tribulations of refining your glass recipe and the mathematics of light refraction when True Seeing and Eagle Eye spells so readily available? Why develop electricity and long range communication when Sending is so much cheaper and easier to do? There are a hundred more examples of magic already replacing what we consider science in the core rulebooks, which is pretty much why they exist in the game, so i won't cover them here. It just does not make sense to me, which is why I don't like them and won't allow them into any game I am running.

Which is all why I like arcanepunk and not whatever it actually is, but what I've been calling steampunk for years (and in the rest of this article). The Eberron setting all the way back in the halcyon days of 3e/3.5 has interested me for a long time, not just the fact that it embraces the long-standing human tradition of warfare, but also for the arcanepunk elements strewn throughout it. If you want to have guns and explosives in your RPG, go for a different setting. Your stock medieval fantasy setting just doesn't fit well with more advanced physics and chemistry. Go arcanepunk instead, otherwise pick a new setting.