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Question: ‘Allo Dungeon Simian, I’m currently about to start playing in a steam-punk era campaign and I’m not sure what I should be considering as a career choice for my character.  Our GM says that we should each come up with something interesting that also fits the “feel” of the period but I’m not sure what sort of options might be reasonable in this case.  It is a Victorian-era setting but with the usual clockwork and steam powered wonders of steam punk, complete with regular lighter-than-air traffic between major cities but no space travel.  Any suggestions as to what might make for some interesting background career choices that helped pave the way towards a life of adventure?

Answer: Steam-punk is one of those settings that you either love or hate as a role-player, personally I have always had an incredible soft-spot for the genre and I am glad to see that it continues to survive even into the 21st century as a viable setting for players and Game Masters (GMs) to actually set up interesting and unique campaigns.  Sadly though it often requires knowing a bit of history to either properly enjoy it or to properly play it, but as your GM sounds like a rather flexible sort of person you are in luck, there are many options which are fitting in a near Victorian-era that might or might not allow you to have a dashing character background that will provide any number of skills necessary to provide the backbone for future adventures.

Military Background – probably one of the classic reasons to actually get into an adventuring lifestyle in the Victorian period, your character served in one of the branches of the armed forces of a major power and did a turn of service in some god-awful corner of the world fighting  a difficult war.  Your goal in this case is to have fought in a war in which you were able to stand out and undertake Great Deeds but also a war that carries minimal political or long-term ramifications.  Stay out of anything between rival Great Powers directly fighting, as this might build you future enemies you’ll actually meet, and instead focus on wars in far off corners of vast Imperial holdings.  Try to have served in a branch where you got to use a pistol or a sword or, even better, where you got to serve as an officer promoted from the ranks.  This will allow you the most flexibility in your background covering useful skills.  Be sure to have gotten talented in the use of small firearms, nothing is more irritating then to do all the work on a military background and find out your incredible talent with rifles is useless because you can’t carry one into the palace of the Duke of Fluffy Pants.

Reformed Sky Privateer – if you are more inclined to play a character with piloting skills and who has combat experience then you might want to seek out someone who has either fought on airships against the shipping of major powers in the world or who has attacked the shipping of evil powers at some point in their past career.  To avoid charges of illegality you, of course, had the proper letters of approval from some major government for your actions and only attacked targets allowed under the “Rules of War” that your GM might consider reasonable for the period.  Utterly un-historic, of course, but certainly a fun background and one that will allow you to play a ruffian type of figure, a rogue in society, with considerable knowledge of the lower parts of the world but also with a certain dark nobleness.  You most certainly will want to have given up such a lifestyle by the time the campaign has actually started and, instead, you are seeking out new challenges in whatever enterprise the GM has set up as the thrust of his/her campaign.  This sort of background though should leave you with the aviators skill set, piloting, navigating, as well as a good “dirty fighting” set of combat abilities.

Scientist/Inventor/Tinkerer Extraordinaire – If you are inclined towards building some of the great machines of the age or you just like the idea of a utility sort of character, then you want to play someone who is educated, with skills in the mechanical arts, who is capable of fixing or assembling anything from anything.  An utterly critical aspect of this character is your capacity to work with mechanical items, steam-punk is a genre of giant clanking mechanical wonders and you want to be part of that wonder.  Avoid the temptation of taking “conventional” scientific fields such as physics, chemistry, or biology unless they allow you to build vast hulking bits of machinery or equipment that can undertake horribly wonderful brain-twisting projects.  Ideally you want a character able to fix anything that breaks but also able to make a GM weep openly with frustration, or joy, as your character is able to concoct something amazing out of nothing but spare parts, a bit of iron, and some squeaky things you took from an overly friendly fellow at a carnival.

Rich Adventuring Lord or Lady – if you want social pull and money, this is the route to go, you are bored with conventional life and you want to seek out high adventure.  You are insulated though from social ramifications by a simple fact, money, lots and lots of money.  Focus on building up connections, social standing, raw charisma, and pools of money to play with.

- Dungeon Monkey

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