Yes, the band Abney Park has an RPG. The year is 2150, and the world as we knew it is not the world as we know it. With no living knowledge and tolerances against dictators, a militant hippie comes to power when the world is hopelessly populated and polluted, and restores balance to man-and-nature. Perhaps people should have asked a bit more carefully how he was going to handle the overpopulation problem...
There's the Neovictorians of the Empire, dedicated to cleaning the Earth of all taints of humanity save those in the "Change Cage Cities", megacities kept in Victorian-era technology and culture enforced by clockwork "Peeler" automations, and the threat that looms above everyone: The Change Cage, where any bit of outlawed or illegal technology or culture is thrown into, never to be seen again (Including the scientist/artist!).
Then there's the Skyloft, the free people who escaped the human culling of the Empire by lofting their cities into the sky and anchoring them to mountaintops. They have a massive airship arsenal and an anachronistic stew of technology, depending on which city you're going to. Ranging from the trader town of Helios which makes the world's standardized currency (Based off Helium!), to High Tortuga the Pirate Freeport that Jack Sparrow would be at home in! "
CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow." Oh, right, sorry.
Finally, the Neobedouins (It's steampunk, they like Neo-stuff.
), a bunch of Mad Max-esque gypsy nomads roving the post apocalyptic world of the surface of Earth, filled with toxic waste from the time when industry and overpopulation ruled the world, and the genetically designed and re-introduced creatures that literally have a taste for human flesh built into the core of their being. With their bright armoured carriages and their lovingly restored and maintained motorcycles used as outriders, these people laugh, sing, and dance at a world that is literally trying to kill them from the first heart beat to the last.
The game system is similar to Shadowruns, where the Dice Pool (Yes, they use that term too) is D6s, and 1s and 6s are successes. Rather than decrease the dice pool for difficult tasks, "Black Dice" are added into the roll, which take away successes from the regular dice. Easier tasks are given additional dice.
It's a world where traveling circuses, musical groups, scientists, and other ne'erdowells are branded "Pirates" and actively hunted, where your airship might have a diesel engine assisting the normal steampunk engines, and muzzle-loaded cannon sit next to lightning guns and gatling guns. Where the man or woman beside you might be a time traveler, an escaped factory worker, a tribal warrior, a drunk pirate, or not even human at all...
Described by one friend as being "Warhammer 40K-Level of Grimdark" and "Are you seriously telling me that there is a rock opera steampunk goth band that has their central plot revolving around a time traveling pirate airship?"
Honestly, Shadowrunners are one blue police box away from being dropped into the mix of the world... And, if the PCs get a time machine themselves (They can), they may even make the world Shadowrun!
