persondude:
I've always explained steampunk as simply "Victorian science fiction," and occasionally followed that up with "like Jules Verne or Wild Wild West." Perhaps oversimplified for aficionados, but it gets the idea across to the unititated.
The Steampunk genre grew out of being the Sci Fi of what is now a bygone age. When you talk of the Sci Fi age joe-average thinks of future tech things like one sees in Star Trek, I Robot, Star Wars, Halo and so forth.
What we call Steampunk involves not just the technology possibilities but other aspects like the social morales, the conduct of a gentleman, the conduct of a lady and so forth of the Victorian age. Its not strictly the Victorian age as something is different... like common air ships, steam stomper robots and so forth.
To save myself retyping here is one of the posts from the general discussions:
Pathfinder is a game system. (and I suspect searchable under game systems) Pathfinder lacks the non-game support that the genre of Steampunk does.
Speaking of authorities on genre someone passed this on to me:
http://oxforddictionaries.com/...an_english/steampunk
a
genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.
You know Oxford? The widely accepted keepers of the English language who accept Steampunk as a
genre.
Steampunk...
= Is widely recognized outside of RPOL and in fact widely accepted outside of roleplaying games
= societies of real life humans currently gather as Steampunk members (see the above link for one of many such groups)
= Its in the dictionary
= Its part of many games that reference it (Castle Falkenstein, Space 1889, For Faerie Queen and Country, Red Sands and so on and so forth)
= Its acknowledged in bookstores like Chapters... 200+ matches
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/...ampunk&suggest=1
Ya know.. when you start having things like this:
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/...qyurcCFYOZ5wodSycAAA
You've earned a place as a genre.
It is simpler and clearer for both current and new users to keep up with the rest of world by including Steampunk vs "fantasy + historic + sci-fi".