From the introduction: Fin de Siècle is a rules-light game about fictitious scientific breakthroughs at the end of the 19th century: this is the world as seen by H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, with eccentric lone inventors making discoveries with the potential to change the future. The protagonists portrayed by the players of this game are those charged with controlling and policing these breakthroughs: basically, this is Victorian Fringe.