>>47694059
I would use gurps
Very useful for adapting a setting

>>47694059

It's probably better if everyone uses the potato box steppers instead of being natural steppers, more opportunities for DM shenanigans on my part.

Red pill me on this book. What's it about? What's the main takeaway from it?

>>47694535
>red pill me

>>47694535
Why go into space when you can hop to an empty earth one parallel universe over.

Some are uninhabited for a reason and others are.

>>47694059

You'd probably have to populate it with lots of badguys and monsters because the point of the book is that it becomes a kind of utopia where conflict is easily resolved since there's near infinite space for everyone. Utopia isn't a great place to play around in since games usually revolve around conflict, something opposed to the players that they have to work around, work against, or work together to overcome.

>>47694535
Someone open-sources dimensional travel - at its basic form it can be done using some common components and a potato, so everyone has access to it. You can't take ferous metals across though. There are nigh limitless dimensions, all of which are uninhabited. There is a rush of frontierism as suddenly there's entire uninhabited planets just a few short 'steps' away.

>>47694546
>stop using memes on 4chan in contexts other than their original intention!!!!

Not that guy but come on

You understood him, I understood him, everybody understood him. The system works!

>>47694535
One day, a man releases the blueprints to make a device. This device is, in essence, a potato in a shoebox with a switch on top.
The day after, hundreds of kids the world over make this device and flip the switch

Causing them all to disappear.

It's pretty quickly found out that they 'stepped' sideways into a parallel Earth. An ability that is gained by putting the 'stepping box' together.
There are a seemingly infinite number of Earths that exist to both the 'east' and 'west' of ours. All untouched by man and full of space and natural resources.

They also all seem to represent a spectrum of the way the Earth could have ended up after the big bang. There is a belt of Earths that are in an ice age. There is a belt of sunny tropical Earths.

However, stepping is taxing, and just about everyone get very sick when doing it, especially doing it repeatedly.
There are also some people who are 'phobic.' They have a very violent reaction to stepping, and so essentially can't travel through the long earth at all.

Like >>47694672 says, tons of people go out to be pioneers and explore. Airships are eventually made that can step, making trips to Earths far from Earth 0 possible.
And since it's Pratchett, there's a good deal of exploring what this means for everyday people and politically, though the book mainly deals with a few exceptional people and places.

>>47694546
>blue pill me

>>47694994
Wait. So is the device ACTUAL a potato, a shoebox, and a switch or is there something more? Is it literally "power of imagination" then you realize you could always "step" you just didn't know the feeling? Are phobics able to step but react badly to it or is it entire inability?

>>47695067
>Purple pill me

>>47695099
never read the book but it sounds like a fuck it sort of thing where the author realized what made the box work did not matter in the slightest. so fuck it its a potatoe.

>>47695099

There ARE people who can step without a stepper box, they're called natural steppers, and there are people unable to step even with a box, they're called phobics.

Also people experience various levels of reaction to stepping, some of them have such bad physical reactions they might as well be phobic.

>>47695148
I always wondered if that was possible. Someone sees another person walk through a wall and says anyone can do it. Might take a few tries and suddenly you're doing it too. Now everyone's doing what was impossible a second ago because they now legitimately believe its a thing and now suddenly it is.

>>47695099
Don't ask, it just works.

Actually it's imagination power and some people can do it naturally, but others need the steppers to do it. Who knows why. Some animals can do so too.

Fights become interesting when you can jump to a new world and vanish from view, and then jump back to stab someone. Or getting ready to stab someone jumping back.

>>47695099

It's theorized in the book that it's a latent ability of the genus Homo that gave them an edge over other creatures, our ancestors who lost the ability are the mutants, so natural steppers are more of an atavism than a random leap forward, the stepper boxes compensate for the deficiency that humans developed for the majority of users.

Shit, the last book comes out next week doesn't it?
I didn't need to buy another book this month, but I guess I have to.

>>47695108
>pillchard me

something rules lite like FATE or OVA might work. the various forms of stepping would be aspects to the character or qualities in the later system.

>>47695178
Sort of like the opposite of that cowboy episode from ST TOS?

>>47694994
>>47694672
>ferrous metals can't step
Enjoy losing all of your hemoglobin as soon as you step.

>>47697042
They cover that in the book. For reasons chemically bound iron goes over, just metallic iron is denied.

>>47694059

How do you "step" gear? Is it limited to what you are carrying/wearing or can I step my pickup truck?

>>47697106
If your truck has ferrous metals in it, nah.

>>47697105
That is magnificent.
It's ... oh wow, i want to play a game in that universe.

>>47697106
They're a little bit fuzzy about it.
People are often described as stepping over large objects they carry. Two people carrying a huge tree log stepping over together for example.

There are also vehicles designed to step, from small airplanes to airships (The most common type of major transportation after the advent of stepping.)
It is unclear whether these vehicles are built to step themselves or if it's the pilot who triggers his own stepperbox. The first big airship built for this was possessed by a sentient AI reincarnated from a Tibetan motorcycle repair man, so they don't explain if it can jump because of that or if it's built to do it itself.

>>47697558
In one book they do however tow a disabled airship by hand with long ropes, and step while only holding it by said rope.

If you're going to turn this setting into an RPG you would need to nail down how stepping with large things and vehicles works, since the books are pretty lenient and nonspecific.

>>47697890

How about limited to individual or combined lift/carry weight, unless it's a special item with its own built-in stepper like an airship?

Just to keep things from getting too nuts.

>>47698042
>Just to keep things from getting too nuts.
Like someone grabbing a mountain, thinking really hard about the entire planet and then stepping?

>>47698320
That'd be kinda kickass way to fight. Just 2 guys step fighting throwing planet at each other and dodging.

>>47698320
You can't step a solid object into a solid object so you can't step the entire planet as the alternate planet would be in the way; unless the adjacent world is a gap.

>>47694059
Start with something like Broken Rooms, which is all about jumping between multiple earths, then modify to suit the fact that there are infinite non-apocalyptic earths that don't contain other yous to choose from and other fluff appropriate to the book

>>47699245

However you could dig a pit a couple of earths over and trick your opponent into Wile E. Coyote-ing himself, as once his feet pass below ground level he can no longer step.

I'm surprised the Team Rocket maneuver isn't utilized more often, especially against those fucking elves, get them all into the pit with you and they're just a bunch of monkey-men.

>>47695099
The object you make from the blueprint isn't the important part, it's the mental steps it takes you through while you're making it.
I think they mention at one point that it didn't have to be a potato.

This is also the reason you can't use someone else's stepping box, it MUST be finished by the user.
The police eventually find a technicality, they make a nice high-quality manufactured version, but all the wires aren't connected. The officer twists all the wires together, now they have a new stepper.

>>47700392

It needs to be a plant that grew in the long continuum that you're stepping through.

See:The Long Mars

This thread is making me think of... I'm not sure if it was an idea I had, or a book I read the back cover of, or what. But something like this, you can sidestep to dimensionally lateral earths.
Except you can only go in one direction. You can keep going. There's no harm in it- some claim that if you go far enough you'll circle all the way around, it's not *really* infinite- but who really knows, right?
The premise was a spacebar or something at one of the 'jump' points. People show up. People leave. I think it might have had a bunch of stories from various travelers who'd shown up and stopped in for a bit or a while; maybe one was fleeing a mafia don he owed money to; owing money was a bad idea, but.. who'd really follow someone through a gate just for a job?
Or an explorer who had followed a map from some higher-up dimension claiming to lead to... something. Dimensional Atlantis, or El Dorado, or a fountain of youth or something. He'd traveled so far, seen so many, was definitely off his map but kept going just 'cause what else did he have... but seemed to have lost his nerve to take another irreversible step and risk it all again; who knows, he might come out in a nice civilized dimension, with electricity and running water, and all that jazz. He might come out in the middle of a desert, sand from one horizon to the other and nothing but bleached bones in sight. He might come out in bleak machine-revolt dimension where humans are hunted by unfeeling metallic killers. And you don't know, can't know, because nobody can ever come back.

Anyway, tl;dr I'm thinking of this thing that I only hazily half-recollect, anyone recognize it?

In reality, all white people would set off nukes and then step away to paradise

>>47701201

probably not the one you're looking for but if you enjoy dimension-hopping stories, you might like changing planes by ursula le guin

>>47701287

I'm eager for the race meme to die

>>47701201

Sounds a little bit like Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

>>47701201
Sounds like Callahan's Crosstime Saloon

>>47701554
>>47701610

>Callahan's Crossmind

>>47702391
Five minutes apart is hardly a hivemind. What is this board coming to?

>>47701287
But they can't take metal equipment with them.

>>47694672
>>47694994

Reminds me of a low-tech version of H. Beam Piper's Paratime setting, the same that's the catalyst for Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen.

So...there are intelligent species that evolved on some worlds in the Long Earth, they can't step using standard stepping boxes, but could they step a different "direction" with a different device and have access to their OWN long Earths?

Not really counting the bugs because they aren't from Earth and I have no clue what the fuck their deal is.

>>47704884
There are Elves, Trolls and First Person Singular, those are the only three I can remember.

>>47706717
And the kobolds and the wolf people

>>47704884
That's exactly what's going on with the silver beetles, though. They travel along a chain of worlds perpendicular to the Long Earth that humans know.

>>47695164
It also gets explained that anybody can step and the box is mostly a placebo

>>47697228
You can step something with ferrous components, those bits just get left behind. The first time a cop steps, her gun falls apart and her boots lose thier nails.

>>47698042
Stepping is based entirely on weight. Not mass, but weight: in the Long Mars, they can step with more because of the lower gravity.

>>47698320
>thinking really hard about the entire planet and then stepping?
The problem with this is that the Long series is based on the planet you're sitting on (something about gravity, or orbital momentum maybe?). So you can't step with the planet, because that's like picking up a road you're standing on.

Spoiler for Long Mars: Different planets have different Long series, which aren't parallel. They intersect, but non-linearly: If you step from Earth-3 to Earth-0, fly to Mars-0 then step to Mars-3, you cannot fly back to Earth-3. The different worlds are woven together in a very strange fashion.

>>47707157
So you'd land on an entirel different earth? Is that earth part of "our" long earth? If i do what you say will i land on earth 2033 for example? Or will it be an entirely possible new long earth sequence earth?

>>47707222
The earth you see from Mars-3 is on a completely new long earth chain from the Earth you see from Mars-0, Mars-1 and any other.

>>47707265
that is horribly infinite.

Or to actually turn on my brain and use a mathematical term: uncountably infinite. Which is pretty awful to try and imagine.

File: can'thandlethescience.gif (2 MB, 320x240) Image search: [Google]

2 MB, 320x240

>>47707302
Yeah, it branches towards infinity absurdly fast.

Now throw in the mix that by the last book they have encountered at least one species of grey goo style robots that rip apart planets and stars, use the matter to replicate themselves, and then launch themselves across the void of space in all directions until they hit another world to convert. And now they have discovered stepping. So they not only spread throughout universes, they also step along all the worlds in those universes and start spreading there.

>>47707302
Its kinda cool too. That means if long earth 1 fills up you can just fly to mars 0 and fly to long earth 2. It'd be like a multidimensional layover.
"Where you headed?"
"Long earth 23-12,540 to visit family."
"hey! I'm from long earth 23! Earth 37! Who knows! Maybe i could be a long lost brother or something."
"Haha"
"Haha"

>>47707348
I thought the whole point of the most recent book (Long Utopia) was they prevented the doom-bug/robots from escaping the particular Earth-universe they were confined to, by cutting and pasting the chain to isolate it. So while they'll expand infinitely inside that particular universe, all the others are safe from being converted.

>>47707428
Well...
While the human's long Earth chain is likely safe now that it's been sealed off, the beetles have free reign to travel along any other long planets, or maybe back up their own chain. And considering how many other worlds there are, there's bound to be other grey goo races out there.

>>47700110
So long as their is a pit "east" or "west" of them they can just step out again. To get them into a pit you would have to dig the pit, get them to chase you down the stairs, get out before them and slam the door.

In the first book it mentions there was the smuggler in the 1700s who used caves in alternate universes to hide his stuff and the mafia killed someone hiding in a cellar by digging a hole one Earth away and stepping across.

>>47706794
Don't forget the recently possibly extinct but technologically advanced dinosaur people.

>>47707302
>uncountably infinite.
Isn't that a term that can be used to describe the number of decimals between 0 and 1?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrU9YDoXE88
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s86-Z-CbaHA

if the Long Australia killed everyone who Stepped to it...what the hell was it like?

>>47704423
Man, do you know how hard it is finding other anons who've read the Long Earth, much less Paratime? You're like a damn unicorn for namedropping Piper's work.

>>47709768
New anon here, I was surprised myself. But then, it does have Pterry's name on it, so is it really THAT far-fetched?

>>47710473
Yes.

>>47708172

...the point is that there aren't any adjacent pits, because you're the one that dug the pit...as a trap.

>>47694672
>>47694994
Sounds 95% like GURPS Infinite Worlds

How dangerous would a Race that can Step in all four directions be? Aside from obviously being able to exploit things like Stepping Northwest, Southeast, Northeast and Southwest, obviously.

>>47712357
Not as strong as XYZ steppers and nowhere near as strong as the WXYZ steppers.

>>47701201
Might be good, but you need to smoke plenty of kippers for breakfast

>>47708228
There was the tool making turtles too. Not sure if they'd count since they never got around to learning how to teach.

>>47708387
Yes.
Yes it reminded me exactly of banach-tarsky banach-tarsky.
Fuck that shit.
Let's hope i won't need that kinda stuff for physics in the next couple centuries.

>>47708597

Wait, what?
I don't remember that mentioned in the books.

>>47712475
WXYZ steppers = see Heinlein's Number of the Beast.

Actually, I think they're more like VWYXZ.

XYZ steppers= Infinity/Centrum from GURPS

>>47715039
Mate, if you wanted me to Lazarus Long your Gay Deceiver all you had to do was ask.

>>47713267

There was also a race of tool-using Psudo-Tyrannosaurids encountered on the Eastward airship expedition, but they might have all been wiped out by a natural disaster depending on how spread out they were geographically.

>>47694535
It's a Jewish plot... to make you buy books.

>>47717256
The Jews want me to be educated and literate, do they? Do they? I'll show them! They can't make me read!

>>47717308
You can lead a goy to water, but you can't make him think.

>>47712475
>XYZ
so they can Step to Long Worlds "above" and "below" the one they are currently on?

>>47715039
>WXYZ/VWYXZ steppers = see Heinlein's Number of the Beast.
what?

>>47720824
Its a book. Guy makes a ship that can travel along 3 other dimensional axis Time, tau, and teh. He discovers later that the number of the beast is (6^{6})^{6} not 666 which means theres 10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056 accessible universe initially with his continua device. Later its hinted that this may merelt be the number of accesible universes from any other given universe making the number infinite.
And yes. In the book we can go "forward" and "backward". Thats just Z stepping. The other anon was talking about "left" and "right" stepping as well which makes them YZ stepping which when you think about the 3rd dimension with gravity makes sense right? But when you step gravity's not taken into effect per se so why not step "up" or "down" since you aren't actually moving stepping "up" isn't you actually flying or anything so XYZ stepping seems like a good idea. Not sure how i'd explain WXYZ stepping.

>>47720997
Oh entirely forgot.
But VWXYZ stepping gets into the Number of the Beast type movement where there would be some crazy fuck you number of earths available in like 6 steps max. The only issue is theres always more since another anon pointed out if you flew to mars from earth then stepped to mars-2 then flew to earth-2 thats not actually earth-2 but a whole new earth in the "Forward, Backward" continuum meaning you'd call it earth-1-1 and stepping would take you to earth-1-2, etc. but the same can be done with mars.

>>47721027
The question I have is how many versions of Mars do you have to step through to get to Earth-1 from Earth-0?

>>47723749
There is nothing in the books suggesting they are on the same chain at all. So you couldn't get to earth-1 from any mars, if you went to mars from earth-0.

>>47694095

This. It's basically GURPS Infinite Worlds with easier conveyors that have limits on what you can carry through.

>>47723749

The Long Mars is as infinite as the Long Earth, and the Earths in each Mars's sky may in fact be a new Long Earth without Datum Earth in it at all.

>>47715656
Damn, you're another unicorn on /tg/. Someone else that knows the Multiverse as told by Heinlein.

Suppose instead of going GURPS/Paratime, I take Heinlein and Long Earth and stuff, and execute it in a Xenogears/Blade/X framework? (As opposed to say, lelTolkien or oWOD)

>>47730490
We're a dying breed.