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Snarls_at_Fleas wrote:

Russian PHB (the only book we have in Russian ) uses imperial system and has a quick conversion table. That's fine for me. Fantasy characters should be talking in feets and miles, save kilometers and meters for Sci-fi.

Brazilian PHB also use metric. Which has a interesting thing: metric users are(or should be) used to fractions. So the 5-foot step is a 1,5-meter step according to Devir, which is the publisher of the Brazilian version of D&D. But when WotC published the article Going Metric the 5-foot step became 2-meter step... not a few people started to make rants about it.. fun time it was (since I'm studding to become an engineer, I'm quite comfortable with fractions/numbers... anyway, most people I know are).

I wonder: If WotC use SI in 4e, will they use fractional numbers (even if only 0,5 or 0,25 to make things easier)?

Dealing with wieght and volume is a different story, but as long as we are just dealing with distance primarly it isnt too big a deal.

I know how it feets. I have no idea what an ounce is.

It's scientific. Anyway, that aside, it(the "foot") has since been standardized and defined as, yes, 12 inches. While the roots may have been based on the situations you described, it is no longer a measure of such. Any corresponding values there now would be coincidence.

Agreed. But it's bizarre nonetheless. I mean: the base of the value isn't the King XYZ's foot... but it's a non-sense fraction of the actual measure (meter).

The "non-sense fraction" was, probably, based on a conversion of the meter to the most known value of foot or the value of foot by the time the metric system was created. This is logical for me, at least.

(hehe, one example i like. 'puta' would be 'The pillow' in my language. funny how things works now and then).

What is your mother language, again O_o?

funny how things works now and then

It's fun how 'banana' is 'banana' on most languages around the world... weired.

Everyone should be able to understand peoples feelings about measurements that we might understand but not really have any experience with.

Agreed

What they should do is to use both measurements ie. 1ft(33.5cm), 2ft(67cm),3ft(100.5cm) and preferably round the figures a bit. :p

Oldtimer]But if you do 5 ft. = 2 meter you get into a lot of strangeness when you come into contact with real things. My 5 ft. elf is now 2 meter tall? Everything has suddenly expanded 33% in the whole universe.

Not nice!

And this is where the real problem lies with dual-statting. Either the metric values are way off (like in those horrible "Going Metric" articles) or you get very uncomfortable numbers to handle. If you want both manageble and correct metric values, you need to design metric measurements into the game from the start. If you want both US and metric measurements (that really works) you need to design the measurements twice.

hmm, plenty of wisdom here. though i wouldnt worry too much about directly translating the height of characters to follow the square-system that you use to figure out where you are standing during battles. i've never had any use for those measures and i usually have written those numbers in metric because it makes more sense to me than 5'2".
Where in the game do you need to worry about your random height? if you are medium you are medium! :p

the main problem with metric is in movement and range of attacks and reach(if there is reach in 4e). anything else is in my opinion stuff that already works fine with metric because it has no effect on gameplay.

naturally, if you go over to metric and worry about gameplay, you get 33% more movement and range on stuff. But i don't see the big problem besides that we 'metric people' get bigger fights than 'imperial people'.
As long as you are consistent and don't jump between imperial and metric, there will be no difference in our battles... there will be a eyeballing difference in how we imagine things happen, but its not a showstopper.

But if you do 5 ft. = 2 meter you get into a lot of strangeness when you come into contact with real things. My 5 ft. elf is now 2 meter tall? Everything has suddenly expanded 33% in the whole universe.

Not nice!

And this is where the real problem lies with dual-statting. Either the metric values are way off (like in those horrible "Going Metric" articles) or you get very uncomfortable numbers to handle. If you want both manageble and correct metric values, you need to design metric measurements into the game from the start. If you want both US and metric measurements (that really works) you need to design the measurements twice.[/quote]
hmm, plenty of wisdom here. though i wouldnt worry too much about directly translating the height of characters to follow the square-system that you use to figure out where you are standing during battles. i've never had any use for those measures and i usually have written those numbers in metric because it makes more sense to me than 5'2".
Where in the game do you need to worry about your random height? if you are medium you are medium! :p

the main problem with metric is in movement and range of attacks and reach(if there is reach in 4e). anything else is in my opinion stuff that already works fine with metric because it has no effect on gameplay.

naturally, if you go over to metric and worry about gameplay, you get 33% more movement and range on stuff. But i don't see the big problem besides that we 'metric people' get bigger fights than 'imperial people'.
As long as you are consistent and don't jump between imperial and metric, there will be no difference in our battles... there will be a eyeballing difference in how we imagine things happen, but its not a showstopper.

Oldtimer]Adding metric values as an after-thought is like putting pointy ears on a human and claiming it's an elf.

true, but only if you put one small true elf next to the higher human with pointy ears. for those who only have seen the human with pointy-ears, its an elf.
It's a bit like those tribesmen in the jungles who came out to the open plains and saw a rhino in the distance, and thought it was a insect right in front of him because he never has seen such open fields in his life.

as long as you have only one point of reference, it won't be annoying. but it is vital as you say that its not just an afterthought.

Adding metric values as an after-thought is like putting pointy ears on a human and claiming it's an elf.[/quote]
true, but only if you put one small true elf next to the higher human with pointy ears. for those who only have seen the human with pointy-ears, its an elf.
It's a bit like those tribesmen in the jungles who came out to the open plains and saw a rhino in the distance, and thought it was a insect right in front of him because he never has seen such open fields in his life.

as long as you have only one point of reference, it won't be annoying. but it is vital as you say that its not just an afterthought.

Oldtimer]P.S. I thought it was called "pute" in norwegian? And it would be "kudde" in swedish and "pude" in danish, so I guess it's only 5 million after all.

bah! damn you for messing up my plans to spread the image of the united Scandinavian hordes! the barbarians who use prostitutes as pillows and generally are up to no good.

the ending varies from E and A, but as i said, 'The pillow'= puta, and to make it clearer 'A pillow' = pute. And yeah, you have different words, but if i say to a swede i think he will connect the word to pillow before a prostitute :p(Spanish-speaking swedes doesn't wrote:

AT-AT Assault wrote:

I really don't see what's so bad about 1.5. Its a really easy number that's instantly familiar to every body [a quarter of an hour is 15 minutes]. Can people not remember the simple progression of 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6?

Its even easier with a fraction. Just multiply your number of squares by 3, then divide by 2.

Sure, maybe up to 6, but then it gets harder. You can't honestly tell me that you consider the progression 1.5, 3, 4.5, 6, 7.5, 9, 10.5 to be as easy as 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35?

Or that metric version of close spell range I gave in a previous post?

We need easier math in our RPG, not harder. That's why the rules doesn't say a 3rd level cleric has a BAB of +2.25.

(1) Imperial and SI are both as good as a measurement as any can be. The fact that SI is used by practically everyone, makes it a better choice for a country to adopt.

(2) Inches still linger on in engineering. Do you know the diameter of your display size in cms? I do not. It is a 13.1 inch display (my desktop has a 19' display). I have a feel for inches if they relate to display sizes. Not in anything else.

(3) Fantasy would be served much better if units are called pounds and feet (inches, stones, etc (NOT Farenheit )), because it sound medieval. In on of the Hungarian RPG they just said that 1 fantasy feet = 1 meter, but that is just naming, and would confuse people using the imperial system.

(4) Instead of banana (banán in Hungarian) please mention ananas*. How does it called in some languages? You see certain people just could not adapt


* pineapple