Traveller?

[Sanguinarious]

Well traffic signs are still MPH not KPH.

But this has gone on enough. A metric boy dinged on gurps for using classic measures, I made it clear I objected, people squawked, I held me line and it's done with.

 

[aramis erak]

I HATE to tell you, but the metric system (SI) IS the legal standard system of the US, period. All regulations and official measures of all sorts are entirely metric. The Imperial system used in common parlance by many people is merely a thin veneer!

Wrong.
Quite a few are still ETM.
Look at the text of the gasoline taxes...

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:26%20section:4041%20edition:prelim)

Now, that the US gallon has a definition in law measured in liters does not make the gallon a metric unit. (Tho' there was a minor push at one point to make the US Gal into a 4 liter unit, rather than the 3.something it is.)
None of the speed limits are in metric. None of the roadway laws I've read, either - all are in US version of ETM.
That's because traffic signage and laws are explicitly exempted from the 1975 metrication act. (truck weights are also exempted elsewhere.) Many federal laws haven't been changed, and predate the metrication act.

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title23-section109&num=0&edition=prelim

Until 2000, even the federal plans didn't need to be metric.

 

[pemerton]

The version of Traveller that I use is metric for on-world and orbital distances, but miles for planetary diameters and space travel.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The version of Traveller that I use is metric for on-world and orbital distances, but miles for planetary diameters and space travel.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I remember, its OFTEN metric, but not entirely.

 

[aramis erak]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I remember, its OFTEN metric, but not entirely.

CT 2E is metric for all but the fundamental underpinning of planetary sizes at (sizeCode×1000)±500 mi ... but lists them both at (size×1600)±800 km and in miles. The ship combat is changed to full metric both for table scale and represented distances. This also has some minor knock on effects elsewise...

	1977 1E	1981 2E
Space Combat Round	10 minutes (600 seconds)	1000 seconds
Intended table scale	1:63,360,000.	1:100,000,000.
Restated table scale	1"=1000mi	1mm = 100km
1G for 1 turn	1 Gee = 2" table/turn= 2000 mi scale /turn	1 Gee = 100mm turn = 10,000. km/turn

One other interesting note is that Bk2-81 uses Gee =10m/s² rather than our real-world 9.80665m/s². Elsewhere, it rounds up C to 300,000,000 m/s instead of 299 792 458 m/s.
I've never bothered checking '77 for its Gee and C values. So... 2000×5280/600²=10560000/3600= 29.333 ft/s²... a bit under real world 32.1740 ft/s²...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

CT 2E is metric for all but the fundamental underpinning of planetary sizes at (sizeCode×1000)±500 mi ... but lists them both at (size×1600)±800 km and in miles. The ship combat is changed to full metric both for table scale and represented distances. This also has some minor knock on effects elsewise...

	1977 1E	1981 2E
Space Combat Round	10 minutes (600 seconds)	1000 seconds
Intended table scale	1:63,360,000.	1:100,000,000.
Restated table scale	1"=1000mi	1mm = 100km
1G for 1 turn	1 Gee = 2" table/turn= 2000 mi scale /turn	1 Gee = 100mm turn = 10,000. km/turn

One other interesting note is that Bk2-81 uses Gee =10m/s² rather than our real-world 9.80665m/s². Elsewhere, it rounds up C to 300,000,000 m/s instead of 299 792 458 m/s.
I've never bothered checking '77 for its Gee and C values. So... 2000×5280/600²=10560000/3600= 29.333 ft/s²... a bit under real world 32.1740 ft/s²...

I can see why they would have used 10m/s^2 and 300megameters/s, though interestingly that last choice is actually DEEP. The standard for '1 Gee' is totally arbitrary, but the value of C they chose means EITHER the Traveller meter is different than the SI meter, by small amount, or else the fine structure constant is different, and even such a small change to THAT would catastrophically alter physics. Assuming their meter is different however means that ALL derived units are slightly different as well! That includes the Volt, and thus the Ampere, and on and on and on. I mean, it probably isn't going to matter, substantively, but it is rather interesting, lol.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

This kind of discussion is exactly why I've turned to storygames in my old age.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This kind of discussion is exactly why I've turned to storygames in my old age.

Well, so have I, lol. There are several decent PbtA-based Sci-Fi games. Honestly at least one of them would slot right into the standard TU without much problem.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Well, so have I, lol. There are several decent PbtA-based Sci-Fi games. Honestly at least one of them would slot right into the standard TU without much problem.

Out of curiosity, which do you think might be a good fit? I was looking for a good general-purpose SF PbtA game recently, and I wasn't having much luck—in part, probably, because PbtA really works best when it has a very specific premise. But maybe I'm overlooking something.

 

[pemerton]

This kind of discussion is exactly why I've turned to storygames in my old age.

Classic Traveller has a lot of "storygame" in it - Streetwise skill, Vacc Suit skill, Admin and Bribery, the rules for avoiding adverse interactions with the law, are the first things I think of; but much of it can be approached in this spirit.

Its simulationist break-points, in my experience, are (i) the money/accounting rules (they're tedious), (ii) the onworld exploration rules (they're ineffective and degenerate into "GM decides", and (iii) Book2 ship-to-ship combat (not very exciting after the first one or two shots are fired).