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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Carnivorous_Bean" data-source="post: 4080906" data-attributes="member: 57974">Human? Yes. Arbitrary? In my opinion, Imperial measurements aren't arbitrary, but metric ones are, which is why they're hard to visualize.One inch is the width of a thumb. A yard is the length of a stride. One foot is a third of a yard -- the starting 'foot', the ending 'foot,' and the 'foot' of space in between. A mile is the distance you can walk in about 15 minutes if you keep a good pace. And although Fahrenheit temperature is more arbitrary, 1 degree F is about the smallest temperature difference that human skin can detect. So no, they're not arbitrary, they fit comfortably with numans because they're designed around human parameters. We carry the yardsticks for them in our very cells. They're natural for us. Metrics are arbitrary because they don't relate in the slightest to human measurements, which is why they're usually so clumsy except for extremely tiny measurements that humans don't directly interact with anyway. A person is somewhere between 1 and 2 meters tall unless they're grossly deformed -- but then you have to say "177 cm", which means absolutely nothing you can visualize .... whereas you know that someone 6 foot 1 is a bit on the tall side, but not gigantic. Unless you're deformed, your step is less than a meter, and a lot longer than a centimeter. And on and on. Metrics don't work well for everyday stuff because they're arbitrary and don't fit in naturally with human measurements. Personally, I think adopting them is the worst idea ever. They're not made to fit us.In a similar way, "squares" are an arbitrary measurement that has no natural relationship to human dimension. You have to mentally convert it before you can visualize, which stinks. I like a lot of what I've heard of 4e so far, but personally, the idea of measuring everything in squares is something that just adds complexity to the game, rather than removing it (because of the need to convert it to some measurement that you can actual visualize).</blockquote>

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