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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4040750" data-attributes="member: 4937">Err... take your pick:"1. a unit or standard of measurement: weights and measures.  2. a system of measurement: liquid measure.  3. an instrument, as a graduated rod or a container of standard capacity, for measuring.  4. the extent, dimensions, quantity, etc., of something, ascertained esp. by comparison with a standard: to take the measure of a thing.  5. the act or process of ascertaining the extent, dimensions, or quantity of something; measurement.  6. a definite or known quantity measured out: to drink a measure of wine.  7. any standard of comparison, estimation, or judgment.  8. a quantity, degree, or proportion: in large measure."RPG rules are all about measurements.  RPG quantify things.  They measure encumbrance, hit points, damage, strength, intelligence, wisdom, charisma, diplomatic ability, the ability to tumble, the sharpness of a sword, the ability to resist damage from fire, the difficulty of a spell, a person's experience, thier willpower, thier resistance to disease, and so on and so forth.  They assign numbers to all sorts of categorizations that then have tangible effects in the game, size classes, wind speed, levels of economic activity, and on and on ad infinitum.  Even alot of things that don't look like measurements, actually are measurements.  For example, RPGs quantify how hot or cold things are by how much damage you are subject to when exposed to them.  If you didn't have a rule for how much damage a hot or cold thing did when it something was exposed it, for all practical purposes the thing wouldn't be hot or cold.  It's temperature has to be concretely measured because it has no reality until it is.I actually have a funny story about that.  In early 1st edition, a DM I was acquainted with related a story about how he'd tried to have a cold, hard, rain in his game world.  But his players weren't impressed with his vivid description.  Because at the time the rules didn't cover exposure to environmental effects and the DM didn't know how to smith some out on the spur of the moment, there was no in game consequence to the cold.  You could just march on while abstractly 'cold and wet' because, in as far as the game was concerned the characters weren't actually cold and wet.  The DM was outraged.  The players in his opinion weren't playing right, because he imagined a really cold wet rain that no one would really want to be out in.  But the thing is, that cold wet rain existed only in his head, and the rules had no tangible means of conveying cold.  In fact, the fault wasn't with the players.  The fault was the world the DM wanted to describe didn't exist under the rules, and he lacked the experience (or inclination) to cause the universe he wanted to come into being.  He did however, have an alternative means of communicating the experience of cold.  He said, "Fine.  Lets take game outside."  When it started raining a few minutes, the players agreed that thier characters would find shelter.</blockquote>

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