Reason 'squares' is better than 'feet': the metric system

[WhatGravitas]

So basically, I don't see much advantage in the shift to squares, and feel like it focuses a bit more on the boardgame part of D&D, but maybe that's just me.

Whereas this fellow from the same metric country hates the imperial system, because it's not decimal, which drives my math-driven brain into madness!.

For me, that's really an improvement, though the imperial system in D&D helped me to cope with the UK!

Cheers, LT.

 

[Klaus]

Some people complain that using the term 'squares' is over mini-ifying the game. Then I talked to a gamer from a metric country, and he was very happy that WotC was moving away from the imperial measurement standard.

Saying an effect is 5-squares is much easier than saying "25 ft. or 7.5 meters." And for people used to metric, it's just easier to use 'squares' than it is to convert on the fly by dividing by 3.3.

Then again, another friend of mine thinks they should've adopted a more fantasy-ish term that is archaic: fathom. A fathom is 6 ft., or 1.8288 meters. He plans to run his game with 1 square = 1 fathom.

Oh, and another reason squares are better? If the PCs are shrunk to an inch tall to fight insects, 1 square is still 1 square, only now a square is 1 inch (better, I think, than allowing a 1-inch tall wizard to fireball a 20-ft. radius, which would be a 240-square radius).

Count me among the supporters of "square".

 

[HeinorNY]

Using feet or meters is as much an abstraction as using squares; none of the above exist for the characters.

Wrong. Feet and meters mean something.
If I tell to the players "the tower is 30 squares in height and is 150 squares away from you" they won't understand it.

 

[Zinegata]

The only minor drawback is that in 4E you have to multiply squares by 5 ft to know distances outside combat.

Yup. And that rarely needs to be done.

 

[nutluck]

I don't see what the big deal is with ft or meters ect. I am from the US and know the metric system as well as our own. Typically we actually use the metric system in games more, it makes things simpler really. It's really not that hard to learn which ever one you don't know. Granted learning the metric system is easier as everything is in powers of 10.

Squares bug me because it is hard to imagine the range in your mind when someone says it is 12 squares away. unless you use a battlemap and mini's or something which my group doesn't typically do.

 

[Roman]

I am also a "metric man", but I still prefer the use of feet to the use of squares or meters. Feet have the archaic medieval quality to them that is appropriate to a D&D-like fantasy setting.

This is not a big issue by any means, however, certainly it is nowhere near as bad a change as the new diagonal movement rules.

 

[HeinorNY]

Yup. And that rarely needs to be done.

About that I'm not so sure. Characters also walk around, they travel and so. Most Jump checks I remember my players doing were outside combat. Most climb checks too.
DM: "The castle wall is 35 feet high"
Rogue player: " Ok, i get my equipment and start to climb it. The climb skills says I can climb normally half my speed. My speed is 6 squares... hmmm"

Still, just a minor drawback.

 

[WheresMyD20]

If the term "square" is too abstract, how about using the term "pace"? 1 pace = 1 square. Saying something like "the tower is 150 paces away" seems in character and quasi-medieval.

 

[Delta]

Does the foot measuring unit even exist in your fantasy worlds?

Do humans have feet in your fantasy world? If so, then the answer is "yes".

 

[HeinorNY]

If the term "square" is too abstract, how about using the term "pace"? 1 pace = 1 square. Saying something like "the tower is 150 paces away" seems in character and quasi-medieval.

I like it, but the problem is not the abstraction, but the fact the measurement unit means nothing to some people.
If you tell me something is 150 paces away I still don't understand if it's far or near. Paces, on a first moment, give me no notion of distance.

But it is far better than squares.