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

[Walking Dad]

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.

Or metric system:
DM: "The castle wall is 7 meters 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"

The German edition uses 5 feet = 1 meter = 1 square on the table

If I have learned to multiply and divide by five (using english books) you can too

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

What? Doesn't everyone know that a square is 7.58 microfurlongs?

 

[HeinorNY]

Or metric system:
DM: "The castle wall is 7 meters 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"

The German edition uses 5 feet = 1 meter = 1 square on the table

If I have learned to multiply and divide by five (using english books) you can too

I live in a metric country. I have no problems to convert inches to cm, or pounds to kilograms, or miles to kilometers.
I use only the books in english so I learned to do it naturally. With 4e, instead of converting feet to meters, I'll convert squares to feet and then to meters.

 

[Zinegata]

Just a minor note:

Precise units of measurement (i.e. meters, feet, etc) are products of a scientific body that was tasked to create a common set of measurements for all of the world's scientists to use. Before this body was created, measurements were generally extremely adhoc. One foot for one person could be one and a half feet for another.

So it might not be entirely realistic for D&D characters to use exact units of measurement like meters or feet, unless they're living in a particularly advanced world.

 

[Dragonhelm]

My problem is that I have a hard time envisioning distances. I don't know why that is. I typically have not used minis and my groups just picture the situation in their heads.

I was hesitant about squares at first, as it does rely on minis, but then something occurred to me. Squares are easier for me to visualize with combat. Now, this may mean that I'd have to go buy some minis. Yet for some reason, I'm much more willing to this time around. Not sure why.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Six of one, half a dozen (or whatever passes for a dozen in Metricville ) of the other for me as I tend to instantly multiply the squares into feet in my head anyway. It's not like it's rocket science or anything...

DM: "The wall is 30ft tall."
Player: "I can climb at half my speed, which would be 3 squares or 15 feet."

 

[Goobermunch]

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.

Actually, from a practical usability standpoint, the imperial system has some things going for it.

Have you ever had to measure out a third of a meter? Let me tell you, it's much easier to measure a third of a foot (4 inches). Since the imperial system (for lengths anyway) comes back to base 12, you can do division by 2, 3, 4, and 6 quite easily. With a base 10 system, for division by numbers other than 2 and 5, you're looking at decimal places and guestimates between the cm marks on a measuring tape.

You just have to adjust your math-based brain to look at the factors to see the virtue of base 12.

--G

 

[SaffroN]

i see no problem with squares. As a metric man myself I never used Imperial units before. So I had difficulty picturing room lengths and heights. Basically distances in general.To fix this I was always converting in my head. The Imperial system just wasn't intuitive for me. So I'm glad that the change to squares has taken place.

Best thing about it is that, at a table with users of both measurement systems, I could be using each square to represent 2 meters while others could use each square to represent 5 feet (or 1 fathom). This doesn't give us the same room size exactly. But it doesn't matter, all party's can easily interpret the measurement. i don't think using squares outside of certain situations is appropriate though. Jumping pits, and in combat is fine. But you shouldn't use squares to describe how tall a tower is. As a DM i tend to give out measurements only when required (like in combat, or jumping pits). All other times (like the height of towers) I leave it to the imaginations of my players.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Just a minor note:

Precise units of measurement (i.e. meters, feet, etc) are products of a scientific body that was tasked to create a common set of measurements for all of the world's scientists to use. Before this body was created, measurements were generally extremely adhoc. One foot for one person could be one and a half feet for another.

So it might not be entirely realistic for D&D characters to use exact units of measurement like meters or feet, unless they're living in a particularly advanced world.

Without wanting to sound aloof or anything, but you really need to read up on the history of measurement units. They might have been a bit arbitrary, in that a unit referencing some body part or other was based on the body part of the ruler who established it, but in general, a society that used measurement units established a pretty constant set of units after a while, and the tools to check them against from time to time. From our modern society's point of view, it may all have looked haphazard and arbitrary, but if you go 500 years back and talk with a ropemaker about 50 feet of rope, he'll have a good idea of what you mean, and so will his colleague in the city one day further, and the lengths of rope you will obtain will be pretty similar.

Standard measurements had a LOT of other reasons to be established than just serve as a common denominator for the world's scientific community in the last 150 years.

 

[MichaelK]

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.

His opinion is not universal. I have a completely metric background and I strongly dislike the term.

My objections to it are two-fold.

1. The term is pure crunch and can not be used for fluff, making a disconnect between the two that is entirely unnecessary.
2. It is in fact more difficult to use and by naming a 1 dimensional measurement after a 2 dimensional shape they invite confusion.

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.

This is incorrect.

A square is a 2 dimensional unit of measurement, as opposed to a foot or meter which is a 1 dimensional unit of measurement. Saying that the effect is 5 squares could mean that it fills 5 squares (perhaps the target and those one square away in the same row or column), just as equally as it could mean that it is a circular effect beginning in square D26 with a radius of five squares (Thus filling approximately 78.5 squares on average using Pi*r^2).

The term square is by no means easier to use, particular if you need to say a room is 20 square squares.

The term might perhaps be easy to use, if you have a battlemap and need describe nothing simpler than how far your character moves in a turn. It is not a useful tool for any more complex description.

So in many cases it's not easier, is it perhaps better in some other regard? Is it more thematic, poetic or accurate? Is it more fitting to be used in character?

I disagree with this term and it will find no usage in my games. If I use 4e (and as things stand I may not) this term being the standard in the rulebooks will inconvenience me far more than imperial measurements ever have.

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).

I hadn't thought this a common enough occurrence to justify the entire system to be built around it. Though I admit you're onto a point with the whole movement being in ratio to your growth or shrinking. As order of the stick puts it,

"Sorry I took so long, short legs"
"But you were 15' tall"
"Aye, and you'd think it would make a difference..."