D&D 4E Should 4e convert to metric?

[Brown Jenkin]

(though the British and American inches were harmonized to match the Canadian inch in the 1950s).

Bah, theres the problem. We're using Canadian measurements.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Just a point - for those who prefer the olde-worldeness of imperial measurements - would you also prefer a more historically accurate method for measuring currency?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_coins

or

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_coins#Pre-decimal_coinage

?

And if not, why not? Because it's not written that way in the rulebook and seems like a hassle to convert stuff?

Note - this isn't a dig, it's a genuine question.

My next question is - how many US players play shadowrun (which IIRC is done in metric)? Do you find that everything needs converting?

 

[The Shadow]

Americans have used metric electrical units for a long time. And thank goodness!

Having grown up in the USA, but having two degrees in science, I am measurement schizophrenic. Small distances are in centimeters, larger distances in feet and miles. Small masses are in grams, larger ones in pounds.

I'd love to see a metric time system, but 10 hours in a day is the wrong way to go. What you want is 100 "chrons" in a day - each about 15 minutes long. Then you have "centichrons" of about 9 seconds each, and "millichrons" a shade shorter than a second. Also "decichrons" of about a minute and a half, though I don't think they'll see much use, any more than decimeters do.

For everyday use, dub the centichron a "moment", and the millichron an "instant". It works beautifully.

Yes, I've thought about this.

 

[lutecius]

I am not sure that this is a valid criticism of the Imperial system, actually, at least when talking about day to day life...

The value of the Imperial system is that each unit is ideally suited for a single task. Measurements of roads and long distance are made in miles, and shorter distances are measured in feet or yards, so there is very little need to ever use the 5280 feet = 1 mile conversion value in daily life. Human height is very easily measured in small values of feet, such that you can easily know that 5 feet = shorter than average, 6 feet = slightly taller than average, and 7 feet = basketball player, without even looking at a more precise breakdown.

How is that different from any system you're familiar with?
just replace it with 1.5m=short, 2m=basketball player tall and 1.75m or whatever is the actual average height.
Adding granularity with decimals doesn't add complexity. I know instantly i'm 14 cm above said average.
With imperial units it gets just a bit trickier, but working out, say, an average size would take twice the time with measures in feet and inches.

Ten may be the base number of our mathematical system, but it is not very good for division and multiplication of substances without measurement (it is a lot easier to pour a gallon of water into two even half-gallons, and divide those into four even quarts, than it is to evenly divide a liter into ten deciliters without measuring).

and it is a lot easier do divide a litre into even quarters than it is to evenly divide a gallon into 10 parts without measuring.
No system is better as far as approximations and simple measures are concerned, it just comes down to habit, but when calculation is involved, SI has a definite advantage.

I would never use miles and pounds when calculating force and energy, but I hate using SI units for basic things like height and weight in my normal life. Imperial units have a big advantage in how they evolved over hundreds of years through being used by normal people, rather than be imposed from on high by some guy who thinks he knows better like the Metric system was.

If standard Imperial units had not been defined and imposed at some point by guys who thought they knew better, there would be hundreds of unrelated units and definitions varying by region like they varied over time...

As for dnd, I don't care either way. I grew up using the metric system so to me, Imperial units do have an old fashioned charm that fits the genre.
Like others have mentioned before, range in dnd involves squares more often than not.
But vive la France all the same

 

[small pumpkin man]

It comes in pints? [Curious: when they translated LotR to other languages, how did they translate/dub that line?]

Pint is an actual measurement? Man, I though it was just one of those wierd beer measurements which change completely by where you are.

 

[Lanefan]

Pint is an actual measurement? Man, I though it was just one of those wierd beer measurements which change completely by where you are.

But it *does* change, by whether you're in an honest pub or a dishonest pub. But yes, a pint is 1/8 of a gallon.

And Imperial all the way for me. Other than temperature in Degrees C and speeds on the highway I just can't grok metric, despite Canada having in theory been metric for some 30+ years now.

Lanefan

 

[TwinBahamut]

How is that different from any system you're familiar with?
just replace it with 1.5m=short, 2m=basketball player tall and 1.75m or whatever is the actual average height.
Adding granularity with decimals doesn't add complexity. I know instantly i'm 14 cm above said average.
With imperial units it gets just a bit trickier, but working out, say, an average size would take twice the time with measures in feet and inches.

The problem with metric units is that, while you can make them work, each individual application of the units is slightly off from what would be a perfectly functional usage. I mean, look at the unit of an acre. An acre was originally literally defined as the amount of land that a man and an ox could plow in a single day. Pints and cups are units that indicate appropriate quantities for a person to imbibe in one sitting, and cups and pounds or are appropriate for cooking recipes designed to feed a normal family (the classic cup of sugar and half-pound of butter).

A big problem with the Metric system is the absolute arbitrariness of the starting units. There is no reason they could not have used a more traditional and functional unit for the base units (meter, liter, and gram). Heck, gram doesn't even work properly for the math... You need to treat kilograms as the base unit in order to even out the math for scientific purposes. There is no reason they couldn't have used the foot and the pound as a basis for metric units.

and it is a lot easier do divide a litre into even quarters than it is to evenly divide a gallon into 10 parts without measuring.
No system is better as far as approximations and simple measures are concerned, it just comes down to habit, but when calculation is involved, SI has a definite advantage.

This is completely false. The same logic you mistakenly tried to use to counter my point above completely destroys this argument. You can't divide liters into fourths in the sense that there is no named unit for such a practical division. In the sense that you can divide a liter by fourths into quarter-liters, you can divide US standard gallons in to .1 gallons, or .001 gallons, or 1245.768 gallons. The mathematical advantage of metric only really exists in the realm of conversion to arcane units like the Joule (kilogram times meters squared per second squared) or Ohm (meters squared times kiolgrams, divided by cubic seconds times amperes squared), not in any kind of conversion related to day to day activities. The truth is that for the most part, people don't ever need to convert units in day to day life. Simple fractions and multiples of existing units always works, and metric has no real advantage over traditional units in this regard.

If standard Imperial units had not been defined and imposed at some point by guys who thought they knew better, there would be hundreds of unrelated units and definitions varying by region like they varied over time...

So? The simple truth is that traditional units were in use and useful before they were standardized, and metric units were not in use or useful before they were standardized. Standardization for traditional units was simply the process of averaging out the minor differences between widely used units that were already tied into the language and culture of a society, or occasionally adding new units to help clarify other units and fill in gaps. Metric units were designed without regard to the usefulness of the units themselves, only with regards to the simplicity of conversion (and as the SI kilogram/gram problem shows, they managed to bungle that one up too).

 

[med stud]

The problem with metric units is that, while you can make them work, each individual application of the units is slightly off from what would be a perfectly functional usage. I mean, look at the unit of an acre. An acre was originally literally defined as the amount of land that a man and an ox could plow in a single day. Pints and cups are units that indicate appropriate quantities for a person to imbibe in one sitting, and cups and pounds or are appropriate for cooking recipes designed to feed a normal family (the classic cup of sugar and half-pound of butter).

I have never ever had any problems with this, but I feel extreme frustration when I come upon ounces and gallons and stuff. Besides, the acre is fine if you are using oxen to plow, bring in a tractor and the defenition loses it's ground. What is enough for one serving depends on what you serve and how big the one you serve is, etc. I can understand being used to the measurements, but those justifications are very weak.

A big problem with the Metric system is the absolute arbitrariness of the starting units. There is no reason they could not have used a more traditional and functional unit for the base units (meter, liter, and gram). Heck, gram doesn't even work properly for the math... You need to treat kilograms as the base unit in order to even out the math for scientific purposes. There is no reason they couldn't have used the foot and the pound as a basis for metric units.

I think the starting units work fine for what they do. The meter is perfect in small scale measurements. A Human is between 1 and 2 meters tall (mostly), a building 20 meters. Is that to short? Then you just add a prefix and you are set. Instead of meters, kilometers. You don't have to think beforehand that "well, you take foot times three... Then I want to make this into miles, then I have to multiply the yards by the square root of Henry VIII:s glove size etc etc". The prefixes that are commonly used are kilo, centi and mili. I haven't seen the other ones used in everyday life. Besides, they go very well together with weights, since a mililiter of water is the same as 1 cubic centimeter which weighs 1 gram. Really, 1 cubic centimeter of matter weighs as many grams as the number of it in the periodic system. I'd say it's very much better than ounces and stuff.[/quote]

This is completely false. The same logic you mistakenly tried to use to counter my point above completely destroys this argument. You can't divide liters into fourths in the sense that there is no named unit for such a practical division. In the sense that you can divide a liter by fourths into quarter-liters, you can divide US standard gallons in to .1 gallons, or .001 gallons, or 1245.768 gallons. The mathematical advantage of metric only really exists in the realm of conversion to arcane units like the Joule (kilogram per meter per second squared) or Ohm (meters squared times kiolgrams, divided by cubic seconds times amperes squared), not in any kind of conversion related to day to day activities. The truth is that for the most part, people don't ever need to convert units in day to day life. Simple fractions and multiples of existing units always works, and metric has no real advantage over traditional units in this regard.

I won't argue with this, I think you are spot on.

So? The simple truth is that traditional units were in use and useful before they were standardized, and metric units were not in use or useful before they were standardized. Standardization for traditional units was simply the process of averaging out the minor differences between widely used units that were already tied into the language and culture of a society, or occasionally adding new units to help clarify other units and fill in gaps. Metric units were designed without regard to the usefulness of the units themselves, only with regards to the simplicity of conversion (and as the SI kilogram/gram problem shows, they managed to bungle that one up too).

Since ease of use in everyday life is dependent on if you are used to a measurement or not, you can't say that something is inherently more practical or not when it comes to everyday life. I have no intuitive idea how tall someone is when she is 5'2", I have to convert it into centimeters first. I know, though, that when something is increasing in size to a large degree, I can always convert to a higher unit just by adding a prefix and removing three zeroes.

It's an interesting discussion, I have never met someone defending the imperial system before It's always nice to broaden your horizon in this kind of stuff.

 

[arscott]

As I understood it, Kilogram was always intended to be the base metric unit. But the Kilogram was originally called the Grave, which, coincidentally, is also a title of nobility. This being that period of French history wherein men and women possessing such titles were being decapitated with alarming regularity, it was deemed politically expedient to apply a less troublesome appellation to the base unit of mass.

Gram, already existent as a vulgar expression for the measurement more properly known as a milligrave, was thus promoted into the august company of the meter.

I can make no claims as to the truth or falsehood of the just-relayed anecdote. I merely partook of the telling so as to provide a diverting amusement for my fellow forum-goers and to indulge in my fondness for unnecessary verbiage.

 

[hong]

Americans have used metric electrical units for a long time. And thank goodness!

Having grown up in the USA, but having two degrees in science, I am measurement schizophrenic. Small distances are in centimeters, larger distances in feet and miles. Small masses are in grams, larger ones in pounds.

I'd love to see a metric time system, but 10 hours in a day is the wrong way to go. What you want is 100 "chrons" in a day - each about 15 minutes long. Then you have "centichrons" of about 9 seconds each, and "millichrons" a shade shorter than a second. Also "decichrons" of about a minute and a half, though I don't think they'll see much use, any more than decimeters do.

For everyday use, dub the centichron a "moment", and the millichron an "instant". It works beautifully.

Yes, I've thought about this.

So! Who else remembers microfortnights?