Would you play a TTRPG that used Meters instead of Feet?

[payn]

I'm from Canada, but I'm used to whatever strange mix we use here.

The experience is not the same for every Canadian (big country), but in my thick of the woods...

• I measure 6 foot and 1 inch.
• Anything construction related is in foot and inches.
• I buy a two litres of soft liquor at the store.
• And a gallon of milk.
• You drive a few kilometers, but you see something coming from a mile away.
• When it's cold during the winter, it's -30 degrees celcius.
• It's universally known that the human body is at around 37.5 degrees celcius, but if you're over 100 fahrenheit you might have a fever!
• But I put my oven at 350 fahrenheit.
• My sister just had her baby. A seven pounds healthy boy.
• My new refregirator was hard to move around, it weighted almost 250 kilograms.
• Don't speed when you drive, remember you're in a two tons machine!

I've got a solid understanding of what a foot is because we also use that. But I've got no idea what a yard is.

 

[Willie the Duck]

I'm from Canada, but I'm used to whatever strange mix we use here.
The experience is not the same for every Canadian (big country), but in my thick of the woods...

• Anything construction related is in foot and inches.

That one boggles my mind.
I have a number of people at work who are non-US-born*, and the discussion about why the U.S. doesn't go metric comes up every so often. I explain that, for the average person living their lives (the ones you need onboard to make such a switch) -- especially since most professions where there is a hassle already use metric-- the biggest benefits of metric don't frequently come up. You usually don't have to switch between units, and like Morris' 'bizzleberries' point, as long as you stay within a unit, it doesn't usually matter. Your car can have MPH or KPH on the dial, and so long as it matches the speed limit sign, you're good**. The one really good example I've always had that is an exception to that is construction/home projects -- ex. 'the room needs twelve feet, three-and-three-quarters inches of trim on that wall and you have a piece that is seven feet, eight and five-eighth inches long, how long a piece do you have to cut off another 10' section to complete it?' It seems so odd to me that that a society that mixes and matches units wouldn't have diverged metric for that.
*Also, I DM for a high school group where perpetually someone just took HS physics and just learned the benefits of metric systems, but hasn't learned as much regarding the difficulties of making major societal changes, so the question comes up there as well.
**sure it's easier to convert KPH to m/s than MPH to ft/s, but most people rarelyhave to.

 

[Lanefan]

kind of like x-thousand meters?

Kind of. More like it goes:

"How far is it to [place x]?"
"20 kay"
"20 kay what? Miles? Kilometers? Meters? Feet? [etc.]"

As opposed to asking "How many [whatevers] are there?", where the answer "20 kay" always means 20,000.

 

[Lanefan]

The one really good example I've always had that is an exception to that is construction/home projects -- ex. 'the room needs twelve feet, three-and-three-quarters inches of trim on that wall and you have a piece that is seven feet, eight and five-eighth inches long, how long a piece do you have to cut off another 10' section to complete it?' It seems so odd to me that that a society that mixes and matches units wouldn't have diverged metric for that.

That touches on one reason I suspect imperial mesaurements have stuck around in construction and a few other milieux: fractions (half, quarter, eighth, etc.) are easier to visualize/conceptualize than decimals in how they relate to each other. Not easier to count-add-subtract, perhaps, but to visualize.

I mean, if someone asks how much is left in a part-full milk bottle most (as in nearly all) people would answer "about half" or "about a third" rather than "about point 5" or "about point 3".

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've seen people use the term "half a klick (kilometer)" before, and while its more specific "50 centiliters" and "half a liter" mean the same thing, and in common usage the latter is probably used more often (in science or medicine the former--well, probably 500 mililiters because centiliters are a legit but uncommonly used term--would be more common).

Basically, there's nothing about metric that requires precision, and in common use no one is more prone to it than with Imperial measurement.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Yes, and I'm from the US. But then again, I'm a veteran, and we use meters instead of yards, kilometers instead of miles. when I lived overseas, it was so much easier.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

American archaeologists weirdly enough use metric for almost everything except for historic structure measurements. Our reports though still provide both metric and imperial. At almost two decades of working, I can say I can "see" 15-, 30-, 50-, and 100-meter distances.

Archeologists being conversant in both systems feels right. Heck, you all probably understand furlongs and know how long various kings' feet were, as well.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've got a solid understanding of what a foot is because we also use that. But I've got no idea what a yard is.

It's so close to a meter that you can just mentally equate the two.

 

[Tonguez]

That touches on one reason I suspect imperial mesaurements have stuck around in construction and a few other milieux: fractions (half, quarter, eighth, etc.) are easier to visualize/conceptualize than decimals in how they relate to each other. Not easier to count-add-subtract, perhaps, but to visualize.

I mean, if someone asks how much is left in a part-full milk bottle most (as in nearly all) people would answer "about half" or "about a third" rather than "about point 5" or "about point 3".

Not really, you can talk about half and quarter meters, and 2.5 meters is much easier than 2.73403 yards (I jave no idea how to express that in imperial)

and most people when talking about a milk bottle would say something like 50% rather than .5.
It does amuse me that the metric pint is 500ml (half a litre) rather than 20 fluid ounces or 1/8 of a gallon.

 

[CubicsRube]

Where you are, maybe. Round here if someone says something is x "kay" or x "kays" it means they're trying to say it's x-thousand.

It's both for us depending on context.

Maybe it's an Australian thing? We need to talk distances a lot "200 Ks left to melbourne, almost there!"

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure "K's" is just Australian. Maybe also NZ?

Years ago I would sometimes hear people say "klicks" but that seems to have dropped out of use.

I'm from Canada, but I'm used to whatever strange mix we use here.

The experience is not the same for every Canadian (big country), but in my thick of the woods...

But more important than all this talk of measurements in giraffes is the bit I've bolded in the above quote.

@TheAlkaizer, is that a typo or a Canadianism? Cos I've always heard "my neck of the woods."

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure "K's" is just Australian. Maybe also NZ?

Years ago I would sometimes hear people say "klicks" but that seems to have dropped out of use.

That was the use I always used to hear, but I'm an American so who knows?

 

[TheAlkaizer]

is that a typo or a Canadianism? Cos I've always heard "my neck of the woods."

Being from eastern Canada my mother tongue is french. But I work mostly in english and consume my media in english. The two languages are severely tangled in my brain. It's probably a mix between the usual and a free translation of a french Canadian expression.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I can imagine that I might refuse to use a system based on the metric measurements, so I voted no. But it would have to be pretty obtrusive, and there would have to be very comparable games equally available.

Basically I think the metric system is a stupid system based on fetishizing ease of conversion between units at the expense of having units that actually organically make sense for things humans do. It came out of an Enlightenment era belief in eliminating doing things based on custom and tradition in favor of doing them based on Reason (which I'll capitalize, in the style of the time), and has never shed the basic arrogance wrapped up in that way of thinking. It is not a system built to human scale and can't describe anything without a cumbersome amount of syllables. It was imposed on the world by a condescending intelligentsia, and it's fundamental hubris is not challenged enough. It an extremely useful system (and sometimes vastly superior) in an abstract academic context, but as applied to the real world, units based around what is customarily convenient based on the natural world, biomechanics, grouping objects for transport, or other concerns of commerce or life in general are often less cumbersome than units which exist only because of a x10 relationship to some other unit. All systems of measurement are mostly stupid and arbitrary, where the metric system gets on my nerves is that because it's arbitrary units are derived from other arbitrary units based on Reason it's proponents think it's intrinisically less stupid when, in many contexts, it is actually slightly stupider. And that sort of arrogance I can't abide.

However if I were to reject an RPG based on usage of the metric system, it would probably not be because of my hostility to the system, but because it either used it extensively in a way that was aesthetically really obtrusive to the setting of the game, or just demanded too much visualization in metric from my not very metric accustomed brain. Still these would just be points against a game for me, not dealbreakers in their own right.

 

[CubicsRube]

That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

I'm still not sure it's not a troll post.

 

[gamerprinter]

Come on: Stones, Hands and Leagues as measurements or go home!

 

[aramis erak]

I originally learned si, and then switched to fractional (US Customary, Imperial is another system) and later in life have used both at work, even others such as the British Whitworth. I prefer metric in play, though when playing I will usually modify it so that I also say the US measurement.

US and Imperial are so close... until you get to volumes of liquids and tonnages....
And both are based upon the French Avoirdupois measures, but only the pound and grain being kept exact...

the problem with humanocentric measures are that different populations have different median, mode, and mean sizes, and that the standards were usually set to the measures of the Royal. So the Shaku - the Japanese "foot" is 30.303... cm, while the US foot is 30.48 cm, the French traditional Pied 32.66cm....

 

[gamerprinter]

In feudal Japan, farmers used an unofficial unit of distance measurement that every farmer understood. Due to metal scarcity, and the control of metals by the authorities, farmers were forced to weave wicker horseshoes, and a set of four such shoes lasted about 2.5 miles before they fell apart. So farmers carried large bags of woven shoes, which they spend all their non-farm time weaving. So a farmer could tell another farmer on the other side of the country, I live 139 shoe changes from here - and they'd know how far and roughly where that is.

 

[Peter BOSCO'S]

In theory, yes. However 5 feet becomes 1.5m, which isn't that clean. You could change it to 1m, but that seems like a ridiculous small space for combatants to occupy, and increasing it to 2m conversely feels too big.

Realistically, a combatant could occupy a 1m square, but then he'd be able to strike over adjacent squares to hit things more than 1m away. (A typical one-handed sword can easily be 1m in length, even if you don't account for arm length)

Traveller has been using 1.5 meter squares on deckplans for over 45 years, and it has worked fine from them, but they make it easier by not requiring a grid (for most versions). The referee just counts the squares and (depending on which of the many versions of Traveller you are using) say something like "The Zhodani is four squares away from you, which is 6 meters, so that is out of range for your Cutlass, standard range for your Gauss pistol, or short range if you switch to your Gauss rifle."

 

[aramis erak]

Yes, its a Sci-fi RPG out of U.K. that began back in '77 or so.

Wrong. Marc's in Illinois, and was in the US Army...

GDW is the source, in '77. Games Workshop produced cpies for the UK, but the game is thoroughly written by Americans.

Other contributors to Classic Traveller include: Frank Chadwick, Loren Wiseman (RIP), Tim Brown, The Kieth Brothers (J Andrew and William H), Jordan Weissman, Guy McLimore, Mort Weissman, and L. Ross Babcock III - these being the GDW, Gamelords, and FASA staff, are all from the US.

The first edition used metric for personal scale, but the ship combat was in US Traditional Measure.

The 1981 revised edition switched to pure metric.

The 1987 MegaTraveller was by DGP and products released by both GDW and DGP; GW was no longer licensed by that point.
Joe and Gary are US as well.

So is Roger Sanger, who bought DGP... not realizing that all of DGP's material required Marc's sign-off to use... then being obstinate in overvaluing his acquired IP...

T:TNE added more GDW staff.

The first edition written in the UK was the Mongoose 2008 release.