A Plea: The Metric System is not compatible with High Fantasy


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Goblin Squad Member

Moridian wrote:
MrSavarius wrote:
Wait, who is saying that PFO is mainly aimed at the American Market? Could we get a Dev on this?
Indeed. This is the first time I heard about it? Was there a poll I was not aware of? Because as a EU player I'd like to have a say in this.

It is not that the game is mainly aimed at the American Market, it is that it is an American company working with an American IP that already uses American Imperial weights and measures internally. As such, most of the thought processes and discussions tend to have American Imperial references because that is how the Americans building the game tend to think. The single server will be based in America. I believe a majority of the customer base is going to be assumed to speak English for interacting with the UI at least initially, though I imagine some localization of clients happening in the not to distant future.

There will definitely be US-favored biases, but I would chalk those up to the factors above and not because of some conscious effort to exclude EU customers.

At a personal level, I do not really care too much. However, a lot (by no means all) of Americans are internationally arrogant. We largely have no intrinsic understanding of a kilometer or a kilogram. Using the measurements can cause mental train wrecks as they try to translate the measurements into something they understand. This in turn leads to a degree of frustration and even anger. I think an American is more apt to not play a game because measurements are in Metric than a non-American is apt to quit over measurements being in American Imperial. Which is largely a factor of the US having used it's economic power to force other countries to play with Imperial rather than acquiescing to foreign desires for the US to work with metric.

And then you have those darned numberphiles trying to convince the world to adopt Base 12...

Goblin Squad Member

I'd be surprised if anyone quit a game because it expressed their carry capacity and item weights in kilograms rather than pounds. I mean, I find that fantastically bizarre, that one might ignore all the elements of the game itself and just focus on that one little thing as the reason to quit a game. Though I suppose that's presuming upon people to act sane, which is something that simply doesn't always happen.

Goblin Squad Member

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Pax Shane Gifford wrote:
I'd be surprised if anyone quit a game because it expressed their carry capacity and item weights in kilograms rather than pounds. I mean, I find that fantastically bizarre, that one might ignore all the elements of the game itself and just focus on that one little thing as the reason to quit a game. Though I suppose that's presuming upon people to act sane, which is something that simply doesn't always happen.

Sadly to say, I know people that would... There is a hyper-patriotism that exists in portions of the population that get all fussy whenever they feel american values are being sacrificed for global ones. 'Murica!

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Pax Shane Gifford wrote:
I'd be surprised if anyone quit a game because it expressed their carry capacity and item weights in kilograms rather than pounds.

Actually it seems some of our Euro friends might ragequit when they discover NPC's talking about distances in miles and leagues, and weights in pounds. :)

Goblin Squad Member

LazarX wrote:
Pax Shane Gifford wrote:
I'd be surprised if anyone quit a game because it expressed their carry capacity and item weights in kilograms rather than pounds.
Actually it seems some of our Euro friends might ragequit when they discover NPC's talking about distances in miles and leagues, and weights in pounds. :)

I haven't seen anyone claim that they will "ragequit" the game based on measurement.

Goblin Squad Member

MrSavarius wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Pax Shane Gifford wrote:
I'd be surprised if anyone quit a game because it expressed their carry capacity and item weights in kilograms rather than pounds.
Actually it seems some of our Euro friends might ragequit when they discover NPC's talking about distances in miles and leagues, and weights in pounds. :)
I haven't seen anyone claim that they will "ragequit" the game based on measurement.

Quite so. I don't think either of us ever claimed anything of the sort. I know for my part at least I only tried to argue there is nothing immersion breaking about the metric system. Not going with it is fine, I really don't care that much. But when someone is arguing that it is wrong to use the metric system and it breaks immersion, then I feel it is important for me to argue against it, as this game is being crowd forged.

Also on the point of PFO being made by an American studio is rather irrelevant as well, as this is a mmo which should not limit itself to one country. A good friend of mine work in a game studio (mainly Dice if the brand matters to you) stationed in sweden. Never have the games he worked on been directly aimed at a swedish market though, it has been for a global one. That is what every product should aim for.

I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

Either way I don't think it will make or break the game, but then again I am not the one who started this thread and the only reason I am here to argue, is due to the unjust hatred some people seem to have towards the metric system.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Moridian wrote:
I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

It "makes sense" from a post Rennaissance Enlightment viewpoint when science is making it's first solid dominance in not only thought but in commerce and trade as well.

It would not have made sense in the time of Noah when Cubits and angry flood making gods ruled the day.

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

Moridian wrote:
Either way I don't think it will make or break the game, but then again I am not the one who started this thread and the only reason I am here to argue, is due to the unjust hatred some people seem to have towards the metric system.

There are ridiculous 'Me-ists' on all sides of this issue. When I was an admin back in the early days of Wikipedia you would not believe the flame wars over what units to use in the articles. PFO is going to be big enough that we will likely have some 'Imperial Me-ists' and some 'Metric Me-ists'. Hence my suggestion to just show numbers and ignore the units. Logically, another planet shouldn't use either set anyway.

Goblin Squad Member

LazarX wrote:
Moridian wrote:
I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

It "makes sense" from a post Rennaissance Enlightment viewpoint when science is making it's first solid dominance in not only thought but in commerce and trade as well.

It would not have made sense in the time of Noah when Cubits and angry flood making gods ruled the day.

Again being historically accurate does not really work with pathfinder. We did not have robots (golems) in the post Renaissance world, we did not have potions capable of healing cuts and burns by drinking it, we didn't have the ability to fly, teleport or astral project. Yes not all of those are technical achievements but they would have a huge impact on the development on a world. In fact I'd argue it is more advanced than modern day in most cases. Healing jelly which pretty much undo all harm done to you? Blessings capable of undoing pretty much any poison regardless the source, regrowing lost limbs, instant teleportation to anywhere in the world or other dimensions, creating food out of thin air, the list goes on and on. Why would you spend thousands of years, trying to get medical technology to our level, when clerics already far surpass us?

Goblin Squad Member

Lifedragn wrote:
And then you have those darned numberphiles trying to convince the world to adopt Base 12...

I'd really prefer Base 16...

Goblin Squad Member

I really don't care one way or another on what measuring system they use. True, as an American, Feet/Miles will be easier for me. But if they chose to do the metric system, I'll just use one of the many online converters if I even do that. For the most part, the distance between A and B will be viewed more on the time it takes then the distance for me.

Goblin Squad Member

In Vanguard, the group window that showed the health bars of each character in your group also included a mini-compass that indicated the heading to that character as well as a distance. Less than 1,000, the distances were merely numbers, but over 1,000 and they showed "1 km", "72 km", etc. Seeing that measure so frequently was definitely immersion breaking for me, even though it probably wouldn't have if they'd been simply "1 k", "72 k", etc.

Goblin Squad Member

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LazarX wrote:
Moridian wrote:
I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

It "makes sense" from a post Rennaissance Enlightment viewpoint when science is making it's first solid dominance in not only thought but in commerce and trade as well.

It would not have made sense in the time of Noah when Cubits and angry flood making gods ruled the day.

I agree with this. Whether or not you factor in magic, everyday measurements of a pseudo-medieval society are going to be based off of what they have easy access to- the body. Feet, hands (still used to measure the height of horses), paces, cubits, and inches all are based of the human body and were easily understandable measurements, if not perfectly consist between different people. Larger distances are multiples of paces (ie 1000 paces = a PF mile).

When I see a game that uses the metric system where it doesn't make sense, I always think they missed an opportunity to add a nice world-building touch. In those instances I always feel they took the easy way out.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Moridian wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Moridian wrote:
I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

It "makes sense" from a post Rennaissance Enlightment viewpoint when science is making it's first solid dominance in not only thought but in commerce and trade as well.

It would not have made sense in the time of Noah when Cubits and angry flood making gods ruled the day.

Again being historically accurate does not really work with pathfinder. We did not have robots (golems) in the post Renaissance world, we did not have potions capable of healing cuts and burns by drinking it, we didn't have the ability to fly, teleport or astral project. Yes not all of those are technical achievements but they would have a huge impact on the development on a world. In fact I'd argue it is more advanced than modern day in most cases. Healing jelly which pretty much undo all harm done to you? Blessings capable of undoing pretty much any poison regardless the source, regrowing lost limbs, instant teleportation to anywhere in the world or other dimensions, creating food out of thin air, the list goes on and on. Why would you spend thousands of years, trying to get medical technology to our level, when clerics already far surpass us?

Why do so many people insist that "because it's fantasy and magic" that we should throw away any attempt at consistency and verisimilitude in building worlds and magic systems?

Goblin Squad Member

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LazarX wrote:
Moridian wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Moridian wrote:
I am not rage quitting over this, I am just noting that on a global stand point the metric system makes more sense and even America is slowly getting more and more familiar with it.

It "makes sense" from a post Rennaissance Enlightment viewpoint when science is making it's first solid dominance in not only thought but in commerce and trade as well.

It would not have made sense in the time of Noah when Cubits and angry flood making gods ruled the day.

Again being historically accurate does not really work with pathfinder. We did not have robots (golems) in the post Renaissance world, we did not have potions capable of healing cuts and burns by drinking it, we didn't have the ability to fly, teleport or astral project. Yes not all of those are technical achievements but they would have a huge impact on the development on a world. In fact I'd argue it is more advanced than modern day in most cases. Healing jelly which pretty much undo all harm done to you? Blessings capable of undoing pretty much any poison regardless the source, regrowing lost limbs, instant teleportation to anywhere in the world or other dimensions, creating food out of thin air, the list goes on and on. Why would you spend thousands of years, trying to get medical technology to our level, when clerics already far surpass us?
Why do so many people insist that "because it's fantasy and magic" that we should throw away any attempt at consistency and verisimilitude in building worlds and magic systems?

Magic aside, we also got fairly advanced alchemy (speaking about non-magical alchemy here), and we also got guns.

Furthermore, fullplate, while not common, exists in the world, as does halberds and rapiers, all which were fairly late invetions.

So from a strictly non-magical point of view, Golarion is actually fairly advanced when it comes to "simple" science and advancements. It is very late medievial if not renaissance.

All in all, it is impossible to say exactly where on the "real life timeline" Golarion fits into, and arguing about a fantasy world which do not in the least follow our world's laws with our world's laws is ultimately redundant.

I will agree that using a system which only exists in Golarion and not in our world makes much more sense than anything else, however, failing that, I do not see why the people of Golarion would not have figured out that dividing by 10 is easy.

Goblin Squad Member

LazarX wrote:


Why do so many people insist that "because it's fantasy and magic" that we should throw away any attempt at consistency and verisimilitude in building worlds and magic systems?

Way to miss my point entirely. What I was trying to show is that pathfinder is a very different world from ours. Even in our world not all people advance at a equal rate. Why I hear some backwards countries don't even use the metric system yet! What idiots!

That is a joke by the way, before you burn me at the stake.

Gnomes and dwarves who specialize in fine craftsmanship and perfection could have easily come up with a metric system. In fact the metric system is also know as "industrial standard" in sweden, because it is what every factory uses, because it is simpler and there for more efficient. So it would make perfect sense for a race known for their perfectionism to come up with a more streamline way of measurement.

Or are you really saying dwarves are capable of building this? But not this?

Goblin Squad Member

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How about a compromise?

We choose our favorite imperial measurements and then chop them into base 10 ala the metric system.

Now then, do we want to work with kilofeet or millimiles?

Goblin Squad Member

Lifedragn wrote:

How about a compromise?

We choose our favorite imperial measurements and then chop them into base 10 ala the metric system.

Now then, do we want to work with kilofeet or millimiles?

Why not feetres?

Goblin Squad Member

Lifedragn wrote:

How about a compromise?

We choose our favorite imperial measurements and then chop them into base 10 ala the metric system.

Now then, do we want to work with kilofeet or millimiles?

Note: I personally like the verbal flow of the millimile... but I think feet would make for a better measurement. 1 mile = 5.28 KiloFeet. But 1 foot = 0.2 millimiles...

Goblinworks Executive Founder

A mile goes back to being a kilopace, and the pace gets set to 39 inches. Everybody's happy?


That Pathfinder Tabletop rules are given in American units IN SOME PRINTINGS (not all, some translations use metric) does not reflect on the setting's usage of that system of measurement. The rules are explicitly "setting neutral" after all, and can be used in settings ranging from ancient Egypt to Aztec Mexico to Mongol China to 21st Century Europe, each with their own systems of measurement.

AFAIK, there is no info on what units of measurement are used in Golarion, and in fact I would expect there would be SEVERAL systems of measurement. The idea that medieval English units would be appropriate is silly, since there really is no such analog culture in Golarion, especially not in the River Kingdoms, which is the interface between the Romance-analog Taldan "Common" culture and the proto-Slavic Kellid culture. Scythian runes or Roman units would be more appropriate, if anything.

Perhaps the best compromise is using unfamiliar units for ANY modern person, whether they are Scythian terms, Roman units, 'leagues' etc. Since 'realism' in travel times/distance, or the number of people you can feed in a certain amount of land, is apparently not the focus of the game, there is little value in using units which allow players to more 'certainly' correlate game world distance to real-world distances. Might as well just have game-world-flavorful terms...

May I suggest: Kilogoblins (1000 average goblin-lengths)? :-)

As I understand it, encumbrance (personal and container/vehicle capacity) will use a vague hybrid of weight and bulk anyways... May I suggest... Goblinballs?

Perhaps ranged weapon distance is the only thing that is important to have a 'natural' understanding of, but there meters and yards are practically interchangeable. I guess siege weapon range might be encroaching on larger scale distance units...


BTW, I am somebody raised in America with American units, and I can say that even I am not good at converting american units to different scales, whether weight, distance, volume, etc. It's just too much fiddly stuff to remember for something you rarely do. And I was always good at math, so that's not the problem. So I think the American system even fails on it's own merit.

But now pot is getting legalized, so everybody will soon be gram-fluent if they aren't already. :-)

Shadow Lodge Goblin Squad Member

If my game said that a 10-foot pole was now a 4-metre pole, I don't feel like that would break my verisimilitude.

Neither would taking a 2-metre step.

Neither would a close range spell having a range of 10m+2m/level.

Neither would my armor being weighed in kg instead of lb.

Goblin Squad Member

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Nihimon wrote:
Lifedragn wrote:
And then you have those darned numberphiles trying to convince the world to adopt Base 12...

I'd really prefer Base 16...

You monster.

Goblin Squad Member

Drakhan Valane wrote:
Nihimon wrote:
Lifedragn wrote:
And then you have those darned numberphiles trying to convince the world to adopt Base 12...

I'd really prefer Base 16...

You monster.

What... you don't have an intuitive understanding of the proportions of 0xA0 / 0xF0?

Goblin Squad Member

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I think the favoritism of the base 12 system is that you can take your 2/3s ratio there and decimalize it without it being an infinite number. Does base 16 allow the same flexibility?

Goblin Squad Member

Lifedragn wrote:
I think the favoritism of the base 12 system is that you can take your 2/3s ratio there and decimalize it without it being an infinite number. Does base 16 allow the same flexibility?

Nope. But it's very easily and efficiently represented in computer systems, which is where we'll be storing all these numbers.

I think the attempt to store ratios in decimal format is a mistake in general. Even with Base 12, there will be other ratios that end up reducing to infinitely repeating "dodecimalizations".

Goblin Squad Member

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It may have magic, but I think it would be hard to convincingly argue that Pathfinder (and D&D) are primarily based in anything but version of a European medieval world. The base technology is European medieval, the cultural style is European medieval, the basic bestiary is medieval and the social world is European medieval.

Even the magic and religions reflect a medieval mindset. Golems, whilst not European medieval exactly, were certainly known to the medieval scholar through religious texts.

That said, using medieval weights and measures might be confusing. Using the old names would be fine, as long as the units they referred to were easy to use mathematically. I can handle a measurement being called a rod if I know that 1000 of them is a mile and I can walk three miles in an hour. No, it isn't a correct measure but it is easy to work with and gives some period flavour.

Goblin Squad Member

Any way will be fine by me. I (like many others) typically just absorb things like difficult UI's, or weird measurements, given time. I usually moan a bit during the process, but eventually get accustomed.

If Vic popping in to point out what he did (about "standards") doesn't clue us in to the end result....

Goblinworks Executive Founder

I hear the "immersion argument", but don't forget that for a lot of us, it's been 100% metric for 200 years. Honestly, the average french player* just doesn't know jack about feet, inches and miles.

*If you're participating in a 100% english community, you ain't the average french player.

Goblin Squad Member

Forgive my utter ignorance of French Popular Culture, but do French fantasy novels exist? If they do, do they refer to distances in the metric system? I would expect there are many French folks who are as interested in their ancient culture as I am mine, and who find the archaic words from that culture almost magical in their power to evoke emotional responses. Or was that aspect of your cultural history purged during the Revolution? My apologies if that question is awkward, but it actually gets at the heart of why I, personally, reject the Metric System.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Nihimon wrote:
Lifedragn wrote:
I think the favoritism of the base 12 system is that you can take your 2/3s ratio there and decimalize it without it being an infinite number. Does base 16 allow the same flexibility?

Nope. But it's very easily and efficiently represented in computer systems, which is where we'll be storing all these numbers.

I think the attempt to store ratios in decimal format is a mistake in general. Even with Base 12, there will be other ratios that end up reducing to infinitely repeating "dodecimalizations".

But it's nontrivial to factor, and factoring is required at almost every step when dealing with ratios of integers.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Nihimon wrote:
Forgive my utter ignorance of French Popular Culture, but do French fantasy novels exist? If they do, do they refer to distances in the metric system? I would expect there are many French folks who are as interested in their ancient culture as I am mine, and who find the archaic words from that culture almost magical in their power to evoke emotional responses. Or was that aspect of your cultural history purged during the Revolution? My apologies if that question is awkward, but it actually gets at the heart of why I, personally, reject the Metric System.

Honestly, Fantasy Novel are considered a geek thing in France, we don't have a Fantasy tradition, like england. There actually was, a lot of cultural purge since 1789 yes, and until… 10 years ago ? Our ancient culture was considered an evil dark age.

Fantasy readers are more common now, since LOTRO movies (Nobody knew Tolkien before that), we ain't outcast anymore, and yes, fantasy novels (well, translations of : We have ZERO reknown french fantasy authors) uses the old system mostly. I am myself... Er, relatively familiar with it I kinda know 3 feet = 1 meter. But it really isn't the case for the majority of french MMO players.

Goblin Squad Member

@Audoucet, thanks for the reply. I find it fascinating to learn about other cultures, and I must admit I've always been inordinately enamored with the French.

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Well, at least one person is then. :) Self-hate is mandatory in France.
*Come-on Audoucet, don't start on Politics...*

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

How many electrum pieces to a minor league?

Goblin Squad Member

Audoucet wrote:
Honestly, Fantasy Novel are considered a geek thing in France, we don't have a Fantasy tradition, like england.

Bear in mind also the merging of English and French cultures in the Middle Ages. Novels such as Le Morte d'Arthur were based on a mish-mash of English and French traditional folk tales.

Much as our respective nations would like to pretend otherwise, medieval English and French cultural history is very closely intertwined.

Typical of the French, coming over here and pinching our history.... ;o)

Goblin Squad Member

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Audoucet wrote:
Nihimon wrote:
Forgive my utter ignorance of French Popular Culture, but do French fantasy novels exist? If they do, do they refer to distances in the metric system?

Honestly, Fantasy Novel are considered a geek thing in France, we don't have a Fantasy tradition, like england.

(...)

Fantasy readers are more common now, since LOTRO movies (Nobody knew Tolkien before that), we ain't outcast anymore, and yes, fantasy novels (well, translations of : We have ZERO reknown french fantasy authors) uses the old system mostly.

Please allow me to correct you slightly: I agree we don't have a fantasy tradition as in England and the US, and our authors of renown in imaginary literature are more SF oriented, but we do have some French authors of fantasy who are well known and successful with young teenagers (check the series by Pierre Bottero, Ellana, les Mondes d'Ewillan, or Tara Duncan books by Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian), or who come from the tabletop RPG background (such as Frédéric Weil for Nephilim, or Mathieu Gaborit for Agone).

I read some of my daughters books from the Ellana series (and liked them, but that's off-topic), and books from Frédéric Weil or Mathieu Gaborit, but just can't remember what units where used. As a matter of fact, I think they would have been in some way non-immersion breaking, or just absent: for example by using time of travel to measure big distances, or notions such as close or far, or in reach or not.

In the case of books, the reader doesn't have to make any kind of conversions. Approximations are enough (miles are big, kilometers too: 20 of each seem far to travel on foot), or meters / yards / feet (x3 for those) are used for human sized things.

Which leads me to think that units in PFO should be non-immersion breaking for the player: it should be easy to have them presented in metric or imperial depending on the prefs of the player, and have them rounded nicely so as to avoid having cumbersome decimals around. And who cares if they don't convert precisely (mathematically) between both systems, as long as they are consistent ?

What I mean is that an hex could:

. be sticking to "reality" in both systems, as defined by GW today : 680 m flat to flat (as Stephen Cheney said), = 2231 feet flat to flat, taking 8'46" for a human to cross (base speed of 30', 3 miles / hr walking pace). Player chooses in prefs if he wants metric or imperial units.

. or be sort of elastic : round it up or down in each system for better understanding by players, making it for example 700 m flat to flat for Metric users, or 2200 (or 2300 or 2500 or whatever) for Imperial users, but keeping the same travel time of 8'46 in both systems. (Ok, this one isn't a good idea)

. or expressed in some medieval units no one really knows about (leagues, farlongs, goblinmeters, but using decimal conversions) for players, stay in meters internally for devs, and keep the same travel time to cross it.

IMHO, I like the 3rd idea best : doesn't break immersion. Distance in a MMO is really about time taken to travel or range in order to hit something (or not). Doing the math is done by the computer, whereas in a tabletop RPG it's our job to calculate distances.

Moonbird,
(based in France)

Goblinworks Executive Founder

Yeah, using the metric system with fantasy denominations (Inch=1cm, foot=1 decimeter, yard=1 meter, mile=1km ?) could do the trick.

And I know there a some french fantasy writers, but it's nowhere near like in england/US.

Liberty's Edge Goblin Squad Member

Maybe in this culture, people are more fascinated with 60° angles than 90° ones, so they tend to measure plots of land in hexes rather than squares. I mean, putting historical Earth conventions aside, there's no reason to break everything into 4 categories rather than 6. Then we could just use something like 'standard hexes' instead of miles, kilometers, acres, hectares, etc.

Goblin Squad Member

For the purpose of various menus, in particular maps, it should be trivially easy to select the unit of measure you wish to use. The game would just have to run one very quick equation to come up with any unit you want it to display.

It's a bigger issue making NPC's talk in changing terms, but are NPC's talking about units of measure really going to be a thing?

Goblin Squad Member

It would be really cool if there were a setting in which to change between imperial and metric, as well as Fonts and Speech, like American English, British English, and Old English (like Facebook has lol).

Goblin Squad Member

Giorgo wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Distances in the Pathfinder RPG and campaign setting are in feet and miles. The developers would have to make a very compelling case to us to allow that to change for Pathfinder Online.

This sounds reasonable and easy to remember. We already have a lot of new things to learn to play this game, why add more?

Please think of math-challenged players....

And how exactly is it easier for math-challenged individuals to learn the US-system as opposed to learning the Metric-system?

*editing out following bile-like comment for more sense*

As suggested by Hark above; having the measurements on HUD and maps etc be either metric or US, really shouldn't be very hard for the programmers to fix.

The issue that does bring up though is when someone using the US system interacts with someone using the EU system. When he refers to some distance or weight you'd have to know the conversion rate anyway or take the bother and change your settings to match his etc. But then what do you do in a mixed group?

They should probably keep things fair and create their own PfO system based around Hexes/6 and then pick whatever they want from the other systems. They should probably avoid using any of the common names from either system to avoid confusion, but can based them on the most beneficient solutions from the Eu and/or US system.

If one side is going to suffer from them going with either the US or EU system....then might as well everyone suffer :)

Either way...it won't be long before we have an in-game base of comparison for whatever system they go for and our minds will adapt.

Goblin Squad Member

This won't be a popular idea I suspect, but I've noticed in my RL travels that small towns /villages tended to spring up a day's journey by horse from one another wherever the land was cultivated. As the territories was expanding, and in more inhospitable terrain types, the frequency/density of settlements tended to grow farther between or less dense. Perhaps this tendency should be reflected in the world in order to make logistics and logistical vulnerability greater?


This is for the online system. You are not subject to the vagrancies of physical publishing. So there is no reason it could not be done as a simple option.

You define your measurements as variables, and then change it based on locale.

You then choose and design your system to convert automatically.

There exists several different ways to do this, it could be done accurately, or based on a one of the systems that exist in P&P world that round to give "simple" numbers, rather than accurate.

Its not hard(this doesn't mean it won't take work to do). You could even create a whole new set of measurements if you wanted.

Then those who wish to use a measurement that they can understand, can so choose. Those who wish to choose a measurement that feels in line with fantasy can(which is silly anyway, as if it were really to feel fantastical the measurements would be in some completely different format)

This resistance to supporting the population of the rest of the world is reactionary and insane, especially when it is so simple to do. (Oh and before you ask, yes I think companies that are not US based, but sell into the US market should also be offering the same options)

Goblin Squad Member

You have been flagged HEINOUS for using necromancy!
Your alignment has shifted towards evil.
Warning: you are freely attackable for the next 15 minutes.

Scarab Sages Goblin Squad Member

I support the "Necro = Bad" sentiment with regard to this thread.


Guurzak wrote:

You have been flagged HEINOUS for using necromancy!

Your alignment has shifted towards evil.
Warning: you are freely attackable for the next 15 minutes.

I'll take that. As far as many are concerned I probably am evil for my heretical views that publishing both a metric and imperial system would actually be of benefit to Paizo. :lol:

Seriously tho, I won't buy the game until there is a metric version. It's a comment on how much I would like to give them my money, that I come back every 6 months or so to see if they have come to their senses and are now supporting a system that the majority of the world uses.

Goblin Squad Member

is it just using necro or do you have to raise the dead?

Goblin Squad Member

He was with the Atlanta Braves for a long time.....Phil Necro....

There could fairly easily be a set of radio buttons on the UI for Imperial/Metric or any number of other measurement types. It's all a simple math conversion anyway and each could choose the option they preferred from the UI display option panel. Seems like it would be easy enough.

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