Not going to happen, I'm afraid. Their primary market is the US.Imperial System FTW!But, if you want to go that route, shouldn't all coinage in Pathfinder also be in:
Pound Sterling, Shillings, and Pence? With Crowns, Farthings, & Guineas thrown in for good measure. :)
The pound is really weak right now. Yesterday, it was worth only 379 grammes.
|
metric is a passing fad.
dividing by 2 and eyeballing it is SO much easier than dividing by 10 and hoping.
That's how NASA works? No wonder you guys haven't made it past the moon yet (we have a regular connexion to mars, but don't tell anybody, we keep it from the Americans so they don't die of envy)
HAHAHAHA !
Some people just like to pound enemies into dust. Me, I've grown up a Mark's man.
Some people just like to pound enemies into dust. Me, I've grown up a Mark's man.
Don't you mean a "Marked Man"?
just a question, does anybody know if Chinese use metric system ?
Yes, they use the metric system in China. When my wife mentions a person's height and weight in centimeters and kilograms, I generally have to translate that to feet + inches and pounds, despite the fact that Canada officially uses the metric system too.
Yes, they use the metric system in China. When my wife mentions a person's height and weight in centimeters and kilograms, I generally have to translate that to feet + inches and pounds, despite the fact that Canada officially uses the metric system too.just a question, does anybody know if Chinese use metric system ?
"You might be playing too much Pathfinder if..."
|
To confuse Americans and annoy the French. It's why we do most things as a nation. ;-)I have a question.... If a country like the UK uses the Metric system... why are all their street signs in Miles?.....
;-)
Well it Did confuse me... Drove there from Europe expecting the signs to be in km and meters, instead they where in Mile and Mile per hour, at first I did not relize it, and I thought to myself... Damn that is Slow, thinking the speed sign was in km not Miles ;-).
Did we have this conversation Paul at Gen Con UK?
|
|
To confuse Americans and annoy the French. It's why we do most things as a nation. ;-)I have a question.... If a country like the UK uses the Metric system... why are all their street signs in Miles?.....
;-)
Well it Did confuse me... Drove there from Europe expecting the signs to be in km and meters, instead they where in Mile and Mile per hour, at first I did not relize it, and I thought to myself... Damn that is Slow, thinking the speed sign was in km not Miles ;-).
Did we have this conversation Paul at Gen Con UK?
Probably. It sounds like the sort of random nonsense my conversations often go into.
Just have to accept the fact that the US and its citizens are going to continue to violate international treaties requiring conversion to Metric.
Actually, considering the more important international treaties that the United States has violated, and continues to do so. I don't think that this is going to be a big problem.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
Just have to accept the fact that the US and its citizens are going to continue to violate international treaties requiring conversion to Metric.Actually, considering the more important international treaties that the United States has violated, and continues to do so. I don't think that this is going to be a big problem.
Yeah, curse us for not treating un uniformed combatants according to the Geneva conventions. Instead of locking them up, we should just give them the protections the conventions allow, and shoot them on the battlefield.
Back on topic: I was raised on metric as well, the country just never converted. Pain in the aft cooking, trying to remember how many tablespoons in a pint or some such nonsense.
As I understand it, Webster was the first who significantly standardised American English and part of his ambition was making it different to British English (as well as more sensible ideas like making it more systematic).
That is true. I think he even suggested simplifying the language by dropping silent letters (i.e. spelling words phonetically).
Of course, whether most of the world 'drives properly' is a different matter. Indiana drivers, for example, clearly can't...
People from Boston either. I thought New Orleans drivers were bad until I went to Boston.
|
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
As I understand it, Webster was the first who significantly standardised American English and part of his ambition was making it different to British English (as well as more sensible ideas like making it more systematic).That is true. I think he even suggested simplifying the language by dropping silent letters (i.e. spelling words phonetically).
Which, ironic enough, isn't spelled fonetically (Yes I know the root of the word, but it's still funny.
Weird thing. I've always spelled stuff English without realizing it. Not all my weirdly spelled words are typos.
|
|
Yes, they use the metric system in China. When my wife mentions a person's height and weight in centimeters and kilograms, I generally have to translate that to feet + inches and pounds, despite the fact that Canada officially uses the metric system too.just a question, does anybody know if Chinese use metric system ?
Reading this, I was wondering if another Canuck was going to let everyone in on our secret ... that we use both systems of measurement. Most people I know use "gallon" and "mile" when they're actually talking about "litre" and "kilometre" ... could be why we measure distance in time (as in, "oooh, it's aboot 3 hours away, eh?").
Reading this, I was wondering if another Canuck was going to let everyone in on our secret ... that we use both systems of measurement. Most people I know use "gallon" and "mile" when they're actually talking about "litre" and "kilometre" ... could be why we measure distance in time (as in, "oooh, it's aboot 3 hours away, eh?").
I can't speak for any other Canadians, but only old fogies use "gallons", in my experience!
Miles, inches and pounds are pretty common, though.
|
|
Using "square" as a measurement is actually a pretty ingenious way to sidestep the issue of which system to use. But the fact that it implies that you can't do a map with a grid at a different scale is a game-breaker for me; sometimes, a location is just too large to fit on a single page at a scale of "1 square = 5 feet" after all.
Nah, just kick in a conversion in the key, such as "1 square = 5 squares". ;)
|
|
Yes, they use the metric system in China. When my wife mentions a person's height and weight in centimeters and kilograms, I generally have to translate that to feet + inches and pounds, despite the fact that Canada officially uses the metric system too.just a question, does anybody know if Chinese use metric system ?
Technically, they use the SI system. However, most of the people still use the traditional methods (Chinese measures), much like Englanders (;P) still use miles and pints.
Webster was a great spelling reformer, one of the few to actually get some changes through.
English orthography is of such fiendish complexity it could only have been devised by Titivillius himself. People have seen the need for spelling reform since the mid-1500s, when the Latin alphabet with five vowels was standardized in print to represent English's dozen or more, and even before English went through the Great Vowel Shift and other vowel changes.
But that people in England spell "metre" the way that French-speaking people pronounce it is not a good reason why Americans should not spell "meter" the way English-speaking people pronounce it.
How do you cook recipes? Good lord that has to be a nightmare
Actually, the only way I can remember how many tablespoons are in a cup is to remember that a teaspoon is 5 mL, a tablespoon is 15 mL, and a cup is 240 mL. Customary units defined in metric terms can be very convenient. Two cups is easier to think about than 480 mL.
Lots of the Commonwealth countries write out their recipes in units of mass rather than units of volume, which seems really awkward to me. It's easy to measure two cups of flour, but who would ever actually measure out 300 grams of flour?
The metric pound is 500g. It's not really an official unit but a rather common one. You can order 'ein viertel Pfund Schinken' and everyone knows what you want (if he understands german of course).
There is also the 'zentner' which has 50 kg.
I love all those metric customary units. IIRC, a zenter is basically a hundredweight, and 50 kg is about equal to 100 pounds.
China is metric, and the li is defined as 500 m, or half a klick. It was always around a third of a mile, but varied a lot over 3000 years of history.
That's one of the main problems the metric system was designed to solve. The English foot descended from the Roman foot, which descended from the ancient Egyptian foot. It's historically rich and usefully human-scale. But over the 1500 years following the collapse of the Roman Empire, weights and measures diversified enormously, hampering trade. Americans never had this problem: there was a reliable, enforced standard of weights and measures common to nearly all the continent from a very early in its history. So the metric system was always something technocrats and Europeans were telling us to do, rather than a system that offers a solution to a problem we have.
Apart from the cup, my favorite customary metric unit is the metric inch (25mm, not 25.4mm) and the metric foot (300mm, not 304.8mm). If we used the metric foot as a base unit (for building bookcases and measuring people's height), we'd have a unit of length that's evenly divisible by 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 12: the benefits of both systems.
Back OT, the pace was a Roman unit of length equal to 5 feet. A pace would be functionally equivalent to a square, but you could have larger-scale maps where 1 square = 2 paces. In metric countries, you could translate a pace as "functionally two meters".
EDIT
A cubit is 18 inches. There are two cubits in a yard, and a man is (on average) about 4 cubits tall. When the Romans borrowed the cubit from the Egyptians, they borrowed the ordinary (18-inch) cubit rather than the royal cubit that was used to build the pyramids.
Technically, they use the SI system. However, most of the people still use the traditional methods (Chinese measures), much like Englanders (;P) still use miles and pints.
I can only speak for my wife: She uses centimeters, kilograms, and kilometers naturally without any pausing for mental conversion. I think I asked her how long a "li" was once and she gave me a blank stare. :-)
just kick in a conversion in the key, such as "1 square = 5 squares".
That reminds me of some of the old 1e materials (I saw it in Lankhmar, iirc) where inches and feet were used inconsistently to describe game world-scale and battlemat-scale. Something like: "A medusa has reach of 1 inch with her serpents, but her gaze attack affects everyone within 25 feet".
Aha, check out "Minis in the Game" at Wizards for some choice quotes.
EDIT
I think I asked her how long a "li" was once and she gave me a blank stare.
Ja, I don't recall ever seeing a distance in li in the months I spent travelling there, altho I wouldn't have understood if I saw it ;) "500k" is pretty internationally understood.
It's the sad truth of the customary metric units: they're mostly an interesting roadbump on the path to full metrification, and only rarely do any of them continue on as a unit in common use.
|
|
Lots of the Commonwealth countries write out their recipes in units of mass rather than units of volume, which seems really awkward to me. It's easy to measure two cups of flour, but who would ever actually measure out 300 grams of flour?
Actually, I find the mass easier. I have scales, I can and do weigh (the UK measurements in my books, which are mostly pretty old, are generally in pounds and ounces, which are units of weight, rather than in units of mass, but I guess Australian, Canadian, etc, recipes are in units of mass) flour with them and there's less variability due to packing in the outcome. Additionally, as I am British and living in America, it saves me having to convert between the American cup (8 fl oz*) and the Imperial cup (10 fl oz*).
*US fluid ounces are marginally bigger than the UK ones, so the Imperial cup isn't as much larger as the American one as one might expect, but the difference is still significant enough; as the pint in both countries is two of the domestic cups, the difference becomes noticeable when drinking beer for prolonged periods...
And here in Germany there also was the “elle” for measuring length.
It was somehow related to feet but was defined as the distance between elbow and middle finger.
The elle dates back to Mesopotamia.
Every medieval German town used the elle but in every town it was of different length.
In Freiburg 54,0cm defined into 20 Zoll of 2,7cm, A Freiburg Feet was 32,4cm
In Hamburg 57,31cm
In Bavaria 83,20cm = 34 and 1 quarter Zoll
Normally there was a metal Elle attached to the church wall.
Here’s the German Wiki link
I have to agree with Krome, I can't wrap my head around cooking using metric measurements.
I don't see a problem with it. The best recipes use metric measurements. But you can mix, too. To wit:
Die Eier von Satan
Eine halbe Tasse Staubzucker
Ein Viertel Teelöffel Salz
Eine Messerspitze türkisches Haschisch
Ein halbes Pfund Butter
Ein Teelöffel Vanillenzucker
Ein halbes Pfund Mehl
Einhundertfünfzig Gramm gemahlene Nüsse
Ein wenig extra Staubzucker
... und keine Eier
In eine Schüssel geben
Butter einrühren
Gemahlene Nüsse zugeben und
Den Teig verkneten
Augenballgroße Stücke vom Teig formen
I'm Staubzucker wälzen und
Sagt die Zauberwörter
Simsalbimbamba Saladu Saladim
Auf ein gefettetes Backblech legen und
Bei zweihundert Grad für fünfzehn Minuten backen und
KEINE EIER
Bei zweihundert Grad für fünfzehn Minuten backen und
Keine Eier...
Wasn't Pathfinder the name of the mars probe were the guys at NASA got confused between feet and meters and crashed the probe due to a low orbit 3 times lower than expected ? :D ... hum sorry ... it must be another probe ...
Not quite: They confused two units of force (the pound and the newton) when calculating an orbital correction. Same effect, though.
|
If the government of a country like the UK told the people to work in metric, they wouldn't give a toss and they would happily continue with miles, feet and (especially) pints :)I have a question.... If a country like the UK uses the Metric system... why are all their street signs in Miles?.....
;-)
And that' why I just adore the English...
A pub somewhere in Manchester...
"BBC 1 would like to announce that Parliament has ruled that it is imperative to the continuance of the UK that you all start paying attention to what they..."
*CLICK*
John: 'Thanks Danny, that was giving me a right headache... 'Nother pint, when ya git a chance?'
Danny the Bartender: 'Hey now, you aren't driving tonight, are ya...?'
John:'God no, the wife's got the car...I'm walkin' Anyways, only half a mile to the flat.'
Danny: 'Coming right up, John...'
|
|
I have to agree with Krome, I can't wrap my head around cooking using metric measurements.I don't see a problem with it. The best recipes use metric measurements. But you can mix, too. To wit:
Die Eier von Satan
Eine halbe Tasse Staubzucker
Ein Viertel Teelöffel Salz
Eine Messerspitze türkisches Haschisch
Ein halbes Pfund Butter
Ein Teelöffel Vanillenzucker
Ein halbes Pfund Mehl
Einhundertfünfzig Gramm gemahlene Nüsse
Ein wenig extra Staubzucker
... und keine EierIn eine Schüssel geben
Butter einrühren
Gemahlene Nüsse zugeben und
Den Teig verknetenAugenballgroße Stücke vom Teig formen
I'm Staubzucker wälzen und
Sagt die Zauberwörter
Simsalbimbamba Saladu SaladimAuf ein gefettetes Backblech legen und
Bei zweihundert Grad für fünfzehn Minuten backen und
KEINE EIERBei zweihundert Grad für fünfzehn Minuten backen und
Keine Eier...
Not sure what that was all about, but Ugh...German food.
...Says the guy who is, even now, preparing to eat sausages and sour kraut, now the his (vegetarian) girlie finally went home to her place.Just funning, you folks did invent strudel, after all...Mmm...strudel...
-Uriel
Hey there !
Now that everyone works in metrics system... Yeah yeah ! even you ! When will, if ever, will we get a D&D in metrics system. You know ... meters, kilograms, metric tons and so on ?
Is it just "never going to happen ?"
No. . .I don't think it will. The reason being, the same reason D&D is not written in spanish. It's an American company.
Not sure what that was all about, but Ugh...German food.
Those are the lyrics to the Tool song "Die Eier von Satan". Which are a recipe. Spoken in German (and quite passable German, especially for an American).
The devil's in the detail in this case.
People from Boston either. I thought New Orleans drivers were bad until I went to Boston.Forget Boston, the whole state of Massachusetts is full of bad drivers...
Dave Barry had a good quote on this:
"In Boston, the drivers refuse to obey even the laws of physics."
But if you want a taste of some serious "I don't give a fnck, outta my way or I'm ramming you" kinda driving, Saudi Arabia can't be beat. This Massachusetts man was horrified every time I got behind the wheel and took to those roads. Should rename that country Death Race 2000ia.
metric is a passing fad.
dividing by 2 and eyeballing it is SO much easier than dividing by 10 and hoping.
That's how NASA works? No wonder you guys haven't made it past the moon yet (we have a regular connexion to mars, but don't tell anybody, we keep it from the Americans so they don't die of envy)
It just illustrates it was a miracle that we got the Mars Lander even close enough to Mars to crash into it.
Yeah, I wish the US would finally convert to MEtric, at this rate it will be another 200 years before we convert, if we ever even do.
...
Yeah, I wish the US would finally convert to MEtric, at this rate it will be another 200 years before we convert, if we ever even do.
Since Thompson Bearings(an iconic american shaft an bearing manufacturer) is opening a metric poduct line, there might be hope yet!
May we never convert! And may the UK deconvert!
|
|
May we never convert! And may the UK deconvert!
YOU shall be converted my son !
It's funny now to hear about a "metric" foot or a "metric" pound which has absolutely no meaning at all.
Although a "metric ton" is meaningful as there are tons in the metric AND imperial system, a metric foot isn't as there's no feet in the metric system.
If you want to round a foot to 0.3 m then call it a "rounded foot" and call 500g a "rounded pound".
This has nothing to do with metrics ....
Another thought : funny how this thread now changed his path to "Drivers from (Name somewhere which is not your place) can't drive at all ".
"How can you guys use such a stoopid system to make your own bread ?", "How to cook for Satan" ... :D
I can't wait for the rest .... :D
I do know the pound as 500 grammes here.
Do we really need to think less?
We need to think about more important matters.
Unification, while surely robbing the global culture of diversity, allows mankind to better pool resources.
Do you want a million different currencies back? Imagine the US without the US Dollar. I sure remember Europe without the Euro. And while I haven't seen Germany without the Deutschmark, I do know what a mess things were before we had a single currency.
Or imagine these boards without a Lingua Franca. I know I wouldn't be here.
My suggestion is to go dual: Use a globilised system everything official, but keep localised culture alive at the same time.
Do you want a million different currencies back? Imagine the US without the US Dollar. I sure remember Europe without the Euro. And while I haven't seen Germany without the Deutschmark, I do know what a mess things were before we had a single currency.
But while Europe is better off converting from dozens of tiny, more unstable currencies to the Euro, converting to the Euro offers the United States no advantages. It already has a uniform currency perfectly adequate to the needs of domestic and international trade.
There's no reason for the whole world to go on the Euro standard.
The metrificators want to take away our units that are evenly divisible by 3!
Another thought : funny how this thread now changed his path to "Drivers from (Name somewhere which is not your place) can't drive at all ".
And that part of the discussion is really pointless.
It is a simple scientific fact that the people fromOffenbach,Hessia, Germany are the worst drivers on the planet :-P
My Pathfinder chargen allows you to use either SI or "Imperial" units, though there is no established standard for what the equivalents should be. I've been meaning to get around to pushing for commonsense standards for RPGs to make them friendlier to metric conversion.
Basically, I apply the following assumptions:
- The game will never scale with the real world unless you want a really complicated game.
- What really matters is that the measurements given are 1) convenient to use and 2) convey a subjective sense of scale.
- The 5' standard is arbitrary and selected for convenience. The SI analog in both mathematical convenience and subjective sense of space is 2 meters.
- Likewise, map scale is a matter of playability rather than real-life precision. If you ever need to know how big your barony would be if you put it on earth, you can dig into the complications then.
- Thus, you might as well use the convenient assumption that 1 mile is 2 km.
- If you ever need to know how many game squares are in a mile, you'll find it convenient if a mile were defined as 5,000 feet (as apparently the Romans did). This is doubly convenient, because it is the same number of combat squares as the 2 km map unit.
That's the easy stuff. Most matters of scale are easily dealt with by the following assumptions:
- 5 ft = 2 m = 1 combat square
- 1 mile = 5,000 ft. = 2 km = 1,000 combat squares
- 2 lbs. = 1 kg
Easy as pie to use. You can eyeball conversions, though it would be nice to reform the weights of all the item tables so that the arbitrary chosen units were all equally convenient converted to either pounds or kilos.
Where it gets complicated is certain spells that specify units like gallons, cubic feet and inches. But most of these specifications are superfluous, because they are more specific information than you need, and getting information you need from that data requires math that will slow down the game. For example, you don't need to know how many gallons per level Create Water makes. What you really need to know is how many people or horses you can sate with that water, or how much of a game-scale space you can fill, etc. You don't need the number of gallons except as a way to find out something else. You also don't need to know how many foot-cubes of wall you can create. You need to know how hard it will be to get through -- hardness, hit points, height, all of which will have to be worked out based on the unit given instead of being the units given themselves.
4th edition got way ahead of the game on this. Very little in spell or power descriptions is expressed in terms that don't directly apply to game scale. But to do it for 3.5 or Pathfinder RPG edition would mean re-writing a number of spells, which I hope to have time to do one day.