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.
They can't have the Euro obviously. They're not Europeans.
Still, a world currency would get rid of a lot of problems.
The metrificators want to take away our units that are evenly divisible by 3!
Yeah. Because 3's a crowd.
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 from
Offenbach,Hessia, Germany are the worst drivers on the planet :-P
I don't know. I do know that last Saturday must have been "drive to Germany and piss off Kae" day in Europe. We had a session and on my way there, some idiot from Luxembourg thought that half a second is more than adequate as warning when you pull out. And on my way back home, some Belgian a@!*!$+ was probably thinking it was a capital crime of me to go less than twice the maximum speed. In town. I couldn't see that bastard's head lights any more, he was that close.
I'm not saying foreigners cannot drive. I'm just saying they come from everywhere.
And just for the record: If you want to do things like tailgating or pulling out when the guy's almost parallel to you, and you want to do them to me, better have your matters in order beforehand. Because I'm going to shove the next guy who does something like this from the road. And then I'll beat him to death with various parts of his car. Seriously.
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.
You call it "getting ahead". I call it "dropping the ball". Squares are for board games, where the rules are arbitrary.
They don't belong in roleplaying games, which attempt to recreate "realistic" tales in a "realistic" world.
With "realistic" I don't mean "everything is just like in the real world", because that would be boring, what with no magic and no elves and no demons.
What I mean is that it strives to create something internally consistent, where the 4th wall is indestructible, where things make sense to those involved within the story.
"Your speed is 6 squares" is not adequate for that. Unless you use a battlemat (something that no RPG requires), they are, in fact, meaningless.
"Squares", as an abstraction, does not inherently contradict suspension of disbelief and the internal consistency of the fantasy world.
Imagine, for example, a world in which some typically irrational Roman emperor decreed that all distance be measured in paces (5 ft) and defined a mile as 1000 paces. A "square" would be a square pace.
The Roman mile, in fact, was exactly 5,000 Roman feet, and the Romans didn't really use a unit of 1,000 feet. The English statute mile was fixed at 5,280 ft during the reign of Queen Elizabeth so that the statute mile would match eight furlongs, as the furlong was the length of the traditional Anglo-Saxon acre from the pre-Norman period.
It's 4e-ish to ask players to come up with a reason for why things are the way they are. But all measurement in the game is something of an abstraction, and being clear about the nature and relationships of the game rules can be very advantageous: it's the whole advantage of the core mechanic.
That clarity, predictability, and extensibility is why people like the metric system.
It's not any more difficult to believe that every nation that has ever existed in the world mints coins at 50 to the pound, and 9 grams of gold (real world value US$272.30) is worth exactly two pounds of copper (real world value US$5.08).
You call it "getting ahead". I call it "dropping the ball". Squares are for board games, where the rules are arbitrary.
They don't belong in roleplaying games, which attempt to recreate "realistic" tales in a "realistic" world.
The ways in which every RPG sacrifices realism for playability are so innumerable that it's a little hard to credit that the difference between calling a unit of board space 5' or 1 square is what will break the illusion.
"Your speed is 6 squares" is not adequate for that. Unless you use a battlemat (something that no RPG requires), they are, in fact, meaningless.
That movement and position happens in gradations of 5' is also meaningless. I have these 1-foot square tiles in my kitchen and I've tried standing in the middle of a 5-by-5 area and picture myself managing to punch somebody in the middle of the next one. It's absurd. But it's a convention we accept because it's playable.
But I'm really not concerned about whether you define it as a 'square' if that's what's bothering you. That's just a matter of taste. I myself don't like seeing game space described 'inches' as is done in Savage Worlds.
But what I'm talking about is that for example if we define a magically created wall in terms that don't directly translate to game scale, then we aren't adding realism, we're adding either extra complication or more likely vagary. Keeping track of most things that are finer than game scale is the equivalent tracking insignificant digits in science. The consequences in gameplay are just going to get rounded up to 5' squares anyway, so why define spells in units that make it a whole other step to figure out how many squares are affected?
That link about the history of minis in D&D I posted on the last page goes into some of that, about how the original scale of D&D had one inch sometimes represent 3.5 feet, which a Fighting Man could adequately defend with a sword.
Those scale had to coexist with minis available at the time in HO scale where 25 mm (one metric inch, ha) represented 6 feet (aka two meters).
For realism, the scale needs to be human scale. For playability, it ought be defined in fives and 10s of units, easier to grok for those of us trained in decimal math.
The designers of Savage Worlds defines the game scale as 2 yards, which is most people couldn't distinguish from 2 meters on sight. According to a forum post at PEGINC, the rationale was that humans get up to about six feet, and people are supposed to be able to lie prone in those squares. Fine by me.
Oh, and here's a suggestion, for people like KaeYoss who find that a 'square' is one abstraction too far -- the Roman reckoned a 'passus' to be 5-feet, and didn't have battle grids to consider. Our modern word is 'pace' which we know historically was used to refer to the ordinary experience of moving on the ground. So, why not list speed in paces? Seems to solve both those problems.
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speaking as a surveyor, one of the principle reasons the US will likely never adopt metric (until the eventual overthrow by our base10 overlords) is the Public Land Survey System. Approx 65% - 70% of the deeds to real property in the 5/8 of the country that abides by the PLSS system are issued in feet, links (.6'), poles (4.125'), rods (16.5'), chains (66'), and miles.
that's not to say that i wouldn't mind everything being in SI units, because everything i do in life is decimal anyway. simply changing everything to multiples of 2m (a good measure for a former 5' space) would work. gnomes would be 1m tall, halfings .75m, dwarves 1.5m, humans 1.75 - 2m. 2m would give a good round number for a battle grid square since its a smidge bigger than the average human male's armspan.
spells like create water that do 1gal/level may have to be tweaked a bit since nobody wants to see a 3.785 liter bucket for sale at their local outfitter. move earth or transmute mud/rock that do 10' cubes can easily do 3m cubes and just deal with the round ups.
I have a question -- as those reading this thread know, the US has never converted to the metric system from the imperial, and most of us are right proud of it. And yet, when I go to buy any sort of liquid (except for milk), the amounts available are 12 oz., 20/24 oz., and then 1 and 2 liters? What the heck is up with that? And why is milk the exception? Somebody explain that to me! Aaargh!
You darned metric people, if it weren't for you I could go right on buying my Mountain Dew up to gallon sizes!
The ways in which every RPG sacrifices realism for playability are so innumerable that it's a little hard to credit that the difference between calling a unit of board space 5' or 1 square is what will break the illusion.
It's not the same.
A lot of realism is sacrificed, but it's a lot of subtle, behind the curtains stuff, and usually you gain a lot by it.
This abandonment of any real distances isn't that much of a help (sure, you don't have to think about feet and miles, but unless you're a slow learning 5-year-old, that stuff isn't really hard), and it's extremely obvious.
That movement and position happens in gradations of 5' is also meaningless.
What do you mean, meaningless? What's meaning got to do with this?
And not all movement and position happens in 5' steps. It's a simplifacation that is used when you use a battlemat. You can still walk 3 feet in one direction. Or an inch.
I have these 1-foot square tiles in my kitchen and I've tried standing in the middle of a 5-by-5 area and picture myself managing to punch somebody in the middle of the next one. It's absurd. But it's a convention we accept because it's playable.
You confuse convention with rule. The game doesn't say you use up the whole 5' square. It suggests that if you use a battlemat, assume that a medium-size character is assigned a 5' square. Because people don't stand still during a fight.
But I'm really not concerned about whether you define it as a 'square' if that's what's bothering you.
I'm concerned that the game uses "square" as the default area/distance unit. It's a game term. It's okay if board games use that, because there, the squares are nothing but squares. It's a game, nothing else. It isn't supposed to be a model of a "real" world.
A roleplaying game is.
But what I'm talking about is that for example if we define a magically created wall in terms that don't directly translate to game scale, then we aren't adding realism, we're adding either extra complication or more likely vagary.
You can't add a wall and not say how large it is. This is not a board game, it needs to have a real size.
And, again, squares only make sense if you use squares. Roleplaying games don't require squares.
Pathfinder doesn't require squares, or a mat, and never will.
You can still walk 3 feet in one direction. Or an inch.
Does your GM keep notes on how many inches away you have to be to trigger a trap?
I played D&D without a battlemat for years, and back then those increments still didn't matter because you ended up having to describe your location in terms of landmarks, and even then we'd get jammed up because everybody had a different idea where everybody else was. Not using the grid didn't make it more immersive, it made the scene more nebulous. We'd all be imagining a different battle scene. In those cases, measurements as low as 3 feet were even less significant than they are using a battlemat, because nobody had anything like that specific an idea where everyone was.
It's a game, nothing else. It isn't supposed to be a model of a "real" world.
A roleplaying game is.
If you're looking to eliminate rules that make D&D unreal and boardgame-like, start with hit points.
You confuse convention with rule. The game doesn't say you use up the whole 5' square. It suggests that if you use a battlemat, assume that a medium-size character is assigned a 5' square. Because people don't stand still during a fight.
It's a simplifying assumption that works well in running a combat. That's a good thing. But you yourself don't seem to like to admit any new simplifying assumptions to make the game run smoother.
Pathfinder doesn't require squares, or a mat, and never will.
So, when an enemy casts a fireball on the paladin, does the rogue who may be around twenty feet away nursing his last hit point -- the one his mama gave him -- take the GM's word that he's within the area of effect?
Does your GM keep notes on how many inches away you have to be to trigger a trap?
No.
He keeps track of it in millimeters.
I played D&D without a battlemat for years, and back then those increments still didn't matter because you ended up having to describe your location in terms of landmarks, and even then we'd get jammed up because everybody had a different idea where everybody else was. Not using the grid didn't make it more immersive, it made the scene more nebulous.
I don't say you have to like not playing with a grid.
I'm saying it should be an option. Not a must.
We do use a grid in our games, for all bigger combat scenes.
We don't use it for everything, though. And we certainly use it only for combat.
And in our game, it's possible to use magic even if you're not on a grid or in an encounter.
It's a simplifying assumption that works well in running a combat.
If Pathfinder were a skirmish wargame, that would even be helpful.
Pathfinder isn't. PF might be combat-heavy, but it is a full-fledged RPG. And that means that it has to work outside of combat.
Using squares exclusively doesn't.
So, when an enemy casts a fireball on the paladin, does the rogue who may be around twenty feet away nursing his last hit point -- the one his mama gave him -- take the GM's word that he's within the area of effect?
If the GM says he's within the area, he's within the area.
I really, really like playing with a battlemat, because I have too many memories of AD&D, where no matter how hard I tried to keep my wizards out of the front line, the DM always snuck some zombies around to engage him in (pathetic) melee combat.
But it's easy to forget that lots of people played 3e without a battlemat. I played with one group that found the battlemat and the movement rules confusing, and did without it... but still used attacks of opportunity. The DM just handed them out or took them as seemed appropriate.
Not using the battlemat gives the DM a lot more power to narrate the combat. Evocative DM narration can make any combat seem more cinematic and visually compelling even with the battlemat.
Some people prefer to play that way, tho I prefer being able to say "No, I'm BEHIND the fighter". But it can make it harder for the DM to pull his punches, too.
Back in AD&D, areas of effect were harder to calculate, because fireballs would expand to fill a volume, and lightning bolts would reflect off the walls and corridors at the DM's whim. Fun times.
And yet, when I go to buy any sort of liquid (except for milk), the amounts available are 12 oz., 20/24 oz., and then 1 and 2 liters
O ja. Americans use the metric system all the time... where it seems convenient or appropriate.
I'd rather run a 5K race than a 26-mile marathon, myself. A "fifth" is usually 750 mL. I've only owned foreign cars, but I hear these days they'll put a metric Mazda engine in a customary Ford car, so you need two sets of tools. Bleh.
Land records are a great reason to not shift over entirely. I imagine Europe had some of these issues too... but perhaps the metric system made a thousand years of land records easier to deal with.
Lots of countries keep their customary standards in place alongside the metric system. Japan uses the metric system, except (IIRC) their carpenters, who still use the traditional Japanese measures.
The idea that a country should use the metric system to the exclusion of all other units, without for no other reason that the inherent importance of metrification, seems like a strange idea to me.
But it's easy to forget that lots of people played 3e without a battlemat. I played with one group that found the battlemat and the movement rules confusing, and did without it... but still used attacks of opportunity. The DM just handed them out or took them as seemed appropriate.
I am very much afraid to post this, for fear of sounding stupid but...
Are you serious? Am I interpretting you correctly? You played 3.X combat without a grid?
That's usually the way I handle combat in all other RPGs, including AD&D and BECMI. I always assumed that the PCs could reach the monsters (or vice versa) and attack on the first round. How many monsters were in the range of that fireball spell? I, as DM, decided arbitrarily. Which monsters were in melee range? I would roll randomly to decide which monster was hit. Or if the players insisted on choosing their targets, I would then give the monsters the same ability, allowing them to gang up on one PC. My players seldom insisted on that option, let me tell you! I call this "abstract combat." Only for special battles, or at the players' request, would I use a map.
Much as I love 3.X, one of the things I hate about it is its complete inability to handle combat in an abstract fashion. Can you reach that monster with a 5' step, or will it take more? This will make a huge difference in how many times you can attack. Rules for flanking, which are important for things like Sneak Attack, also prohibit abstract combat. Not to mention attacks of opportunity!
If I tried to rewrite the rules to allow abstract combat, I would have to figure out how to rewrite so many other rules. Improved Uncanny Dodge, for example, would be meaningless if I arbitrarily decided no one was flanking any of the PCs to begin with. Heck, Sneak Attack by itself relies on flanking (unless the target is flat-footed.) And why would any of my players take a feat like Cleave if I decided, arbitrarily, that no one else was within melee range of the PC? Or Combat Reflexes if I decided no one was in range of AoOs? Or Mobility if I decided arbitrarily who was in range of whom?
I find it hard to believe that anyone could explain to my satisfaction how to handle abstract combat in 3.X. But if someone could, it would turn my world upside-down!
Yes, it was a few sessions outside my normal gaming group. Eventually, those folks slowly migrated towards a battlemat, I think, but it was years-long process.
If you run a campaign without a battlemat, it makes a lot of the feats and abilities pointless: PCs are going to stock up on Great Fortitude rather than Mobility.
You might look at some of the games that go for a more explicitly old-school feel, like Castles & Crusades or Microlite20. I don't know how True20 handles combat. Running straight 3.5e or Pathfinder without a battlemat would likely require some ad-hoc rulings. But tactical miniatures has nothing to do with the simplicity of the core mechanic.
I like the battlemat, but it wasn't a bad experience.
The battlemat is one of the reasons I'd rather play Pathfinder rather than C&C or a retro-clone. But it'd be nice to have a stripped-down d20 game where you could make up characters in 15 minutes, and still have simplified, optional rules about battlemat combat. The first job would be stripping out feats.
EDIT
Heavily "rule 0" and say "yes" to the players.
Can you reach that monster with a 5' step, or will it take more? This will make a huge difference in how many times you can attack.
Just handle like in AD&D. Move up and attack. Full attack on successive rounds. Full attack against an adjacent foe. If the DM rules the enemy has moved, take another move action and attack.
Rules for flanking, which are important for things like Sneak Attack, also prohibit abstract combat.
Tell the DM you're trying to sidle around to backstab. If there's room to maneuver, the DM will narrate it as appropriate. Or maybe the rogue can move up, attack, and make 5-foot steps. Or suffer an attack of opportunity to move into position. Or tumble in.
"Flanking" doesn't mean "occupying a specific square", it's what the DM says it means.
Not to mention attacks of opportunity!
If you have moved up to a position where you can attack the enemy, you can take attacks of opportunity against each other. Otherwise, not. Ignore reach, except for unusual or cinematic combats. Or take out AoO entirely.
Narrative combat can occur when DMs and players collaborate on the events; a generous DM can make it work.
A confrontational or rules-lawyery group will have more trouble with the collaboration.
Pathfinder isn't. PF might be combat-heavy, but it is a full-fledged RPG. And that means that it has to work outside of combat.
The re-tooling of spells that I suggest for the purpose of eliminating unusable granularity would not interfere with that at all. You can put up a wall to flummox a rival, or quench the whole party's thirst,ect., without resorting to the grid -- and the important thing is that you can do that without having to know what precise quantities are involved, because outside of combat it's not critical. But in combat, you need to know how many squares are affected and in what way, which is something that has to be figured out, instead of something that is specified in the spell description. Therefore, the problems of using a rule like a wall made of so many 1-foot cubes in combat is not made up for by any benefit you get out of combat.
It's possible that you may have a player who wants to pull something tricky, like forming a wall in the shape of an egg to plug a bend in a corridor in such a way that it will be physically impossible for a giant to smash that plug, and your player can work out the math to show what volume of stone it would take to do that. Long before the calculations are done the GM will have decided 'yay' or 'nay.'
Even if we still wanted to make it possible to specify volumes of stone that can be created, in case of something tricky the player wanted to pull off, we can still retool the spell so that the units involve will be convenient in both SI and Imperial. But given that the equivalent in game scale to a 1-foot cube is 40 cubic centimeters, the math gets more bothersome in SI, which seems like a shame given that the vast majority of the time all you really need to know is how hard it will be for somebody to break or go over that wall.
You might look at some of the games that go for a more explicitly old-school feel, like Castles & Crusades or Microlite20. I don't know how True20 handles combat. Running straight 3.5e or Pathfinder without a battlemat would likely require some ad-hoc rulings.
Yes, I heard that True20 has abstract combat, so I downloaded the free Quick Start rules and previews. I thought that the damage system was complicated, though.
I was very much interested in Castles & Crusades when it came out, so I read the reviews, and it seemed to me that in addition to getting rid of the bad parts of 3.X, it also lost the good parts, like balanced classes, and uniform class progression. If I wanted that, I would just dig out my old AD&D or BECMI books for free. (In fact, I played Basic with my kids recently.)
Microlite20? Never heard of it. I just found the website. Maybe I'll read it one of these days.
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?
Who would actually measure out 300g of flour? Every really serious baker would. Flour compresses. A lot. The only way to reliably measure the amount of flour you have is to weigh it. The difference in volume between sifted and unsifted flour is considerable. The same holds true for other different forms of materials. Fine crystalized sugar vs regular. Pickling salt vs kosher salt. Volume can be an imprecise method of recipe measurement. The more exacting the recipe, the more you need to weigh instead of measure volume.
Serious bakers are only cooking with a few ounces of flour? ;)
When C&C came out, one of our friends wanted to play it, but I didn't want to get rid of the battlemat, and reading reviews later it seems like some of the rules are really wonky and nonstandard, like the use of Primes for DCs.
True20 doesn't use the care attributes, just the modifers, iirc.
Microlite20 is an interesting idea, but I like the six attributes, and damage for spellcasting should be an alternate, not core mechanic.
Basic Fantasy is a d20 game that brings in other weird things, like saves vs. paralyzation and breath.
I wish there was a "Mini20", which was purely a stripped-down d20 with simple, optional rules for a battlemat, and powered down to the level of older games.
I wish there was a "Mini20", which was purely a stripped-down d20 with simple, optional rules for a battlemat, and powered down to the level of older games.
Heh. I once tried to edit my own d20 system to fit my ideals. I took the some of the classes and races of 3rd Edition, but eliminated skills and feats, taking rules from BECMI to fill in the gaps (e.g. thief skills.) Then I wrote a list of 288 spells I wanted to include in the game. I edited 218 of them, and gave up in disgust. I wanted the balance and options of 3rd Edition, and the simplicity of Basic. I got neither.
Hey, a long time ago, I tried to create an entirely different system, based on my ideals at the time: point-based, a truly unified mechanic, and simple, consistent rules. Three times I brought it to play-testing. All three times, it failed miserably.
Writing an RPG isn't easy. That's why those game designers make the bi-... um, paltry bucks.
Land records are a great reason to not shift over entirely. I imagine Europe had some of these issues too... but perhaps the metric system made a thousand years of land records easier to deal with.
Other way around actually. Europe's land records are so old, done under so many differing dynasties and governments, under slightly shifting standards of measure, by many surveyors of varying skill with varying tools, that it was already a huge mess. Metric didn't make it any more complicated than it already was.
Serious bakers are only cooking with a few ounces of flour? ;)
Of course. They don't only bake in the bakery, preparing 2000 buns and 1000 loaves of bread, and 500-odd pastries. They also bake at home.