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You could always just use the range band system from FFG's SWRPG. I hated it at first but it grew on me. I realized that the more ranged combat there is, the less a grid really matters.
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the compatibility is, excuse me, a BS excuse. call the 5 ft. squares 3m squares and nothing would change. call it 5m squares, which is close enough, and you don't even have to do math.
other than a few distances for ranged weapons and spells I don't think there are any other important rules involved
It's no more BS than demanding that an American game, played mainly by Americans, be using a measurement system that most Americans rejected when the government tried to force it on them decades ago.
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Speaking as an engineer... It saddens me that the US opted to stick with their customary units rather than convert to metric like the rest of the world. So, so close to a global standard on units and measurements, and the joy that could have been... well, okay, at least the reduced frustration of having to convert things constantly whenever dealing with anything from or going into the US.
The last election was the voice of Americans who have had more than enough of having globalism shoved down their throats for corporate benefit.
Jimmy Carter put up metric speed limit signs.
This great nation responded by shooting holes in the signs, often from vehicles with nary a metric indicator on the speedometer. (We have since seen dual-unit speedometers added)
Every single U.S. science class I've been privy to uses the metric system. It's not hard to understand, and makes logical sense.
No one I know has difficulty understanding the metric system, and equally, no one I know in this country really has any interest in converting their day today units (which we all have a rough intuitive grasp of through custom and practice) into something else. We honestly just don't "think" in metric, and it's easy enough for us to muddle through when elsewhere that we're going to keep producing rulers and speedometers with inches and centimeters, miles per hour and kilometers per hour, thermometers with both Celsius and Fahrenheit*, and so on.
I only see the metric system in active use when people are buying soda (we don't monkey around- a 2-liter bottle is simply called a 2-liter) or shooting (our gun-enthused culture is keenly aware of what a nine or seven millimeter round looks like, or a 7.62mm...). I sincerely doubt that Starfinder is going to use the metric system, because as good as Paizo are at what they do, they're already facing a bit of a struggle releasing a new game and setting onto a crowded market.
* I must add, speaking as I do from a place where the temperature extremes are vast and terrible(in terms of terrestrial temperatures) from day to day, that Celsius may be "easy" and "universal," but it also lacks the granularity that so helps Alaskans express just HOW friggin' cold or hot it is outside with great precision.
I find it somewhat ironic that the USA so vehemently uphold the system used by an Empire which they proudly rejected 240 years ago ;-)
They rejected the Empire mainly for not holding up it's own Imperial standards for treatment of it's subjects in the Colonies. That, and the fact that the English were about to abolish slavery.
Suppose Starfinder went with an imprecise measuring system? The idea here is to use imaginary units that are actually ranges or 'fuzzy approximations' of real world units. Everyone can pretend their metron is about 5 ft, or actually closer to 2 meters. It works either way, because everything else in the universe scales up or down to match it.
Example:
"This system measures personal reach, movement, and weapon ranges in units of length called metrons. One metron is approximately how far apart a human can stretch out their arms, from fingertip to fingertip. Of course, not all humans are the same size. Some can stretch for 5 ft (about 1.5 meters), while others can stretch as far as 2 meters (6.6 ft). Just as no humans are the same size, not all metrons are the same size; they are merely an approximation.
One metron is approximately 5.00 to 6.56 ft (152 to 200 cm) and is divided into 10 dekons (6.00-7.87 inches / 15.2-20.0 cm) and 100 centons (0.6-0.787 inches / 1.52-2.00 cm). 1,000 metrons equals one kilon (0.95-1.24 mi / 1.52-2.00 km).
As well, the unit of time in Starfinder (a round) is never exactly 6 seconds, only an approximation). 10 rounds is approximately one minute, 60 minutes one hour. The number of hours in a given day varies by locale.
Astronomically, one luxon equals 1 million kilons, or the distance traveled by light in vacuum in one round.
The basic unit of weight in Starfinder is the coin, which is somewhere between 1/50th of a pound and 1/100th of a kilogram (between 9.07 and 10 g). 100 coins equals one pile (2.0-2.2 lb / 0.907-1.000 kg). 1,000 piles equals one ton.
Precision in playing is not strictly necessary, and can actually slow things down as everyone tries to work out decimal fractions. Rather we hope you'll be okay with fudged measurements, 'eyeballing' things, and in general going with your gut as to whether something is short enough, long enough, close enough, or far enough for your purposes."
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As an American and an Engineer you can pry my miles and degrees Fahrenheit from my cold dead hands!
I'm fine using metric when I'm doing work, but for day to day, inches all the way.
Bah, you are all like little babies. I still use apothecary units at work.
Now if you want to talk temperature:
Blue is colder, red is hotter.
Room temperature is at 0, between 72 F and 20 C.
One unit shift adds or subtracts between 5 C and 10 F.
1 blue = between 15 degrees C and 62 degrees F
2 blue = between 10 C and 52 F
3 blue = between 5 C and 42 F
4 blue = 0 C or 32 F
5 blue = between -5 C and 22 F
6 blue = between -10 C and 12 F
1 red = between 25 C and 82 F
2 red = between 30 C and 92 F; considered "very hot conditions"
3 red = between 35 C and 102 F
4 red = between 40 C and 112 F; considered "severe heat conditions"
5 red = between 45 C and 122 F
6 red = between 50 C and 132 F; considered "extreme heat conditions"
The system's not perfect of course.
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You could always just use the range band system from FFG's SWRPG. I hated it at first but it grew on me. I realized that the more ranged combat there is, the less a grid really matters.
Yes - if a game is mostly long-ranged combat, you'd probably be better off either with something abstract, or using a tape measure. (I'm kinda surprised that more RPGs don't use tape measures. It seems to be a wargame only thing.)
Grids work best for melee & work pretty well for shorter ranges.
Bah, you are all like little babies. I still use apothecary units at work.
Bah! for my dress measurements, I use astronomic units.
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They should obviously go hardcore astrophysics, and use Kelvin for temperature and centimeters for distance.
You haven't really studied astrophysics until you've read papers talking about interplanetary distances in cm.
Oh, and Matthew: your propose system bothers the heck out of me as a physicist. Blue is a hotter color than red. Red is the coldest color in the visible spectrum.
They should obviously go hardcore astrophysics, and use Kelvin for temperature and centimeters for distance.
You haven't really studied astrophysics until you've read papers talking about interplanetary distances in cm.
Oh, and Matthew: your propose system bothers the heck out of me as a physicist. Blue is a hotter color than red. Red is the coldest color in the visible spectrum.
Do we have equipment that can measure interplanetary distances to the accuracy that using centimeters is actually accurate? It would be kind of crazy to measure something in centimeters if your error was plus or minus 5 centimeters.
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Do we have equipment that can measure interplanetary distances to the accuracy that using centimeters is actually accurate? It would be kind of crazy to measure something in centimeters if your error was plus or minus 5 centimeters.
Depends on the body. We can measure the distance to the Moon to an accuracy of a couple centimeters, for example.
Do we have equipment that can measure interplanetary distances to the accuracy that using centimeters is actually accurate? It would be kind of crazy to measure something in centimeters if your error was plus or minus 5 centimeters.They should obviously go hardcore astrophysics, and use Kelvin for temperature and centimeters for distance.
You haven't really studied astrophysics until you've read papers talking about interplanetary distances in cm.
Oh, and Matthew: your propose system bothers the heck out of me as a physicist. Blue is a hotter color than red. Red is the coldest color in the visible spectrum.
Actually yes we do.. provided that the object in question is a rock in vacuum and someone has helpfully placed a reflector aimed at the right angle.
Radar might work as well.
I think now that I've had time to think on it and sleep, I'd rather stay with feet. Personally, I generally find counting 5, 10, 15, etc easier than counting 1.5, 3, 4.5, etc. Especially going from 3 to 4.5 slows me down a bit.If they did switch to meters - they'd probably switch to each square being two meters to prevent that kind of issue. (Yes - I know that two meters are a bit over 6.5 feet.) I think that was what d20 Star Wars did. (I think both Revised & Saga.)
That's fair. I just personally don't really see any reason to change to metric that will enrich the game. As the OP said, they want the change so that they don't have to continuously translate the lengths to metric while playing. However, changing to metric means that my group and I now have to do that translation. I'd rather not do that personally, sorry. And having both options would be interesting, but kind of tedious for the editior to have to get all that.
So I'm fine keeping things the way they are. To me, it's just measurements and feet/miles/pounds/acres work well for me. Especially with weight. For my job (baking and cooking) I'll stick with metric (except for temperature). But I think I'm okay with feet in Pathfinder. For me, it just feels like change for the sake of change, rather than improving it. And this is coming from someone that more often than not, prefers metric.
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That's fair. I just personally don't really see any reason to change to metric that will enrich the game. To me, it's just measurements and feet/miles/pounds/acres work well for me. Especially with weight. For my job (baking and cooking) I'll stick with metric (except for temperature). But I think I'm okay with feet in Pathfinder. For me, it just feels like change for the sake of change, rather than improving it.
How many non-US people have an intuitive understanding of how far 200 feet is?
I think that's the key question. I, personally, have enough exposure to both US customary and metric that I can understand both feet/second and meters/second, but I have no idea what a furlong/fortnight is. (And, honestly, conversion between ft/sec and mph, or for that matter, km/h is something that I don't have an intuitive feel for; I have to math it out; if a car is driving at 30 km/h, how long will it take to cross a 200 foot (or 60 m) bridge?)
If a substantial fraction of the expected market feels about feet and inches the way I do about furlongs, rods, and chains, then it's an issue. If, on the other hand, anyone who reads English well enough to play Starfinder has been trained in the WOMBAT(*) system, it's not an issue. It's just a cultural quirk, like counting in French....
* WOMBAT = Way Of Measuring Badly in America Today
Is there a meaningful difference in visualizing something 200 ft away versus something 150 or 250 ft away?
What is the difference in visualizing something 100 m away versus 50 m or 150 m?
From the perspective of personal space, they're all well out of reach. The number is meaningful only insofar as what the math will tell you: it will take X rounds to walk or run that far, it is either within the first or second range increment of your missile weapon, or you take Y penalty to your attack roll throwing your weapon at it.
Nothing really changes except the number that pops out when you have to do the math, which you have to do anyway.
That's fair. I just personally don't really see any reason to change to metric that will enrich the game. To me, it's just measurements and feet/miles/pounds/acres work well for me. Especially with weight. For my job (baking and cooking) I'll stick with metric (except for temperature). But I think I'm okay with feet in Pathfinder. For me, it just feels like change for the sake of change, rather than improving it.
How many non-US people have an intuitive understanding of how far 200 feet is?
I think that's the key question. I, personally, have enough exposure to both US customary and metric that I can understand both feet/second and meters/second, but I have no idea what a furlong/fortnight is. (And, honestly, conversion between ft/sec and mph, or for that matter, km/h is something that I don't have an intuitive feel for; I have to math it out; if a car is driving at 30 km/h, how long will it take to cross a 200 foot (or 60 m) bridge?)
If a substantial fraction of the expected market feels about feet and inches the way I do about furlongs, rods, and chains, then it's an issue. If, on the other hand, anyone who reads English well enough to play Starfinder has been trained in the WOMBAT(*) system, it's not an issue. It's just a cultural quirk, like counting in French....
* WOMBAT = Way Of Measuring Badly in America Today
I don't think I've ever seen furlong used in any RPG except maybe Harn?
Truthfully, I think another key question is, is it worth immersion to make it difficult for the American gamers that play D&D? The same problem that the OP mentions in their post will just end up shifting it over to those of us that use Imperial/Standard. And I agree with what you say about it being an issue, but simply changing it to metric at the expense of those that are fine with Standard isn't solving anything.
Explaining to my players that someone is 63 kg means nothing to them. Explaining that the hexmap is about 10 kilometers corner to corner will just get blank stares from them. They don't use metric every day, so they don't have a point of reference to compare weights and distances for. Maybe having both options is fine, but for now, I just don't see a reason to make me and my group have to make the conversions or understand a point of reference every time I use a measurement in metric.
Do I like the metric system? For the most part, yes. But for everyday gaming, it's just easier for my group and I to keep things as is and add the option for metric in there for those that desire it.
Sometimes to mess with people I like to use degrees Rankine. Really screws with them when you tell them it's a pleasant 532 degrees outside.
I mean, the number of feet in a mile? Who even came up with that?
They weren't really meant to work together. A foot is a literal foot. A mile is an hours walk. An hour is a 12th of a day because 12 is easily divisible by 2 3 4 and 6
Also makes it incidentally more practical in normal use.
To a european sure. To an american they really don't convey anything.
Hell with it, let's ask if they'll use Arshins...
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The regular 1" battlemat IS effectively a 25mm battlemat. You get a teeny bit of leeway (1mm every 2.5th square/hex) because it's not perfect, but for most purposes since you're counting square/hex spaces rather than true distances it does the job. 'real' ones are also available of course, and honestly you won't be able to tell the difference if playing pathfinder, so it's really a matter of proper measures.
Your minis will fit no problem, which is why we tolerate the american mats up here (pathfinder keeps to "5x = 1 square, so just divide by 5 and count the squares"), but will use proper metric measurements without one like if playing battlefleet gothic or infinity or something.
The conversion is particularly healthy when dealing with travel distances or long firing ranges, as it's always 10, 10, 10
Yes, I (obviously, because I mentioned 25mm in my first question on the issue) understand that. My question, my ONLY question, for the people who seem to feel a need to explain the basics of the metric system as if I haven't been playing Traveller and Star Frontiers which use the metric system since 10-fricken'-83, which was actually after I had the metric system taught me in grade school, is this: Can those of you who live in Oslo, or Madrid, or Tel Aviv, or Tokyo, or Addis Ababa, or Lima, or any other place on the earth that uses metric system go to your local game shop and by a dry-erase battlement with a 25mm grid, or do you have to print a bunch of sheets at home, tape them all together and cover them in contact paper? That's really all I was curious about.
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I'm thinking that the subset of people who like RPGs have a lot of overlap with the subset of people who are fairly adaptable and open-minded to new and weird ideas.
Yes, I said that already. You can buy the real 25mm battlemats. You can go get one in montreal, but you need to check carefully because there'll be 1" in there just as often mixed in since most of them come from the US (shipping costs after all). Last time I bought one the only visible difference without grabbing a ruler was that one of them said 25mm (1") and the other said 1" (25mm).
But like I said, battlemats keep imperial usable; it's when you're not using a mat that metric becomes that much more valuable.
BTW; 1.5m is more often used as that's 4.92ft, as opposed to 2m (6.56)
Sorry, I didn't mean to get overexcited, but unless I missed a sentence somewhere, all you told me was that 25mm is equal to 1 inch, when I was asking about the availability solely to satisfy my own idle curiosity. No insult intended, but it's frustrating when you keep explaining junk like 1.5m is closer to 5 feet than 2m. I know that, and it wasn't what I was asking about. The bit above where you talk about having to check carefully since most come from the US is what I was looking for, so thanks.
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I just remembered how in 1st Edition AD&D, the US system of measurement was in use, EXCEPT that 1 inch was not 1/12 of a foot, but 1 board inch (predecessor to today's grid square), which was 10 feet indoors and 30 feet outdoors (with everybody's speeds changing to match, but all being ridiculously slow, with a White Dragon flying at about 1 mile per hour). The rare magic items that would shrink you to 1/12 foot high actually said in the description that they shrunk you to 1/12 foot high, not 1 inch high.
I don't think 1st Edition had any other anomalies like that, although given the (lack of) organization of the Dungeon Master's Guide (must have actually been written by Proteans), I wouldn't swear to it.
It did have the oddity that 1 gold piece weighed 1/10 of a pound, which is an awful lot of gold . . . .
I was born when imperial measurements were in use. Then over time the metric system took over. I still visualise my height in feet/inches, but use kilograms for my weight and speed is kph.
The way my mind is hooked up, Pathfinder using feet and pounds feels right. When it comes to Starfinder, the mention of it using feet, pounds or mph produces a cringe-worthy ripple effect deep in my brain. It just doesn't feel right to me. So I'm hoping that Starfinder does go metric.
How many non-US people have an intuitive understanding of how far 200 feet is?
Intuitive? I have no f****** clue how long that is. And that's the problem. As a GM, on my table, out of laziness we usually stick to feet and inches, because I don't want to slow the gaming down with constantly translating this stuff to metric.
it doesn't really matter on a battlemap with squares. but it becomes more problematic with long distances.
- 'How long does it take us to ride the 20 miles to the next town?'
- 'I don't know. What is a mile in real distance again?'
or if you want to describe a room or situation and don't want to suddenly switch system.
- 'you're in a huge cathedral. the ceiling rises high to an enourmous dome approximatly 20 ft. above you'
- 'that's not that big actually'
- 'damn. double that. wait, triple that. oh, ffs, just imagine it's huge.'
but even on a battlemap, while it doesn't matter rulewise, you don't really feel the distance. 'I move 20 feet to that direction.' is nice, but all it says is: 'move my miniature 4 squares, please.'
Just do what lazy yanks do when we're converting to metric in a hurry, and call 1 foot 1/3 of a meter.
So your "triple that" quip is actually accurate enough for descriptive purposes. Twenty meters is roughly sixty feet.
(And while you metric sorts are at it, get something more granular than meters for human height, it's friggin' unwieldy!)
As far as miles vs kilometers... for narrative purposes, multiply mile values by 2,or 1.5 if you're so inclined. They're not actually THAT big (1 mile = 1.60934km), but it's close enough for government work.
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tat I know that on an intellectual level doesn't help me on an intuitive one
But it's a solution that fits on a single sticky note.
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So kind of on topic, I actually found this while randomly searching. An interesting way to convert km to miles and back. I kinda of dig it.
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Now I'm thinking about what they'll use for astronomical distances. Inside a solar system, the Astronomical Unit(AU) is a very convenient yardstick, but the definition of it is very dependent on the real life Earth-Sun distance, so it could be weird having it be an in-game term in a fantasy solar system.
For interstellar distances, I prefer light years(LY) over parsecs. Parsec sounds cooler, but the definition is kind of wonky and again depends on the specific geometry of our real world solar system. Light years work just fine, as I believe Golarion's year is about the same as ours.
For those who don't know the definitions:
1 AU = the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun
1 LY = how far light travels in one year
1 parsec = the distance from the Sun where the Earth and the Sun are separated by an angle of one arc second(1/3600 of one degree)
I think we can probably use AUs and Lightyears. AUs would be less cumbersome than feet or meters (or even miles and kms) given the large measurements of space between planets.
I can definitely understand lys over parsecs. I tend to prefer whole numbers when I run SWN, even if a parsec is essentially 3.25 ly. Sometimes, I'll simply just truncate it to just be 3 ly.
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- 'How long does it take us to ride the 20 miles to the next town?'
- 'I don't know. What is a mile in real distance again?'
Well, all of paizo's non american customers can do this, or all of paizo's american customers and the paizo staff can do it while they're writing.
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Now I'm thinking about what they'll use for astronomical distances. Inside a solar system, the Astronomical Unit(AU) is a very convenient yardstick, but the definition of it is very dependent on the real life Earth-Sun distance, so it could be weird having it be an in-game term in a fantasy solar system.
For interstellar distances, I prefer light years(LY) over parsecs. Parsec sounds cooler, but the definition is kind of wonky and again depends on the specific geometry of our real world solar system. Light years work just fine, as I believe Golarion's year is about the same as ours.
For those who don't know the definitions:
1 AU = the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun
1 LY = how far light travels in one year
1 parsec = the distance from the Sun where the Earth and the Sun are separated by an angle of one arc second(1/3600 of one degree)
Sorry, I started sci-fi gaming with traveller, so it's parsecs for me. I mean, my god, the Millennium Falcon didn't make the Kessel Run in in less than 39.12 light years, nor should it. Ever! :P
Here's a question: Given how often I see the metric vs american standard issue raised, does anyone think a 3pp pamphlet listing all the CRB distances (weapon tables, travel times, creature size etc) listed in meters, including a 1.5cm = 1m grid and tokens/counters sized to the grid would be popular? I'm to lazy to write it up myself, but it sorta sounds like someone could make a mint if they had the wherewithal.
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Will SF finally use the metric system or do I still need to consult an app while playing or GMing to translate the gibberish?
Hopefully not. No reason to change that.....been using the normal system since the game was created. Why confuse and piss off a zillion players that are used to the existing system?
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been using the normal system
define 'normal*
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I wouldn't be surprised if "1-inch" battlemaps bought in America were actually 25mm squares instead of 1 inch. The difference would be minimal and the vast majority of customers wouldn't even notice that they're using a metric map with a switched label. The width of the gridlines is wider than the difference between 25 mm and 1 inch. You'd need to measure 6-7 squares before there would be a 1/8 of an inch difference.
I have to imagine the reason using measurements like inches and pounds comes from scifi shows and literature that used metric measurements. Which means it's ingrained as "scifi measurements" for a lot of people.
Funny how wanting Starfinder to change to metric is the same as not wanting it to change is. Both sides are wanting what feels right to them. :)
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Using the metric system is actually a relic of a time when the metric system was seen in the United States as the measurement system of the future and thus a prediction about how the conversion efforts of the time would go. In the case of Traveller, its developers really should have invented a Vilani system of measurement and used that, as in the history of that setting it would have made the most sense for the Terrans new to the interstellar scene to adopt the measurement system already in use across several sectors instead of imposing a system that was previously used on a single planet.
For Starfinder, we have the problem that Golarion has no real counterpart to the metric system -- and there is no reason to suppose that there would ever be parallel developments to those in our real world that would bring such a system into being. Keeping the imperial system would be one of the small touches that would remind players that this is not a future Earth setting.
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Using US measurements in space is thrice-damned blasphemy. Sci-fi settings using metric is as much of a genre trope as it is a measurement system.
I wouldn't be surprised if "1-inch" battlemaps bought in America were actually 25mm squares instead of 1 inch. The difference would be minimal and the vast majority of customers wouldn't even notice that they're using a metric map with a switched label. The width of the gridlines is wider than the difference between 25 mm and 1 inch. You'd need to measure 6-7 squares before there would be a 1/8 of an inch difference.
I wouldn't be at all surprised either; nor would I be surprised if the "25mm" battlemaps are actually 1 inch square grids produced in the US, but labeled for international sale. I have no preference as to whether you conceive of and call the diameter of a US 25 cent piece 25mm or 1 inch. I'm just curious as to whether 25mm/1inch grids are available in countries where 1 inch isn't a common unit of measurement.
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For Starfinder, we have the problem that Golarion has no real counterpart to the metric system -- and there is no reason to suppose that there would ever be parallel developments to those in our real world that would bring such a system into being. Keeping the imperial system would be one of the small touches that would remind players that this is not a future Earth setting.
Parallel development of some sort of base 10 measurement system makes as much sense as parallel development of radio, cars, airplanes, computers, rockets, and satellites.
How alien societies advance scientifically and technologically (and a metric-style system is a form of scientific advancement) is entirely speculative at this time since we really don't have any way to make comparisons.
Using parsecs is a way for Traveller to show its age; for much of the 20th century, they were the go-to yardstick for interstellar distances, but that has fallen out of favor since the 90s, in favor of light years. As we've gotten better at measuring distances to stars without using parallax, parsecs become less convenient.
So if Starfinder wants to have the feel of sci-fi from the 70s and 80s, they should totally go with parsecs.
Of course, in a fantasy universe with completely arbitrary distances, they could measure using starglorphs and it would work fine.
Personally, I wouldn't go this way for confusion reasons but it certainly would add some unique flavor to things.
If 1 luxon = about 6 light-seconds, then 1 a.u. and the Earth would be about 83 luxons from the Sun (~83.16746397269), Mercury about 32.4, Jupiter about 432.5, and Neptune about 2500. A luxon is as arbitrary as an AU but isn't geocentric, and we still shrank the numbers to something more manageable.
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If 1 luxon = about 6 light-seconds, then 1 a.u. and the Earth would be about 83 luxons from the Sun (~83.16746397269), Mercury about 32.4, Jupiter about 432.5, and Neptune about 2500. A luxon is as arbitrary as an AU but isn't geocentric, and we still shrank the numbers to something more manageable.
I think there is a certain poetry to creating a sci-fi distance unit based on how far light travels in one combat round.