Metric System in Starfinder

[Tom Kalbfus]

What system of measurements did the French Knights use during the 100 years war with England? How come the French Edition doesn't use what those French Knights used back then? Having French Knights use Meters before they were invented just doesn't seem natural!
Take a look at this picture from the Hundred Years War. The people in it used the same equipment as listed in the Pathfinder equipment list, although none of the weapons or armor have magical bonuses. I believe both the French and English used some version of feet and inches in this scene, it would be unnatural for them to be using some Metric System that wasn't invented yet, any more than for some of them to pull out muskets and start shooting each other with them.

[Mark Thomas 66]

Christopher Jones 405 wrote:

Welcome to America, where the units aren't the same and reality doesn't matter.

This should be posted in every port of entry and border crossing.

[Matthew Shelton]

In my sci fi a square isn't going to have a precise measurement. It will be a fuzzy value somewhere between 60 inches and 78.74 inches (152.4 cm to 200 cm).

[Tom Kalbfus]

What measurements do your characters use while in play, not just the gaming measurements, such as you would state, I move my character 4 squares, the character himself would not say that. A square is useful when describing the actions of your character, but your character himself would not use squares, so in game, he would have to use some other measurement, other than squares, in Pathfinder, feet and inches are more natural than meters and centimeters.

[Matthew Shelton]

4 squares of movement can be 20 feet, 8 meters, or any value in between.

[Matthew Shelton]

The characters in my campaigns will be used to "metrons" which is their equivalent of about half the reach of an average humanoid, or half the width of a square.

If I say that the 'Golarion meter' is probably a little larger or a little smaller than the Earth meter (perhaps because their definition of a meter uses Golarion's distance from equator to north pole through Absalom, and Golarion's polar circumference is not identical to Earth's) then what do I really lose by describing lengths and distances using a 'metron' that is functionally equivalent to 30 inches, a full yard or an SI meter?

You as a player merely experience a slight inflation or deflation in your perception of size; you may visualize measurements of (imaginary) things as being slightly bigger than you're used to or perhaps smaller. But in big picture terms, proportionality is maintained. Twenty metrons of silk rope will still be five times as long as a four-metron pole, a light hammer can still be thrown twice as far as a knife can, and your free two-metron step will still be one-sixth your base speed (assuming you're an average human).

[The Sideromancer]

Matthew Shelton wrote:

(assuming you're an average human).

I hope you realize how bad an assumption this is. 6-square move? likely. Normal human? not a chance.

[Azih]

I like 'metrons' Matthew. Why not invent a simple futuristic sounding measurment system? We're inventing everything else and it's a really common trope in sci-fi in any case..

I'd make 'one metron' = one square on the grid though for reasons already mentioned. The monster(alien) is Thirteen metrons away! Means thirteen squares on the map.

[The Sideromancer]

Works for me. Imperial is antrhocentric, metric is geocentric, neither really fit.

[The Star Child]

Feh! Back in my day, our space rockets went 4 million ells for every hogshead of uranium, and we managed just fine... except on Leap Years, which a lot of people forgot about and blew themselves up. But that just made us more determined than ever...

[Terquem]

I agree with a lot of what is said here about the practicality of explaining why imaginary people in space ships would use either one (archaic/English) type of measure or the other (modern/French)

And I take it a step further - I demand the rules be printed in Starfinder's own universe's official language, *pfft* why do we expect these alien races to use English?

[The Sideromancer]

Terquem wrote:

I agree with a lot of what is said here about the practicality of explaining why imaginary people in space ships would use either one (archaic/English) type of measure or the other (modern/French)

And I take it a step further - I demand the rules be printed in Starfinder's own universe's official language, *pfft* why do we expect these alien races to use English?

We don't. We expect them to have good translation methods. How else would you run something where one's native language is unpronounceable to another?

[The Raven Black]

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

Well who's going to invent the Metric System in the Starfinder setting, do we have some French People over there?

According to Reign of Winter and Strange Aeons, we do ;-)

And Imperial system makes no more sense than Metric for being in use in PFRPG or Starfinder by your reasoning

[Matthew Shelton]

BigDTBone wrote:

Tsudico wrote:

Metric and Imperial both have their issues. For a sci-fan game like Starfinder, I think they should use the dozenal system TGM(Tim, Grafut, Maz).

Be unique, and this way the whole world has to worry about converting so Paizo wouldn't be biased toward anyone.

When the options are:

(1) Please the majority of the audience.
(2) Please the widest cross-section of the audience.
(3) Please no one.

I don't see how you arrive at (3) being the preferred choice.

It is the preferred method of making sure everyone has a balanced amount of displeasure. :)

[Matthew Shelton]

Terquem wrote:

The problem is, and always has been that a common man of the US can hold his hands "this" far apart and say

"that's about a foot"

But whenever he tries to talk about the metric system, he cannot help but try to fall back on conversions, which are unnecessary.

We just need to get into the habit of being able to hold our hands "this" far apart and say
"that's about 10 centimeters"

If you hold a standard 8.5" x 11" page vertically ('portrait') with the tips of your fingers (about 1/3 inch margin), then the distance between your fingertips will be about 20 cm apart.

[Matthew Shelton]

Tom Kalbfus wrote:

It just doesn't make sense to have a medieval fantasy using meters and kilograms, so what happens when that medieval society advances and moves to space? Are they going to invent precisely the same Metric system that the French did? For a space faring society, a more logical system might go something like this.

The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second. There are 3.2808399 feet in a meter, therefore the speed of light in feet is 983,571,058 feet per second. Hmm, that is almost one billion! Well what if we designed a metric foot that is closer to the customary measure of 1 foot, but shortened it just enough so that light travels one billion of those in 1 second? This metric foot is 0.9835710579254742 that of an American foot, or about 11.8 inches.

The new Metric Mile would then be 10,000 metric feet, since we are basing everything on multiples of 10.

Using the same names for everything might get confusing whenever someone assumed the audience would know which 'foot' or which 'mile' was being used.

If you start with the luxon (6 light-seconds == 5.901e+9 ft == 1.799e+9 m) as the base unit, 1 one-billionth of a luxon is about 5.9 feet or about 1.8 meter, which is conveniently about 57% of the difference between a 5-ft square and a 2-meter square. You could call this a 'step'.

1,000 steps or one-millionth of a luxon is about 1800 meters, which is somewhere between a land mile (5280 ft) and a nautical mile (6076.12 ft), which is about 78% of the difference between the land mile and nautical mile. You could call this a 'walk'.

1,000 walks or one-thousandth of a luxon is about 1800 kilometers, which is about 1/22nd of the Earth's circumference (about 16 degrees of longitude, or about 65 minutes). You could call this a 'trek'.

1,000 treks is 1 luxon or about 1 800 000 km, about 1 120 000 land miles, or about 972 000 nautical miles...