Hello everyone,
Since I started playing D&D in my early teens it has been extremely normal for me to see all the distances in feet and miles, the imperial system. So in the games I play with my friends we all use feet when calculating the distance someone can walk or the radius of a fireball and such things. But since I grew up with the metric system, it is actually, even after all this time, quite difficult for me to get an assessment of how far something is when expressed in feet. For example, when a spell is cast that has a radius of 20 feet, I don't have an intuitive idea of how big this is. It's not until I do some quick maths in my mind that I realize that 20 feet is a bit less than 7m in radius, so it's actually quite big!
Bit of a long introduction to get to my question: do you think WotC should include a metric variant of the PHB, MM and DMG? Or maybe include tables in future releases with both the imperial and metric system side by side? For someone like me, this would be super useful. To be clear, I'm not complaining about D&D using the imperial system. I think it is probably something that is part of the charm of D&D and it has been a staple of the game, well, since forever. But having the distances in metric would be so much easier for someone like me :-) Mostly to visualize range and distance, which I now find quite difficult to do. But maybe this is just me :-)
I prefer metric.
But i doupt it will happen.
In the past, European translations of the systems made it metric (since we're actually using them), here are the bascis..
1 foot = 30 cm
5 feet = 1,5 m
1 yard = 1 m
1 mile = 1,5 km
1 gallon = 4 L
1 lb = 500g
It's not entirely correct, but it's more important to keep the numbers as simple as possible, so the DM and players can calculate them. Don't be afraid to round them if necessarily.
So a fireball has a 6m radius, or a 12m diameter.
Any system of measurement that isn't based on the size of a king's forearm or the like is probably witchcraft.
There, I've just said out loud what everyone else is already thinking.
iserith wrote:
In fact, I make my notes in character sheet in meters like 5 feet = 1,5 m and 1 mile = 1,5 km. But it revealed itself to be inconvenient on battle grid. When enemy is 7 squares away, it is a bit complex to count 7 x 1,5 m as easily as 7 x 5 feet. In adition, Campaign Cartographer 3 and other mapping software use 1 square = 1 meter due to that purpose, but it is a bit unrealistic to fight with swords in melee just 1 meter away. Moreover, where the enemy is in far reach of 10 feet just 2 squares away, in 1 square = 1 meter mode he is 3 squares away, and what about longbow with range of 180 meters = 180 squares in that mode!
I want to say it is more complicated than it seems to be at a single glance.
Kentus wrote:
I don't think I'd ever use the metric system for D&D. Feels too modern.
I translated mine into latin and use the Roman measurements.
I only use the Klingon units of measure such as cams and kellicams.
I prefer light nanoseconds.
Conversion is pretty easy. 1 square = 5 light nanosecond.
I really like medieval measurements. I don't even like the metric currency. Give me shillings and pences and crowns like the old english system. Now in real life I would like to see everything go metric.
I think the effort would be too much work for what we'd get.
For me it's quite easy when I want to imagine how something is going to work: 20 feet is how much meter? 20 divided by 3 equals 7. So the spell reaches 7 meter.
My old math teacher might spin in his grave, but I am not going to waste time for DnD conversions.
Kangodo wrote:
Logain08 wrote:
I like how the medvial fantasy game uses a medevial style measuring system. Gives the right "outdated" feel to it. However, I now realize that I should probably make a conversion table with the most common ranges and put in my PHB or similar. Doing extra calculations may be annoying, but just having a table would probably be useful. So:
5 feet = 1.5 m
10 feet = 3 m
15 feet = 4.5 m
20 feet = 6 m
30 feet = 9 m
60 feet = 18 m
80 feet = 24 m
120 feet = 36 m
300 feet = 90 m
600 feet = 180 m
Just writing down that table made me realise that 5-20 feet are probably longer than I imagine them to be, while writing out the last three made me go "huh, that short?"
So my conclusion is that a single table of common distances would be great for visualizing distances using metric, but there might be no point in using it throughout the books.
Be3Al2 wrote:
I use a 1-foot grid battlemat. Medium-size characters take up a 5x5 space. And all movement can subsequently be calculated to the foot. Much more granular.
Also, in response to earlier posts, clearly using Fahrenheit is superior to Celsius for day-to-day life. And that's what matters to people.
Istbor wrote:
Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
Just change the Squares to 1m (or 1 yard, so about 3ft). Everything actually works out much better, at least in my own play experience.
I can't believe this thread even exists. I've seen it several times over the years. But at least it's not an alignment thread.
Wait...
Metric System is an attempt to force Lawful Alignments on americans by forcing us to conform to international standards of measurements. We're chaotic Thomas Jefferson loving liberty seekers over here. We will not be enslaved by the internationalists and the One World Government and their metric system. FREEDOM!!!
arnwolf666 wrote:
Forget just D&D, I want my country to adopt the metric system and finally drop that outdated, ridiculous, obtuse, inefficient, and arbitrary Imperial system.
I am Spanish, here we use the metric system, but for roleplaying, the feet and miles is closer to medievial background.
Azzy1974 wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
arnwolf666 wrote:
MechaPilot wrote:
I support metric D&D personally, but since the game's main market is North America, I guess it'll take eons to actually get an official metric version of the core rulebooks.
Oh well, while the '1760 (...and what on earth is this specific number?!) yard = 1 mile' wonkiness is irritating, at least '1 square (ducks) = 1.5 meters' works well for now...
Nesian42Ryukaiel wrote:
It really is as simple as dividing all feet values you find by five to get "squares". You can then make "squares" whatever you want. Because the math of D&D is built around the premise of values conveniently divisible by 5. So 35 feet (7 "squares") is 16.66% more than 30 feet (6 "squares").
7 vs. 6 doesn't really matter what a "square" actually represents. It's all relative.
Make "squares" equal 2m, for example. So the average medium-size person fits neatly in a 1x1x1 "square". Plus the math is easy when you are just doubling whole numbers. Done.
It doesn't really matter, at the end of the day, if you end up with slightly higher or lower MpH (KpH) one way or the other. Everything is still moving the same relative to each other.
I live in a metric using country but luckily we are all old enough in our campaign to easily use imperial. ;)
So far the only conversion anyone has had to do is yard to metre which is straight across for the difference we care. Slightly odd though that WotC didn't adopt metric in the system. I've seen many other American games do it due to nearly the ENTIRE rest of the world using metric and being forward thinking. Although most western cultures still have a pretty good grasp on imperial measurement for anything under a foot and I still hear miles used by even younger people here in Canada.
Forward thinking?? Hey now! I was trying to be nice helping convert to your crazy alien math. Cuz the only think metric is good for is pretending you're going faster than you really are..
Oooo, look! I'm totally goin' 100!
Zoom!!!
Logain08 wrote:
FitzMojoBob wrote: