Units, anyone?

[rjshae]

Okay folks, what unit system do you think this game should use? Pounds or kilograms? Rods and stones? Furlongs per fortnight? Obsidian Entertainment is based in the U.S., so should they use American English? Or should it use système international because it is being sold world-wide? Should it be localized? Maybe it should have it's own system of units? Or should it just leave them unspecified?

 

Hopefully this topic doesn't generate any acrimony...

[Bartimaeus]

I'm not really sure it'll be an issue besides for maybe calculating inventory weight, but I'd basically be O.K. with any system, with a slight leaning towards Metric.

[Osvir]

Old Units (<- Inspirational link) or a custom made for P:E.

 

Pounds, feet, thumbs, arm-lengths, palm-length etc. etc. old old units. However, I don't think this needs to be a part of the "distance" but more in the ways of things that "weigh". Lbs should work just fine, I don't think it needs to be explained beyond the fact that:Item weighs [X units] and you have # out of [X Units] in Capacity. As for immersion, definitely a custom homebrewed.

 

A small detail, similar to how "Gold" could be different per faction (custom-made or "copper, bronze, silver, gold"?):

• Will there be enough coin?
  
• The Weight of Riches!
  
• The Value of Gold
  
• Currency in P:E
  
• Should Gold have Weight? POLL
  
• Money: What it is worth and to get it POLL
  
• Monetary System
  
• Currency Value
  
• Coins in P:E POLL
  
• About Economy in cRPG
  
• A Cynic and a Long Thread Title
  

How is schooling in P:E? Is it common, does everyone know how to read & write? (Probably not, what with the printing press = not existing) Academic Intelligence is not the same as Physical Intelligence or Social Intelligence, so it wouldn't mean that everyone is just "dumb" just because they aren't schooled properly.

 

What do you call a Gram of Magic Essence? (behave.. )

[Bartimaeus]

How is schooling in P:E? Is it common, does everyone know how to read & write? (Probably not, what with the printing press = not existing) Academic Intelligence is not the same as Physical Intelligence or Social Intelligence, so it wouldn't mean that everyone is just "dumb" just because they aren't schooled properly.

 

Are you suggesting that we don't know the difference between knowledge and intelligence?

[Osvir]

Haha no not at all, for some reason I just felt like writing that.

[Nonek]

From a purely self interested viewpoint i'd prefer if they stuck to imperial, as that's what I grew up with. Never did get the hang of the new money and weights.

[PrimeJunta]

Metric. And make everything 100 times smaller than IRL. So your character would be, like, 18 mm tall, and a real badass dragon would have a wingspan of, like 60 cm. And then let us zoom out far enough to play the game in 1:1 scale.

[Alexjh]

I'd just make up a unit/use the names of one that no longer exists, as realistically metric wouldn't make sense (given in all liklihood that the P:E world isn't exactly identically size as Earth rendering metric nonsensical to exist in the world) and really, imperial units are convoluted and are far harder to keep tabs on. Theres bound to be some good archaic units around to use, though I do like the idea of some ridiculous unit like "this suit of armour weights seven pigsweights!"

[Valsuelm]

Ideally something new and unique to the world we'll be playing in, with a definition of rough equivalent in the manual so those of us living on earth can relate the fantastical unit to something in our world, ie: 1 PE unit approximately = X lbs = X kg

 

Barring that, give me American measures such as the IE games had. Keep the metric system and it's logic out of my fantasy game!

[Nerei]

I'd just make up a unit/use the names of one that no longer exists, as realistically metric wouldn't make sense (given in all liklihood that the P:E world isn't exactly identically size as Earth rendering metric nonsensical to exist in the world) and really, imperial units are convoluted and are far harder to keep tabs on. Theres bound to be some good archaic units around to use, though I do like the idea of some ridiculous unit like "this suit of armour weights seven pigsweights!"

 

Actually the metre is currently defined based on the speed of light and before that the krypton 86 emissions, that silly platinum-iridium stick has not had any significant scientific value for over 50 years (yes I know about the origin of the metre as 1/10^7 the polar/equator distance but today it has no relation to earth).

Okay admitted I would be surprised if they somehow defined a second around 9.192.631.770 state transitions of the 133 caesium atom like we do and then decided that the distance light travels in vacuum in 1/299.792.458 of that is a meter.

As for the other very relevant unit, mass that would be fairly believable given that it is basically just "this lump of platinum-iridium is a kilogram"

Yes I grew up with the SI system and have used it quite extensively.

 

Really my point is that finding a method not related to planet Earth (or advanced physics) to define say a length and calling it a meter is very much possible, and given that the imperial units of lenght are (generally) derived from the human anatomy, the in-game lore could make them just as unrealistic as playing with atoms and photons. Consider if humans did not invent the units of measurement, why would an elf, dwarf, orlan etc. use the human anatomy for his units?

Really just having humans (and likely a plethora of other terrestrial animals) in the game is darn unrealistic in the first place, just ask someone that have read a bit of astrobiology

 

 

 

All that said I tend to agree with you, having some simple archaic units would be good. The trick though is to keep the number down, 1-3 for mass and length (short/medium/long style) at most with a simple conversion. Having the game feel like a modern day science book (which SI would likely give it) would really hurt the suspension of disbelief.

Imperial is fine and all if kept really simple (it is fairly oldschool to say the least), however I will riot if I have to learn the relation between inch, foot, yard, mile, nautical mile and league just to be able to keep track of the distances npc's in the game might throw at me.

 

 

Okay this got a bit long, and a bit off topic maybe, so in short a system that is simple and fits within the world. Should such a system derive the names from the imperial units effectively making it a near imperial system, that would be fine. It should however be easy to keep track of no matter if you grew up with SI or imperial