provided that you convert everything, it doesn't actually matter if it's feet or meters or kilometers - as long as everything is changed - a 10ft. wide corridor becomes 10km wide, whilst a player commands a 5km wide space and has a reach of 5km. Ultimately, it's just an arbitrary unit - so long as it is applied to everything (EG a human is around 6km tall).
With that being the case, why are you contemplating this?
Well, for one, it's just something l thought of and wanted a answer for, and second, l don't have any measuring sticks, so my only "real" frame of reference for length/distance is Minecraft, with each full block being 1 meter cubed. So since i've spent many hours in minecraft, and have used it to build many structures, it's easier for me to visualize things in minecraft blocks, which, again, is 1 meter cubed. So, instead of "Your movement speed is 30 feet" l could think "you can move about 9 blocks in 6 seconds,18 if you dash."
Honestly, if this is the only reason you thought about it - being better able to visualize it without a lot of work - can I make a different suggestion?
In Minecraft a person is almost 2 cubes high correct? That means they are just under 2 meters, which is pretty accurate.
The most common measurements in DnD are all done in 5 foot increments, which is just under the height of most people.
If you converted every 5' space in DnD to 2 meters, you would be close enough to accurate for what you need to visualize it. It's not much math, and you can do it on the fly.
In DnD a human can move 30'. That's 6 spaces (of 5' each). You can visualize something close enough to Minecraft by just multiplying the 6 spaces by 2 blocks. So a human can move 12 Minecraft blocks in a turn. 24 if they dash.
If a spell has a range of 10 feet, that's close enough to 4 Minecraft blocks.
That's going to be much closer to the real measurements in DnD, while also helping your mentally picture it easily, and without a ton of calculations.
Specifically for this conversion, I don't know why D&D is measured in increments of 5ft instead of 3ft. 3ft is practically 1m. Everyone who uses Freedom Units knows what a yard is. Instead of your standard 6 spaces of movement, you have 10 spaces of movement. Easy peasy.
I totally agree.
In fact, a yard is close enough to a meter that they wouldn't even have to convert anything if they just made the standard 'unit' for all measurements be one of them. Or even better, two of them - 6 feet instead of 5. Or they can go a step further and even make it more vague. Say that a 'unit' is about the height of a medium sized creature. No distances or spells or abilities are ever measured in anything other than 5 foot increments anyways. At least not at the tactical combat level.
If they just said a 'distance unit' was roughly the height of a person (5-7 feet, 2 yards, 2 meters), then everything could be written easily.
Your speed is 6. Your spell has a range of 12. Your sword has a reach of 1.
The only problem then is the way we talk about ranges when we aren't using a map. If there is no combat map set up, and a player asks "how far away is that guard?" it's more instinctual for us to say "about 100 feet." But I figure that every DM is already thinking in terms of spell and weapon ranges when they answer that question anyways. If we all knew that Firebolts had a range of 24 units, I guess we could answer that way. It's an interesting problem that we've all just had to learn to calculate around to varying degrees.
Specifically for this conversion, I don't know why D&D is measured in increments of 5ft instead of 3ft. 3ft is practically 1m. Everyone who uses Freedom Units knows what a yard is. Instead of your standard 6 spaces of movement, you have 10 spaces of movement. Easy peasy.
I totally agree.
In fact, a yard is close enough to a meter that they wouldn't even have to convert anything if they just made the standard 'unit' for all measurements be one of them. Or even better, two of them - 6 feet instead of 5. Or they can go a step further and even make it more vague. Say that a 'unit' is about the height of a medium sized creature. No distances or spells or abilities are ever measured in anything other than 5 foot increments anyways. At least not at the tactical combat level.
If they just said a 'distance unit' was roughly the height of a person (5-7 feet, 2 yards, 2 meters), then everything could be written easily.
Your speed is 6. Your spell has a range of 12. Your sword has a reach of 1.
The only problem then is the way we talk about ranges when we aren't using a map. If there is no combat map set up, and a player asks "how far away is that guard?" it's more instinctual for us to say "about 100 feet." But I figure that every DM is already thinking in terms of spell and weapon ranges when they answer that question anyways. If we all knew that Firebolts had a range of 24 units, I guess we could answer that way. It's an interesting problem that we've all just had to learn to calculate around to varying degrees.
This is just a bad idea. First, not everybody uses a grid my guy. If a game is based around 100% ambiguous "units," then somebody who doesn't get a peek at said units will always be confused. Even the people who do use grids will be confused in ANY non-combat situation. "Oh boy, the guard is 24 units away, how easy and oh-so-very simple to visualize!"
Second, there's literally no reason to change it besides some people deciding it's too difficult to convert 5 feet into 1.5 meters. Saying a number in feet works, and I've never known anybody to complain about it (which I'm genuinely surprised about, maybe the last thing I haven't heard complaints on).
Third, Dungens and Dargons is not video gaem. It do not gotta be a video gaem.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
Specifically for this conversion, I don't know why D&D is measured in increments of 5ft instead of 3ft. 3ft is practically 1m. Everyone who uses Freedom Units knows what a yard is. Instead of your standard 6 spaces of movement, you have 10 spaces of movement. Easy peasy.
I totally agree.
In fact, a yard is close enough to a meter that they wouldn't even have to convert anything if they just made the standard 'unit' for all measurements be one of them. Or even better, two of them - 6 feet instead of 5. Or they can go a step further and even make it more vague. Say that a 'unit' is about the height of a medium sized creature. No distances or spells or abilities are ever measured in anything other than 5 foot increments anyways. At least not at the tactical combat level.
If they just said a 'distance unit' was roughly the height of a person (5-7 feet, 2 yards, 2 meters), then everything could be written easily.
Your speed is 6. Your spell has a range of 12. Your sword has a reach of 1.
The only problem then is the way we talk about ranges when we aren't using a map. If there is no combat map set up, and a player asks "how far away is that guard?" it's more instinctual for us to say "about 100 feet." But I figure that every DM is already thinking in terms of spell and weapon ranges when they answer that question anyways. If we all knew that Firebolts had a range of 24 units, I guess we could answer that way. It's an interesting problem that we've all just had to learn to calculate around to varying degrees.
This is just a bad idea. First, not everybody uses a grid my guy. If a game is based around 100% ambiguous "units," then somebody who doesn't get a peek at said units will always be confused. Even the people who do use grids will be confused in ANY non-combat situation. "Oh boy, the guard is 24 units away, how easy and oh-so-very simple to visualize!"
Second, there's literally no reason to change it besides some people deciding it's too difficult to convert 5 feet into 1.5 meters. Saying a number in feet works, and I've never known anybody to complain about it (which I'm genuinely surprised about, maybe the last thing I haven't heard complaints on).
Third, Dungens and Dargons is not video gaem. It do not gotta be a video gaem.
First, the whole 'my guy' thing is really unnecessary.
I agree with you on a lot of your points, and even said some of the same things in that very post. But let me rephrase what I said so it's more clear:
I agreed that the base division of distances should be the yard (or meter, or 3 feet) instead of 5'. It makes more sense and is easier for more people to visualize.
I then speculated that it could be twice that, since that's more viable for combat measurements
But then I recognized that it would make it more difficult to talk about distances outside of combat, and that's not ideal. Like you are saying
So I finished by saying it's an interesting topic to think about.
That's it. I'm not suggesting changing it. And I'm the very last person to want DnD to be like a video game. I push back all the time against any attempt to make it more so. I don't want to play a video game. I want to play a TTRPG. And when I said unit, it was just a placeholder for something else to be determined. I'm sorry for the confusion as I thought out loud.
But I still think there is something to think about here. The person who started this thread has trouble visualizing the distances. Many players have trouble constantly converting feet to squares on a grid. I have some of them in my regular group. It's a legitimate issue. We've talked about this in a post about accessibility in DnD before. It might not be a problem for a majority of people. But we all do have to quickly convert all the time if we ever use any kind of grid. If you use a map at all, you at least have to convert feet to inches on a ruler. And yes, in well aware that not everyone uses maps. This isn't an issue for them. This is about helping other players in a simple and intuitive way.
There is a point to be made for accessibility. You don't have to change the rules entirely to make them more accessible to people. Distances could be written both ways. For example, you could just include the conversion in the text like this:
Your speed is 30' (6 squares) or
The spell range is 120' (40 yards) or
The weapon reach is 10' (2 inches)
Any of these could help people play the game. And that's a good thing. That's all I'm saying.
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Honestly, if this is the only reason you thought about it - being better able to visualize it without a lot of work - can I make a different suggestion?
In Minecraft a person is almost 2 cubes high correct? That means they are just under 2 meters, which is pretty accurate.
The most common measurements in DnD are all done in 5 foot increments, which is just under the height of most people.
If you converted every 5' space in DnD to 2 meters, you would be close enough to accurate for what you need to visualize it. It's not much math, and you can do it on the fly.
In DnD a human can move 30'. That's 6 spaces (of 5' each). You can visualize something close enough to Minecraft by just multiplying the 6 spaces by 2 blocks. So a human can move 12 Minecraft blocks in a turn. 24 if they dash.
If a spell has a range of 10 feet, that's close enough to 4 Minecraft blocks.
That's going to be much closer to the real measurements in DnD, while also helping your mentally picture it easily, and without a ton of calculations.
I totally agree.
In fact, a yard is close enough to a meter that they wouldn't even have to convert anything if they just made the standard 'unit' for all measurements be one of them. Or even better, two of them - 6 feet instead of 5. Or they can go a step further and even make it more vague. Say that a 'unit' is about the height of a medium sized creature. No distances or spells or abilities are ever measured in anything other than 5 foot increments anyways. At least not at the tactical combat level.
If they just said a 'distance unit' was roughly the height of a person (5-7 feet, 2 yards, 2 meters), then everything could be written easily.
Your speed is 6. Your spell has a range of 12. Your sword has a reach of 1.
The only problem then is the way we talk about ranges when we aren't using a map. If there is no combat map set up, and a player asks "how far away is that guard?" it's more instinctual for us to say "about 100 feet." But I figure that every DM is already thinking in terms of spell and weapon ranges when they answer that question anyways. If we all knew that Firebolts had a range of 24 units, I guess we could answer that way. It's an interesting problem that we've all just had to learn to calculate around to varying degrees.
This is just a bad idea. First, not everybody uses a grid my guy. If a game is based around 100% ambiguous "units," then somebody who doesn't get a peek at said units will always be confused. Even the people who do use grids will be confused in ANY non-combat situation. "Oh boy, the guard is 24 units away, how easy and oh-so-very simple to visualize!"
Second, there's literally no reason to change it besides some people deciding it's too difficult to convert 5 feet into 1.5 meters. Saying a number in feet works, and I've never known anybody to complain about it (which I'm genuinely surprised about, maybe the last thing I haven't heard complaints on).
Third, Dungens and Dargons is not video gaem. It do not gotta be a video gaem.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
First, the whole 'my guy' thing is really unnecessary.
I agree with you on a lot of your points, and even said some of the same things in that very post. But let me rephrase what I said so it's more clear:
That's it. I'm not suggesting changing it. And I'm the very last person to want DnD to be like a video game. I push back all the time against any attempt to make it more so. I don't want to play a video game. I want to play a TTRPG. And when I said unit, it was just a placeholder for something else to be determined. I'm sorry for the confusion as I thought out loud.
But I still think there is something to think about here. The person who started this thread has trouble visualizing the distances. Many players have trouble constantly converting feet to squares on a grid. I have some of them in my regular group. It's a legitimate issue. We've talked about this in a post about accessibility in DnD before. It might not be a problem for a majority of people. But we all do have to quickly convert all the time if we ever use any kind of grid. If you use a map at all, you at least have to convert feet to inches on a ruler. And yes, in well aware that not everyone uses maps. This isn't an issue for them. This is about helping other players in a simple and intuitive way.
There is a point to be made for accessibility. You don't have to change the rules entirely to make them more accessible to people. Distances could be written both ways. For example, you could just include the conversion in the text like this:
Your speed is 30' (6 squares) or
The spell range is 120' (40 yards) or
The weapon reach is 10' (2 inches)
Any of these could help people play the game. And that's a good thing. That's all I'm saying.