Do Foreign Translations of 5e Measure in Feet?

[KOLE]

Honest curiosity/help me settle a bet. Me and a friend are converting an RP system to 5e. The original uses meters are increments. He wants to keep it that way for “The feel”, whereas I argue feet is more intuitive and a makes a lot more sense, especially since were americans converting this primarily for an american market.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honest curiosity/help me settle a bet. Me and a friend are converting an RP system to 5e. The original uses meters are increments. He wants to keep it that way for “The feel”, whereas I argue feet is more intuitive and a makes a lot more sense, especially since were americans converting this primarily for an american market.

From what I know, foreign translations of D&D have traditionally used meters (going 2 m = 5 feet, which is off, but not tremendously so).

For an american market, feet will probably work best as long as you can round to a nice number (note that 5e uses 5' increments).

[PhantomSoul]

I don't know to what extent it generalises (including in official content), but AideD&D (https://www.aidedd.org/regles/) in French uses meters.

[SiCK_Boy]

I confirm the French books measure in metres. 5 feet = 1,5 metre is the scale used. They also measure weight in kilograms (1 lb is converted to 0,5 kilogram).

[Knaight]

Honest curiosity/help me settle a bet. Me and a friend are converting an RP system to 5e. The original uses meters are increments. He wants to keep it that way for “The feel”, whereas I argue feet is more intuitive and a makes a lot more sense, especially since were americans converting this primarily for an american market.

The question about foreign translations seems to have been answered (if they're consistent at all), but "the feel" is a pretty key part of why you would use one system of units over the other. Using feet in reasonably hard science fiction set more than a few years in the future is just weird, as one example. Meanwhile for a pre-modern fantasy setting without much in the way of formalized science and with a fair amount of primitive technology and culture feet is a perfect fit.

[Ellisthion]

"the feel" is a pretty key part of why you would use one system of units over the other

This. As an Australian, feet/miles/pounds/etc are inconvenient and unintuitive, BUT I use them anyway because it feels more appropriate for a medieval fantasy setting. For sci fi, metric and never look back.

Celsius over Fahrenheit though. Neither really fit in medieval anyway, and quick conversions are much harder than for feet, miles, and pounds, which are pretty straightforward to estimate.

[Mordaedil]

This. As an Australian, feet/miles/pounds/etc are inconvenient and unintuitive, BUT I use them anyway because it feels more appropriate for a medieval fantasy setting. For sci fi, metric and never look back.

Celsius over Fahrenheit though. Neither really fit in medieval anyway, and quick conversions are much harder than for feet, miles, and pounds, which are pretty straightforward to estimate.
If you are playing Sci-Fi you should really be using Kelvin for temperature. It's not that hard if you are used to celsius.

Or did you mean celsius in medieval, because that also makes sense.

[Eldan]

I use feet, mostly, even if the books use 1.5 meters for five feet. I can't intuitively use feet, but they seem to fit the mood better. Also, ever since 3.5, I've been allergic to "I'm taking a 1.5 meter step!" and "That spell has a range of 7.5 meters!" which just sound stupid.

[hymer]

If you are playing Sci-Fi you should really be using Kelvin for temperature. It's not that hard if you are used to celsius.

While I agree in a general sense, even astronauts (silly word, btw) talk of the temperature in their room in C rather than K*. C was made for human conditions, while K is for astrological phenomena and scientific experiments - though of course being the same scale in practical terms.

* Edit: Or rather, the only one I've heard refer to temperatures of that sort in C or K.

[Lombra]

The italian version goes by meters too, but the localization kinda sucks so in our group we stick to english books.

[Mordaedil]

While I agree in a general sense, even astronauts (silly word, btw) talk of the temperature in their room in C rather than K*. C was made for human conditions, while K is for astrological phenomena and scientific experiments - though of course being the same scale in practical terms.

* Edit: Or rather, the only one I've heard refer to temperatures of that sort in C or K.

To be fair to astronauts, that is done because they venture in environments that still have to remain relatively human-safe, while I reckon sci-fi can venture into territories where the outside of the vessel can be in far more dangerous environs. I can see terminals and the like "switch" once it gets into the safe band again.

[Lombra]

The advantage of the Kelvin is the fact that it is never negative (absolute) which allows otherwise impossible calculations to be made, I honestly can't see it being used colloquially except if one were to live in an impossibly cold envirorment with temperatures in the order of 10 Kelvin.

That being said, maybe some civilization just don't know how to measure temperatures except for the absolute way, so they use that for every-day use too.

[Knaight]

Celsius over Fahrenheit though. Neither really fit in medieval anyway, and quick conversions are much harder than for feet, miles, and pounds, which are pretty straightforward to estimate.

I'm not sure I've ever given a precise temperature in a fantasy setting, partly because having that quantified at all gives a certain feel. This applies to a few other units too - in sci-fi I will absolutely give pressures, currents, voltages, luminescence, whatever. This is usually in response to the use of specific sensors (though pressure in particular can come up a lot), but it's still available.

Fantasy? I'm going to shy away from volume.

[MrStabby]

If you are going to use "feet" for the feel why not go for other archaic measurement systems like cubits, cana or a pace? A Cana should be about the right base size for a lot of functions and could add to the feel you want.

[Knaight]

If you are going to use "feet" for the feel why not go for other archaic measurement systems like cubits, cana or a pace? A Cana should be about the right base size for a lot of functions and could add to the feel you want.

All of those are good units to use, and I've used cubits and paces before (and having looked up the cana, I'm wishing I'd done that research before running a campaign based heavily on Spain that could absolutely have used it).

With that said, "feet" does have some major advantages. The length of a foot is at least a thoroughly settled matter, whereas cubits in particular vary so highly as to make them practically unusable unless defined in the text explicitly - which isn't necessarily a problem, but can be. Plus D&D at least tries to look medieval, for all that the iron age is a better fit a lot of the time, and is based more strongly in English and germanic legend than Spanish, making the cana less of a fit by default. Similarly the pace has a bit of a roman feel to it, which again is off.

Plus players are likely to have at least a vague idea of how long a foot is ahead of time.

[hymer]

The advantage of the Kelvin is the fact that it is never negative (absolute) which allows otherwise impossible calculations to be made, I honestly can't see it being used colloquially except if one were to live in an impossibly cold envirorment with temperatures in the order of 10 Kelvin.

That being said, maybe some civilization just don't know how to measure temperatures except for the absolute way, so they use that for every-day use too.

To add to these observations: Some sorts of calculations need to take something like freezing into account. The decay of dead bodies, e.g., can be measured in days multiplied by degrees of the given day. If it's freezing or colder, there's almost no practical change, but the hotter it gets from there, the faster the decay occurs. This is used to estimate the length of time a body has been dead in forensic science.
If you tried using K for this (or F), it would just complicate the math. C happens to describe certain real world processes really well, particularly those involving water.

[Antarx]

At least in Spanish, D&D books uses the 5'feet measures, even if Spain and pretty much all south of America uses the metric system.

But that has a reason to be. Because it sounds medieval.
The 3.5 book included a page with references and equivalences to ancient medieval European (and specifically Spanish) measure systems (which, by the fact, were not standardized, so you can find differences in the vale of the same measure when you asked people from two different towns)

[Sigreid]

IMO whether you use imperial or metric system or anything else for that matter really depends on your audience. I'm an American, so when you tell me pounds, miles and gallons it takes no effort to visualize what you mean. Someone raised with the metric system will probably have to think about it for a moment. And vice versa.

[Willie the Duck]

Honestly, given that this is a game meant to be played, not a quasi-political statement on the value of the metric system or something, the driving goal should be your gaming group's ease-of-use, and that's whatever they are most familiar with.

Regardless, while there are genuine benefits to different systems, few if any of them are things that come up in the scales one uses in the average D&D game. If you are a carpenter, and trying to determine if you can get two sections of wood out of a single board, there's a legitimate argument that while in English units you have to figure out "okay, each plank needs to be four feet, three and 7/16th inches, and my board is 8'6", c'mon brain, you can do this...", while in metric you can just divide the centimeter length of the board by 2. You don't do a lot of that in D&D. You mostly measure distance to target, which can be ~30 feet or ~9 meters, and it really doesn't matter (so much so that the "~" is probably unnecessary). Your encumbrance is weighted in lbs, and almost never deviates into tons or ounces or the like (in fact, fractional poundage is usually in tenths of pounds). So the actual zones where the benefits and downfalls of each of these measurement systems isn't even within the standard scope of the game.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One other trap I see is too much precision.

We're already translating something that probably doesn't use feet at all (a fantasy world) into a game setting. The distances are abstractions already, rounded to nice round numbers. Going to meters, it's more important to keep the nice round part of things, instead of trying to match the numbers exactly. Because if a table in France gets 6' on that ability, where an American table only gets 5', no big deal. But no one wants to deal with 1.524 meters.

In 5e, everything's a multiple of 5', and spells tend to have (once you're beyond touch range) ranges in multiples of 30' (30, 60, 90, 120, 150, etc).

Same with temperatures. In a fantasy setting, there's really a few temperatures:

* Dangerously cold
* Cold, but not immediately life-threatening
* Normal
* Hot, but not immediately life-threatening
* Dangerously hot

In a sci-fi setting, you may need to be more precise, but only for show. No one cares whether that thing is -72 C or -75 C. In fact, you can do a few bands:

* Colder than liquid nitrogen: Instantly deadly if not properly prepared, and significant PPE needed.
* between liquid nitrogen and about -30 C: Instantly deadly if not properly prepared, but more mundane PPE will work.
* -30 C to about 0 C: PPE needed, but only for long exposure.
* 0 C to about 30 C: Normal
* 30 C to about 50 C: Dangerous for long exposure.
* 50 C to about 100 C: PPE needed
* 100 C + : instant death without significant PPE

[N810]

This a decent defense of the imperial system.
http://askawiseman.com/metric/
(ignore the silly title)


Ps. (fantasy setting)
* Dangerously cold (0-25 F)
* Cold, but not immediately life-threatening (25-50 F)
* Normal (50-75 F)
* Hot, but not immediately life-threatening (75-100F)
* Dangerously hot (over 100 F)

[Sigreid]

This a decent defense of the imperial system.
http://askawiseman.com/metric/
(ignore the silly title)


Ps.
* Dangerously cold (0-25 F)
* Cold, but not immediately life-threatening (25-50 F)
* Normal (50-75 F)
* Hot, but not immediately life-threatening (75-100F)
* Dangerously hot (over 100 F)

Good read. One thing he missed that I read years ago is the imperial system is also set up around multiples of 2, 3, and 4 leading to a lot of day to day "peasant" math that ends in whole numbers instead of fractions and decimals.

[Galactkaktus]

It seems that there are foreign translations that uses meter. So i learned something new today. I've noticed that when i play dnd people around my table always asks how far is that in meters so i guess it has some merits. My own opinion is that it's just easier to use the unit that the book you uses use since you are generally intressted in relative distance and not exakt distance.

[Ellisthion]

I'm not sure I've ever given a precise temperature in a fantasy setting

Nope, but the rules for extreme heat, cold, etc are written in Fahrenheit. Eg the DMG rule for Extreme Temperature says, "When the temperature is at or above 100 degrees Fahrenheit". This is a pain because unlike with feet/miles/etc, understanding what that means is actually pretty important to match to the climate and how to describe things to the characters. It doesn't occur often, but it's just annoying.

In the context of the original question, if I were writing a medieval fantasy RPG, I would use feet/miles/pounds, and Celsius.

That said, the anglophone world is more familiar with units like feet than, say, the francophone world. Most of my players can make a pretty good guess as to how far a foot is, but your average Frenchman or Spaniard can't. So for translating, it make sense that metric is preferred, despite the feel being off.


This a decent defense of the imperial system.
http://askawiseman.com/metric/

Look, I don't want to side-track things, but... no. No it's not. It's written by an American who clearly has no actual experience using the metric system, and hates it because he's not familiar with it. It's full of questionable statements, extreme subjectivity, and blatantly false statements.

To briefly comment on each point, in order:

6 - There's no actual argument in this section

5 - His complaints about large numbers work both ways: eg distances in feet, temperatures in Fahrenheit. Also metric allows easier management of this: 500m <-> 0.5 km is easy, 2640ft <-> 0.5 miles is a mess.

4 - Conversion is important and you gain nothing by making conversion hard. In actual real life, things like 1000m = 1km and 1L water = 1kg are actually useful and make things easier day-to-day. Anecdote: I got annoyed in a US grocery store once because I was trying to compare prices in $/lb with ¢/oz - not easy to do in your head. In metric-land, you have $/kg and $/100g - extremely straightforward.

3 - Fails to understand that someone growing up with metric uses metric as their reference point. Where you estimate 1ft, I'd estimate 30cm. It's the same. Metric doesn't mean people suddenly use overly-precise numbers.

2 - The estimating complaints are nonsense and just based on familiarity. Same with the temperatures - it's all arbitrary, and nobody has problems with Celsius if they're familiar with it. For what it's worth, the freezing point of water is an extraordinarily important number for climate and weather, science, cooking, and more.

1 - His core argument stems from his familiarity, not facts. Metric maths is simpler and needs less memorisation, and it doesn't have weirdnesses like ounces vs fluid ounces.

In short, "I don't know metric" is a terrible argument against it.

[N810]

I know the article was a bit blunt, but it does have some points,
and yes it was written my an American, I mean who else would be fluent in our system ?

But you are wrong in saying we don't use the metric system,
both units are on every product we buy and even on the speedometers of our vehicles.
lots of technical professions use the metric system rater extensively: medicine, engineering, science.
But in general we find imperial more practical for everyday use. and the units are usually of
such a convent size that the is seldom a need to convert from one to another.

[MaxWilson]

If you are playing Sci-Fi you should really be using Kelvin for temperature. It's not that hard if you are used to celsius.

Kelvin is based on the metric system, which is terribly provincial and humanocentric. (Pretty much everything in the metric system is fundamentally based the length of a meter, which was originally chosen to match "one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole".)

If you're playing sci-fi in character you should probably be giving all distances in terms of Planck length, in base 2. I'm sure your players can convert back to metric in their heads.

[Justin Sane]

As an European with an Engineering background, I always have to convert imperial to metric in my head... Unless, for some reason, I'm speaking English, in which case my thought process goes in reverse - I estimate distances in feet or yards or miles, or weight in pounds, before remembering the person I'm talking to probably never used them.

No idea why this happens. I blame DnD.

[EvilAnagram]

I only give measurements in leagues.

Most characters can only move 1/600 of a league, so it's quite difficult.

[War_lord]

Not exactly a "foreign translation", but in the UK and Ireland the books use imperial measurements. I'm Irish and generally people use imperial measures for casual purposes (a pint of Guinness, 8 inches of rope, the [location] is five miles down the road), a 5 acre field). Anything in an official capacity of any kind is done in metric. This isn't because imperial measures are somehow innately more "practical", but because people grew up with parents who were accustomed to "eyeballing" measurements based on the old system, which passed on to their kids. Only the metric system is taught in Irish schools, and the metric system is used for all practical purposes, so I expect that the instinctive use of the imperial system will fade over the next few generations.

But currently? Feet work just fine for the purpose of a tactics game, particularly if you're playing on a grid where you don't really need to know what 5 feet is, just that a grid square is 5 feet.


I know the article was a bit blunt, but it does have some points,
and yes it was written my an American, I mean who else would be fluent in our system ?

It's not "your" system, it's an obsolete British Imperial system. Which makes the bizarre American patriotism about the matter even more baffling. And the rest of the anglo-sphere is fluent in the imperial system, we're just phasing it out because it kinda sucks for any situation where accuracy matters. Which, when you're picking a system of measure, accuracy is all that matters.


But you are wrong in saying we don't use the metric system,
both units are on every product we buy and even on the speedometers of our vehicles.
lots of technical professions use the metric system rater extensively: medicine, engineering, science.

Your military also uses it. In fact, every profession where measurements are important uses Metric, which should tell you something about the usefulness of the imperial system.


But in general we find imperial more practical for everyday use. and the units are usually of
such a convent size that the is seldom a need to convert from one to another.

Sorry, but I'm going to have to contend that that's because Americans are accustomed to imperial measurements, not because there's something innate to imperial that makes it practical. I think the decentralized nature of the US and the accompanying inability to make rapid changes is a better explanation this particular "quirk" of the United States.

[EvilAnagram]

It's not "your" system, it's an obsolete British Imperial system. Which makes the bizarre American patriotism about the matter even more baffling. And the rest of the anglo-sphere is fluent in the imperial system, we're just phasing it out because it kinda sucks for any situation where accuracy matters. Which, when you're picking a system of measure, accuracy is all that matters.
The American system of measurement is distinct from the Imperial system. Google it.

[War_lord]

The American system of measurement is distinct from the Imperial system. Google it.

They're both english derived. there's a few minor technical differences but they're essentially the same dinosaur.

[Nifft]

The American system of measurement is distinct from the Imperial system. Google it.

Only American Google will tell you that.

Metric Google says otherwise.

[SiCK_Boy]

I'm from Quebec, so although we play in French, everyone is familiar with feet and pounds (people know what someone measuring 6' looks like, for example), so these are the measure we use (plus the fact that the French books just came out in the last year mean we're used to gaming with the measurement system from the original american books).

However, for the weather, I had to convert the Farenheit figues in Celcius when I built my weather generator spreadsheet. It was a bit more work, but much more useful in the end since that's what people are familiar with. I don't use the table to tell people the exact temperature in a very precise manner every day (although I do have it, if a player was to insist on knowing), but I'm able to give them ranges and comparisons they are familiar with (they know that 30 degrees is a hot summer day, 20 degrees is still comfortable with just a shirt, and you need a vest when you get closer to 10 degrees or so).

To me, the gaming aspect of the measurement system are more critical than the feel aspect. You want a system that people are familiar with, that is easy to use based on your rule system (for example, since the D&D american books use the imperial system, that would make it easy to default to it), and that the players are familiar with (especially if they need to do calculations, rather than just comparison, using the chosen system).

[Sigreid]

Temperature is probably the hardest conversion. I mean I know 1 kilo is approximately 2.2 pounds. A yard and a meter are close enough together to not fuss about it too much. A kilometer is about .6 miles, close enough to half a mile for me. And I think an inch is about 3 centimeters, give or take.

Other than 30 degrees centigrade is a hot day, maybe around 80 or 90 Fahrenheit, I have no idea how the two systems relate.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Temperature is probably the hardest conversion. I mean I know 1 kilo is approximately 2.2 pounds. A yard and a meter are close enough together to not fuss about it too much. A kilometer is about .6 miles, close enough to half a mile for me. And I think an inch is about 3 centimeters, give or take.

Other than 30 degrees centigrade is a hot day, maybe around 80 or 90 Fahrenheit, I have no idea how the two systems relate.

A quick and dirty conversion is:

F = 2C + 30 (the real is 9/5 C + 32)
C = (F-30)/2 (the real conversion is 5/9 ( F - 32))

So every 5 C = 10 F
0 C = 30 F (freezing)
10 C = 50 F (cool)
20 C = 70 F (room temp, approximate)
30 C = 90 C (hot)

[hymer]

No idea why this happens. I blame DnD.

I know how you feel. Unless I think about it, 'halfling' is just American English for 'Hobbit'.

[EvilAnagram]

I know how you feel. Unless I think about it, 'halfling' is just American English for 'Hobbit'.

...halfling is from Lord of the Rings. It's just a rude way to say hobbit.

[hymer]

...halfling is from Lord of the Rings. It's just a rude way to say hobbit.
You were worried I didn't know that?

[lxion]

I'm from Belgium, so I'm used to metric. Weights etc (if someone asks for it), are in kg and heights etc usually in meters. In combat though, I tend to use feet, like in the books. I made a board where every square is 5x5 ft, about 1.5m. We usually measure by squares in stead of calculating the distance.

[EvilAnagram]

You were worried I didn't know that?
Well, you suggested that it's somehow an American English version of hobbit, so yes.

[Sigreid]

Well, you suggested that it's somehow an American English version of hobbit, so yes.

My understanding is it was basically a dont get sued for blatantly ripping off Tolkien's intellectual property.

[Willie the Duck]

Well, you suggested that it's somehow an American English version of hobbit, so yes.

hymer's statement, at face value, is gibberish. No one is foolish enough to think that Gary was sitting at his writing desk thinking, 'I would like to include Hobbits in my game. But what do we call those things here in the State*s?' It's pretty obvious by context that hymer was at least partially being facetious.
*even if one ignores or didn't know that they were called hobbits in early versions.

[hymer]

I think you guys are missing the context of the post I was replying to. When I read about halflings/Hobbits in English, it would consistently be Hobbits in British English (and my native tongue, as well), and halflings in American English. So I subconsciously came to think of those names as the linguistic versions of that concept in two different languages - just like Justin Sane says that he thinks differently about distance (feet and miles in English, metric otherwise) depending on the language he uses. And he says this is because of D&D.

So there. :smallsmile:

[EvilAnagram]

I think you guys are missing the context of the post I was replying to. When I read about halflings/Hobbits in English, it would consistently be Hobbits in British English (and my native tongue, as well), and halflings in American English. So I subconsciously came to think of those names as the linguistic versions of that concept in two different languages - just like Justin Sane says that he thinks differently about distance (feet and miles in English, metric otherwise) depending on the language he uses. And he says this is because of D&D.

So there. :smallsmile:

That makes much more sense.