Game Design Sins

[thebigh]

Thinking of height in terms of feet, is probably the only element of the imperial system which is still commonly retained in Australia.

Up until about 20 years ago you'd still have old farts talking in Fahrenheit occasionally. When they wanted to complain about the heat they'd go, "It's a hundred degrees out there!" because that's a higher number than 37 C. Similarly on cold days they'd switch to centigrade because those are lower numbers.

 

[TJS]

Up until about 20 years ago you'd still have old farts talking in Fahrenheit occasionally. When they wanted to complain about the heat they'd go, "It's a hundred degrees out there!" because that's a higher number than 37 C. Similarly on cold days they'd switch to centigrade because those are lower numbers.

Yeah I remember when I was a kid people still saying things like "It was 100 degrees in the shade" - but not for a long time now.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yeah I remember when I was a kid people still saying things like "It was 100 degrees in the shade" - but not for a long time now.

Maybe they're boiling water in the shade?

 

[AsenRG]

It's work with no reward beyond quality of life. That said, you can also get an intern to do it for a mention in the credits and a CV point, so nearly free.

I did the hyperlinks when I recompiled Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e pdfs with my house rules. My main annoyance now is that I have yet to find a decent light/medium weight pdf reader that does a back button and form filling (needed for the dice rollers & random generators in the pdf) that's not loaded with ginormous bloatware features & requires networking to report home on me.

I think MuPDF and/or FoxIt should fit the bill.

Maybe they're boiling water in the shade?

That would be my guess as well!

 

[AsenRG]

Baulderstone is the one that said it was messier, I’m just the ugly American defending the Imperial system. I can’t even give a good reason why since I have to look up simple imperial measurements (how many ounces in a gallon) all the time.

It's 128 oz and I didn't have to check...and it's a system nobody here uses. I learned it because of reading Lord of the Rings, where the translator kept the "ancient" measures, as he called them.
But Metric, Celsius and Kgs are still far superior, especially for SF, as L Lundgren said!

I just noted that Osprey Games like a few other developers likes to charge an unreasonable amount for pdfs if you get the physical copy. Looking at Monte Cook Games another offender. View attachment 47840

I like the 25% off an all bundle but seriously game developers need to stop this crap.

Same with TFT. I bought the "I want it all" package for a hefty sum, but I guess the word "all" did not include a pdf so had to but that separately. That kind of greed and lack of transparency is of putting and ends up SJG losing future sales, at lest from me. I'd almost call it nickel and diming but the pdf was not cheap.

I concur on the "stopping this crap" part. For my part, when I see a bundle where the PDF is raising the overall price by >$5, I'm only getting the PDF, or neither (if it was an impulse buy).

 

[Agemegos]

It's 128 oz and I didn't have to check.

And you got it wrong.

You are thinking of the US gallon, which is 128 US fluid ounces. But sharps54 specified the "imperial system" — there are 160 fluid ounces in an Imperial gallon. And they are slightly different Imperial fluid ounces.

Just to make things really exciting, the US system of units has two different gallons: the US liquid gallon of 231 cubic inches and the US dry gallon of 268.8025 cubic inches. However, when the question is asked "how many ounces in a gallon" you know that the dry gallon is not meant, because it has no sub-divisions.

Here are another few ambiguous unit conversions for you. "How many grains in an ounce?". "How many gallons in a barrel?". "How many feet in a mile?". "How many pounds in a hundredweight?". "How many pounds in a ton?".

 

[Fenris-77]

Fucking Imperial entanglements!

 

[AsenRG]

And you got it wrong.

You are thinking of the US gallon, which is 128 US fluid ounces. But sharps54 specified the "imperial system" — there are 160 fluid ounces in an Imperial gallon. And they are slightly different Imperial fluid ounces.

S sharps54 also specified he's a Yank. It would make sense to me that he'd be talking about the US gallon!
Of course, feel free to fight it out with him which gallon is the "real" one, I'm not taking a side...

 

[Agemegos]

S sharps54 also specified he's a Yank. It would make sense to me that he'd be talking about the US gallon!

It would make sense if he just said "gallon". But he specified "Imperial".

Of course, feel free to fight it out with him which gallon is the "real" one, I'm not taking a side...

This is not my circus. These are not my monkeys. You're the one who thought you knew what sharps54 meant.

 

[AsenRG]

It would make sense if he just said "gallon". But he specified "Imperial".

Shrug. Then congrats, man, you caught me in an oversight! Feeling better now?

This is not my circus. These are not my monkeys. You're the one who thought you knew what sharps54 meant.

Great, glad that you admit so easily that the real gallon is the US one, as it is used by more people*!

*The real reason I learned the US gallon way back when when I wanted to complete my knowledge of Imperial measures. And yes, US or UK measures, it's all Imperial to me!

 

[SJB]

A slight lack of ambition in these conversions! Personally, I struggle to (= cannot) remember the conversion for momentum - the good old slug-foot per second. Therefore, never introduce the concept of “stopping power” in a rules system. Or worry too much about the Mars Lander.

 

[Agemegos]

Great, glad that you admit so easily that the real gallon is the US one, as it is used by more people*!

All the gallons are equally real. Winchester gallon. Elizabeth gallon. William corn gallon. Old English ale gallon. Queen Anne wine gallon. Guildhall gallon, Jersey gallon. Guernsey gallon. Irish gallon. US liquid gallon, US dry gallon. They are equally real, but they aren't equal. And none of those is equal to the Imperial gallon.

*The real reason I learned the US gallon way back when when I wanted to complete my knowledge of Imperial measures. And yes, US or UK measures, it's all Imperial to me!

That's the way to give yourself comprehension problems. The term "Imperial gallon" (and Imperial pint, bushel, etc.) were introduced specifically to distinguish the newfangled units of 1824 from the old English units that remained in use in the USA. In this context "Imperial" means exactly "not US".

 

[Agemegos]

A slight lack of ambition in these conversions! Personally, I struggle to (= cannot) remember the conversion for momentum - the good old slug-foot per second.

Perhaps you would find momentum more intuitively obvious if you measured it in poundal-seconds.

 

[sharps54]

And you got it wrong.

You are thinking of the US gallon, which is 128 US fluid ounces. But sharps54 specified the "imperial system" — there are 160 fluid ounces in an Imperial gallon. And they are slightly different Imperial fluid ounces.

Just to make things really exciting, the US system of units has two different gallons: the US liquid gallon of 231 cubic inches and the US dry gallon of 268.8025 cubic inches. However, when the question is asked "how many ounces in a gallon" you know that the dry gallon is not meant, because it has no sub-divisions.

Here are another few ambiguous unit conversions for you. "How many grains in an ounce?". "How many gallons in a barrel?". "How many feet in a mile?". "How many pounds in a hundredweight?". "How many pounds in a ton?".

Of course the funny part is he is right as I am an American and I didn’t even realize at American measurements and Imperial measurements were different. I might not have paid attention in school that day

 

[sharps54]

Look I readily admit that the metric system is superior in every aspect if you stand back and look at it. That doesn’t change the fact we tend to lean towards what we were originally taught and grew up with. Some people are able to accept change and others, like me, well

 

[SJB]

Perhaps you would find momentum more intuitively obvious if you measured it in poundal-seconds.

I suspect not!

 

[Agemegos]

Look I readily admit that the metric system is superior in every aspect if you stand back and look at it.

Customary units are better in at least one respect: they are much funnier!

 

[Sharrow]

Look at GURPS Vorkosigan Saga and GURPS Girl Genius.

View attachment 47843

Not defending the lack of a decent bundled price (which they really should offer), but if you're buying one or the other they shouldn't cost a very different amount as PDFs cost almost as much to make as hardcopy books because the cost to write, edit, and lay out the book is the same either way.

 

[Sharrow]

It's 128 oz and I didn't have to check...and it's a system nobody here uses. I learned it because of reading Lord of the Rings, where the translator kept the "ancient" measures, as he called them.

Ah, but it's not 128 ounces of water by weight. Because US customary measure is completely bonkers. Now, Imperial measure, having been cleaned up and somewhat rationalised, is a much better deal. It makes a gallon 10 pounds of water (and thus 160 ounces), and they are actual pounds by weight. Much more sensible. Better yet, by good luck the Imperial (long) ton (2240 pounds) is quite close to the metric tonne (1000kg or very nearly 2200 pounds).

That said, part of the mess that is US customary measure (and some of the messes in Imperial) are actually from redefining them to be certain exact conversions from metric, and the rounding means that they don't mesh together properly any more.

I personally like Imperial for my fantasy along with pounds, shilling, and pence for currency (and possibly all sorts of other odd coins for the fun of it), and metric for my SF (with a strictly decimal currency, though having the aliens use a duodecimal number system and currency might be fun one day).

 

[Sharrow]

Customary units are better in at least one respect: they are much funnier!

View attachment 47858

If you look carefully, you'll see that some of those cannot be true at the same time: a nautical mile cannot be both 6080 feet and 3 x 2 x 100 x 10 = 6000 feet, and these days it's not actually either of these, having been defined as being exactly 1,852 metres (because the metric system fucks everything else up).

 

[BedrockBrendan]

If you look carefully, you'll see that some of those cannot be true at the same time: a nautical mile cannot be both 6080 feet and 3 x 2 x 100 x 10 = 6000 feet, and these days it's not actually either of these, having been defined as being exactly 1,852 metres (because the metric system fucks everything else up).

If there were a video of it online, and sadly it seems there isn't, I'd post the SNL sketch with Kelsey Grammer for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

 

[Agemegos]

If you look carefully, you'll see that some of those cannot be true at the same time: a nautical mile cannot be both 6080 feet and 3 x 2 x 100 x 10 = 6000 feet, and these days it's not actually either of these, having been defined as being exactly 1,852 metres (because the metric system fucks everything else up).

That's one of the things that I think is so funny.

At one stage the Royal Navy used two different nautical miles. Navigation was done using charts issued by the Admiralty with distances indicated in nautical miles of 6 080 feet. But gunnery was done with rangefinders calibrated in nautical miles of 6 000 feet. Nothing was done with enough accuracy that an imprecision of 1⅓ per cent could matter.

Also, I'll point out that that chart omits the machinists' line, which is 1/10 inch, and includes only the typographer's line (1/12 inch).

 

[Sharrow]

That's one of the things that I think is so funny.

At one stage the Royal Navy used two different nautical miles. Navigation was done using charts issued by the Admiralty with distances indicated in nautical miles of 6 080 feet. But gunnery was done with rangefinders calibrated in nautical miles of 6 000 feet.

Also, I'll point out that that chart omits the machinists' line, which is 1/10 inch, and includes only the typographer's line (1/12 inch).

It also has the size of points a little wrong for US customary measure, where they were ~72.27 to the inch.

And that's a very limited definition of league, too - almost nobody except the RN used three nautical miles to the league.

And if we're talking customary measure in general there's a wonderful way that different places had different sized feet and inches (and thus different everything else).

 

[Agemegos]

It also has the size of points a little wrong for US customary measure, where they were ~72.27 to the inch.

And that's a very limited definition of league, too - almost nobody except the RN used three nautical miles to the league.

I'd go so far as to call it an error to omit the league that amounts to three land miles, which I think was more common than the nautical league.

And if we're talking customary measure in general there's a wonderful way that different places had different sized feet and inches (and thus different everything else).

Right. In the USA I think 24 states specify that land surveying records are in US survey feet, while eight specify that they are in international feet, and eighteen prefer not to say.

 

[Baragei]

As a metric guy, I can deal with inches, feet and pounds. But when you start cooking with fluid ounces and cups, I'm out!

 

[Baulderstone]

It took 16 pages, but now we are finally getting down to things that matter in game design.

 

[chuckdee]

Not defending the lack of a decent bundled price (which they really should offer), but if you're buying one or the other they shouldn't cost a very different amount as PDFs cost almost as much to make as hardcopy books because the cost to write, edit, and lay out the book is the same either way.

I know I buy hardcopies, but mine are in pristine shape because I use the PDF in almost every instance. I think many do the same. What I'm saying is that if you're buying the hardcopy, you should get the PDF for free, as you've already paid for all the costs dealing with "write, edit, and lay out the book". You aren't getting two different products for that price. They're double dipping and it sucks. PDFs should be a bit less, but not bargain basement like they are in several cases, to account for lack of inventory and distribution costs. But if you buy both, you shouldn't pay almost double.

 

[Baulderstone]

As a metric guy, I can deal with inches, feet and pounds. But when you start cooking with fluid ounces and cups, I'm out!

I travelled a lot as a kid, so I have a mix of metric and Imperial in my head.

When I've worked in kitchens in the US, it really becomes evident that most Americans, no matter how much pride they had in the imperial system, have no fucking clue how to convert between ounces, cups and tablespoons.

Even if you know all the conversions by heart it is still a pain in the ass. When I worked in the deli, we had to make large batch recipes, but often we'd need to make a half or quarter amount. In metric, this is trivial, but it's a chore to do it in imperial.

 

[David Johansen]

It took 16 pages, but now we are finally getting down to things that matter in game design.

That's why the Bible warns against using diverse weights and measures.

 

[Brock Savage]

When I've worked in kitchens in the US, it really becomes evident that most Americans, no matter how much pride they had in the imperial system, have no fucking clue how to convert between ounces, cups and tablespoons.

I took home economics in middle school and it taught me skills I use to this day including how to navigate those crazy old timey US measurements. I don't think they teach that any more in schools because this is Bunny's reaction when I ask her to "just split the recipe in half"

 

[Fenris-77]

It's amazing how many people don't understand that recipes are essentially just ratios, which makes adjusting them a breeze without having to any real math.

 

[Baulderstone]

I took home economics in middle school and it taught me skills I use to this day including how to navigate those crazy old timey US measurements. I don't think they teach that any more in schools because this is Bunny's reaction when I ask her to "just split the recipe in half"


View attachment 47859

Yup. That's the look I remember from new hires.

 

[Baulderstone]

I have an aesthetic issue with kilos and especially meters for middling sizes of things they measure. I think any measurement that commonly relies on the decimal parts of the measurement to usefully compare one thing to another is silly. Meters for height has exactly this problem. Human heights mostly fall between 1 and 2 meters, so need that decimal pretty badly to differentiate. Somehow this reality offends my sensibilities. Human weight in kilos is better in that regard, and I suspect it's the imperial brainwashing from my early childhood that's holding me back there.

Is it aesthetically better to need two measurements, feet and inches (and then going into fractions of an inch), for one measurement?

If you prefer that to decimals, you can always say that someone some is 1 meter, 8 and 6/7 decimeters to give it that old school feel.

 

[Brock Savage]

It's amazing how many people don't understand that recipes are essentially just ratios, which makes adjusting them a breeze without having to any real math.

Try asking someone who doesn't grok how the measurements relate to each other and is bad at math to measure half of 1/3 of a cup

 

[Fenris-77]

Is it aesthetically better to need two measurements, feet and inches (and then going into fractions of an inch), for one measurement?

If you prefer that to decimals, you can always say that someone some is 1 meter, 8 and 6/7 decimeters to give it that old school feel.

Apparently. I suspect it's just my experience that makes the difference there.

 

[Sharrow]

Try asking someone who doesn't grok how the measurements relate to each other and is bad at math to measure half of 1/3 of a cup

You get you measuring cup, and you measure out 1/6th of a cup, using the convenient scale up the side of it. You do have a measuring cup, right?

 

[chuckdee]

You get you measuring cup, and you measure out 1/6th of a cup, using the convenient scale up the side of it. You do have a measuring cup, right?

A lot of measuring cups don't have that granularity.

 

[Brock Savage]

You get you measuring cup, and you measure out 1/6th of a cup, using the convenient scale up the side of it. You do have a measuring cup, right?

I've yet to see a Pyrex with 1/6 of a cup anywhere on the side but concede that measuring cups with unusual measurements do exist just like size 15 women's shoes. You can find them under "odd size measuring cups" in Amazon.

 

[Necrozius]

Canada is messed up cause we use a mix of Imperial and Metric and it has confused the shit out of me my whole life. Weather? metric. Water (eg, pools)? Imperial. Carpentry? Metric. Tailoring? Imperial. It seems really arbitrary.

Don’t get me started with recipes.

edit: LOL @ horse measures in “hands”! Did they measure cats and dogs in “ears”?

 

[Fenris-77]

Canada is messed up cause we use a mix of Imperial and Metric and it has confused the shit out of me my whole life. Weather? metric. Water (eg, pools)? Imperial. Carpentry? Metric. Tailoring? Imperial. It seems really arbitrary.

Don’t get me started with recipes.

edit: LOL @ horse measures in “hands”! Did they measure cats and dogs in “ears”?

It's a complicated dance, keeping both the Queen and the President happy.