GURPS 5E?

[TGLS]

Originally Posted by WingedKagouti

If SJG wants the units used in GURPS to be relatable outside the US (making the game as a whole more easy to parse for non-US citizens), having the system use metric baseline with an imperial unit conversion table would make more sense.

Or take a half measure and do everything in yards, quarts, and pounds, for easy conversions (i.e. 1 yard = 1 meter, 1 quart = 1 liter, 1 pound = 0.5 kg).

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Willy

If SJG still uses feets and such fine, but than stop complaining about not making enough money with GURPS, because it was SJGs own decision.

I don't recall ever hearing Steve Jackson Games complaining that they don't make enough money from GURPS.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Willy

Basically using any non metric system for a next GURPS Edition will reduce sales worldwide, because only the US and GB are using the old measure system even the US military uses metric standards for good reasons.

SJG must decide whether it wants GURPS to be a niche product for English-speaking fans from the U.S. and U.K., or whether it wants to go global.

The biggest market is used to Imperial though, Trying to cater to other markets at the expense of your current one is generally not going to work out well.
And as pointed out the conversions are in GURPS Basic.
Complaining that a meter and a yard are not exact translations is technically accurate but also goes against the point of using meters in the first place. I doubt anyone wants to use decimal points for most measurements.

This is not something that really should be laid at SJG, until Americans convert its just something that has to be dealt with.

[Þorkell]

I'm used to the metric system.

When playing GURPS we give measurements in meters and if we need to use the Speed/Range Table for anything we read off the entry for the same amount of yards. So far this hasn't been a problem for our game.

It makes no difference to me that the US uses a measuring system that only three countries on the planet use.

[sjard]

Now there's a headache. Converting from US Customary to Imperial so you can then convert to Metric.

Originally Posted by Þorkell

It makes no difference to me that the US uses a measuring system that only three countries on the planet use.

It's worse than that. The US isn't one of those three, because the US does not use the Imperial system, and instead uses US Customary. Most of the differences are in volumes, but there are also length differences.

Edit: point is to show the argument is somewhat absurd if you get to the levels some people who play GURPS tend to go.

[edk926]

Like how the US ton is an even 2000 lbs but the Imperial ton is closer to the metric ton.

[Farmer]

Originally Posted by sjard

Most of the differences are in volumes, but there are also length differences.

Frankly, that's the biggest advantage of metric - the simplicity of the relationship between length, area, volume, and mass.

In GURPS, we just use yards and metres interchangeably, and most other things by rough conversion that we've done so often it takes no effort. What would be nice to help younger players outside the US who haven't grown up with so much imperial and US customary measurements as a cultural background, is more prevalent use of metrics in tables along side the US measurements where the crunch is important (it doesn't matter in fluff). It's a small thing but could help.

[Willy]

Originally Posted by Stormcrow

I don't recall ever hearing Steve Jackson Games complaining that they don't make enough money from GURPS.

There were several posts by Dr. Kromm which included complaining that GURPS doesn´t make enough money for SJG to justify more employees for GURPS, because GURPS makes profit but not enough.

That theme came up since I´m in this forum at least 5 times, basically anytime the fans want a 4th Ed Vehicles, Bestiary or another worldbook, and Dr. Kromm answers why not, or why he is the only full time staff member for GURPS.

It was after the year 2000 when 4th Ed came out, and not using metric is one of the birth flaws, because once you have a Basic Set out. You can´t go back. It´s a design decision you have to make very early.

Originally Posted by Farmer

Frankly, that's the biggest advantage of metric - the simplicity of the relationship between length, area, volume, and mass.

In GURPS, we just use yards and metres interchangeably, and most other things by rough conversion that we've done so often it takes no effort. What would be nice to help younger players outside the US who haven't grown up with so much imperial and US customary measurements as a cultural background, is more prevalent use of metrics in tables along side the US measurements where the crunch is important (it doesn't matter in fluff). It's a small thing but could help.

That´s the whole point in it, it makes learning GURPS easier, I always hear we need more new players not only the old guard, so this will help a lot outside the US and a bit inside.

You will not loose old players, but get the chance to win new ones.

I often hear the argument but then we have to deal with decimal places, like 0,2352356 gr. . That´s easy to solve GURPS always works with rounding numbers up or down. The casual player can do this for all occasions, the hardcore nerd still can have dozens of decimal places for his hard SF space game, if he wants to.

[Ashtagon]

The precise difference between metres and yards only matters if you are building a crunch-heavy vehicle design system, such as G3 Vehicles.

Length and Mass: For low-tech games, it is quite easy to pretend anything written in "metres" is actually "yards". And a kilogram is close enough to 2 lb that the rounding error can be ignored for anything that isn't a crunchy vehicle design system.

Volume: US and imperial quarts are different, but again, the rounding error is close enough to a litre that it can be used one-for-one for gaming purposes. That said, the main volume units in GURPS to date are cubic feet and cubic yards, not quarts. I don't recall these being used much outside the context of vehicle design systems and modules that might fit inside flexible spaces of a vehicle.

I think GURPS can work fine if units of length/mass are kept primarily in metres and kg, with a sidebar note explaining the "lazy conversion".

[Stormcrow]

Originally Posted by Willy

There were several posts by Dr. Kromm which included complaining that GURPS doesn´t make enough money for SJG to justify more employees for GURPS, because GURPS makes profit but not enough.

I've seen those post, too. That's the guy in charge of editing GURPS stating the reason SJG doesn't publish more GURPS, not SJG complaining that GURPS doesn't make enough money. There's a big difference there.