Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

If we assume that most TFT players are American - a reasonable assumption - then I think it's reasonable to assume that they are FAR more familiar with US customary units. Yes, I know that's slightly different than what I originally said, but I was speaking (metaphorically) informally. Consider my statement amended.

Most people in the US at least know about how long a yard is. Even if they know a meter is about 3" longer, there's no point in forcing them to think about the conversion. The same is true of kilograms. We know about how much a pound is; there's no point in making us subconsciously divide kilograms by 2.2.

In any case, there's no more reason to use the metric system in TFT than there was to use it in GURPS.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

There's no need to use either system. There's just no particular reason to change.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

Like you or someone else said, they're close enough to work as rounding errors. But if they're close enough one way, then they're close enough the other way. So no one should be getting their pants in a twist, right?
I suppose similar could be said for kilograms being close to twice the size of pounds.
That still leaves the question of why use modern units for fantasy settings. Even if "everyone" can make do with either.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

US customary units are modern too. Might as well use a Roman pace (about 5').

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

Well, you have to have measures for weight and distance. There's no good reason that I can think of not to use the most commonly used (by your audience) system.

And there's particularly no good reason to use a wholly artificial system.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

A game using Planck units would be a big hassle.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

I disagree, for the reasons I stated above. I think it's almost self-evident that the system that is most familiar to the majority of players should be used.

I follow this in my own game design - a 20/21st century miniature wargame. A Fistful of TOWs uses both metric and English, because each is the more familiar to most players in different contexts. Military distances are commonly expressed in meters (even by the US military). So the game scale is 1 inch equals 100 meters. Inches are easier to use by Americans (and none of my European players have demanded centimeters) because they are more familiar and require smaller numbers. It's just a little quicker to divide 10 inches by 2 (to determine close range) or multiply by 1.5 (to determine long range) than it is to divide/multiply 25.4 centimeters. And with hundreds of such measurements in a good sized game, I think it's worth avoiding the accumulated hassle.

Many UK wargames use inches, despite the UK being nominally committed to the metric system, I suspect for the same reason.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

Why would you force a majority of players to divide weight by 2.2 or even 2? What possible advantage is gained? Why use a measurement that is "close to a yard" rather than just using yards?

Other than some quixotic desire to impose the metric system on a culture that has largely rejected it (outside certain scientific areas), I just can't see why you'd insist on keeping the metric system. And imposing something on your customers - for their own good of course - doesn't really make a lot of business sense to me.

I think it's safe to say that most of the TFT faithful play TFT for reasons other than its use of the metric system.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

That's just being willfully inept at unit conversion. Unless for some reason you have 1:3937 scale miniatures, just use different scales depending on the rulers people are using (so a weapon with a range of 1,000 meters is treated as range 10 inches or 25 centimeters). As long as people aren't using two different rulers at one table, it doesn't matter.

Re: Metric? Keep or change?
 

1 inch equals 100 meters...I just don't even know where to start.