Metric? Keep or change?

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by Anthony

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