Quote from: S'mon on October 06, 2021, 06:49:28 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 05:50:22 AM
Eventually, they figured out a standard unit, just as with the foot, the pound and the pace (mostly likely based on the mille passum; 1000 paces; from which the mile derived).

Cool! I think I'll go over to 5,000 foot miles = 1,000 5' paces in my D&D games. 

That's literally what my own system's setting uses as it's default. A mile is 1000 paces/5000'.

I also use "a pint's a pound the whole world round" as the basis for weights and measures. A pound in universe is equal to a pint of fresh water. A pint in-universe is a cylinder thar is one palm (approx. 3") across by one hand (approx. 4") tall; basically the volume of a mug that would comfortably fit in someone's hand.

Similarly, the inch is derived from finger joint, the foot from a foot, and the yard from the length of a man's belt. The pace is two steps (or one foot being picked up until it is planted again), the mile a thousand paces... all of it essentially derived from anthropic units or simple divisions thereof.

Even the currency is based on the pound silver with the common currency being the cent (as in "one per cent of a pound") and then the bit (a quarter of a cent).

Being able to reference the actual anthropic origins for each unit I've found goes a long way towards establishing versimultude in the setting while also making it easy to visualize in relation to the generally human-sized characters in it.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 05:50:22 AM
In Roman times, an hour was literally just 1/12 (measured by angle of the sun) of the daylight hours.

So were people back then just really adept at measuring the angle of the sun visually, and calculating "1/12th" of the daylight hours for that particular time of year in their heads? Or did they carry an elaborate system of sunrise/sunset tables and a measuring instrument? If so, what instrument is that?

And how did they measure "hours" on cloudy days?

Did Roman armies have a designated timekeeper that walked around holding an hourglass upright?

Curious.

Quote from: Zalman on October 06, 2021, 10:32:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 05:50:22 AM
In Roman times, an hour was literally just 1/12 (measured by angle of the sun) of the daylight hours.

So were people back then just really adept at measuring the angle of the sun visually, and calculating "1/12th" of the daylight hours for that particular time of year in their heads? Or did they carry an elaborate system of sunrise/sunset tables and a measuring instrument? If so, what instrument is that?

And how did they measure "hours" on cloudy days?

Did Roman armies have a designated timekeeper that walked around holding an hourglass upright?

Curious.

The answer is, it varied.

An important thing to keep in mind is that from the founding of the Republic until the collapse of the Western Empire was nearly a thousand years (and the Eastern half lasted another century beyond that).

A lot of the measurements that started out as variables were standardized, particularly as government became more centralized. The length of a League stopped being how far an army could march in an hour to a statute distance before Julius even became dictator (in fact, ALL of Julius' conquests which we traditionally associate with the Empire actually occured during the Republic and Julius himself was never Emperor).

The standard measuring systems of time for Romans were the sundial and the water clock. So distances would have been calculated at some point using those and once standardized would be measured using ropes (the origin of the term knots comes from laying out a rope with evenly spaced knots behind a ship for a period of time and then counting the knots) or lengths of chain (and the associated imperial measurement).

Basic measurements of time can also be done using a person's hand; a trick still used today. The width of the four fingers on a human hand at arm's length is about the distance the sun travels across the sky in an hour. So going hand over hand from the horizon to the sun along its arc of travel will give a rough measure of hours after sunrise or before sunset (with each finger being a quarter hour/15 minutes).

It would vary a bit from person-to-person obviously, but as a rough guide the hand trick is often "good enough."

Quote from: Zalman on October 06, 2021, 10:32:32 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 05:50:22 AM
In Roman times, an hour was literally just 1/12 (measured by angle of the sun) of the daylight hours.

So were people back then just really adept at measuring the angle of the sun visually, and calculating "1/12th" of the daylight hours for that particular time of year in their heads? Or did they carry an elaborate system of sunrise/sunset tables and a measuring instrument? If so, what instrument is that?

And how did they measure "hours" on cloudy days?

Did Roman armies have a designated timekeeper that walked around holding an hourglass upright?

Curious.

I'd imagine something similar to a sundial might have been used, then you'd watch it and mark sunrise/sundown, then you could mark halfway between those, then halfway between the other marks, etc.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 10:23:37 AM
Even the currency is based on the pound silver with the common currency being the cent (as in "one per cent of a pound") and then the bit (a quarter of a cent).

I almost did the same thing, but I couldn't get over the part that a "bit" is typically an eighth of something, not a quarter.  So I went with quarter of a cent as a farthing and left "bit" out, because I didn't need a coin that small.  No matter, how you do it, you end up making compromises, especially when I'm doing a late dark ages, early middle ages economy often using terms that didn't occur to much later.  Bah, if D&D can have weapon and armor lists that span centuries, I can play fast and lose with currency--yet, "bit" was a bridge too far for some reason. 

Maybe if I didn't know that in American terms, "a shave and a hair cut for 2 bits" means "a quarter", or 1/8th of a dollar in this case, and wasn't a long time programmer back when manipulating bits as still 8ths, I could get over it.

What I did with the ratio of pennies to my next highest made up unit won't survive careful scrutiny, but it did make game play so much easier than what I had previously.

On a side note, the players in my D&D campaign have grown to hate electrum pieces (they were getting them in treasure hauls due to me running them through Into the Borderlands).

For coinage, I went with:
1 gold duket = 100 silver guilder = 1000 copper bob

For size:
copper bob ~ US penny
silver guilder ~ US nickel
gold duket ~ US quarter

If you assume pure metal for those sizes:
100 copper bobs = 0.85 lb
100 silver guilders = 1.60 lb
100 gold dukets = 3.46 lb

I assume that coins have a 50% packing density. A 6"x6"x6" box will hold:
4085 copper bob (34.6 lb)
2569 silver guilder (41.0 lb)
2188 gold duket (75.6 lb)

Set up another topic for the evolving discussion:  Game Units of Measurement

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on October 07, 2021, 03:33:02 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 06, 2021, 10:23:37 AM
Even the currency is based on the pound silver with the common currency being the cent (as in "one per cent of a pound") and then the bit (a quarter of a cent).

I almost did the same thing, but I couldn't get over the part that a "bit" is typically an eighth of something, not a quarter.  So I went with quarter of a cent as a farthing and left "bit" out, because I didn't need a coin that small.  No matter, how you do it, you end up making compromises, especially when I'm doing a late dark ages, early middle ages economy often using terms that didn't occur to much later.  Bah, if D&D can have weapon and armor lists that span centuries, I can play fast and lose with currency--yet, "bit" was a bridge too far for some reason. 

Maybe if I didn't know that in American terms, "a shave and a hair cut for 2 bits" means "a quarter", or 1/8th of a dollar in this case, and wasn't a long time programmer back when manipulating bits as still 8ths, I could get over it.

What I did with the ratio of pennies to my next highest made up unit won't survive careful scrutiny, but it did make game play so much easier than what I had previously.

I completely rebuilt the equipment table and costs from the ground up and a quarter cent was basically the smallest unit I needed for it and the font I was using had a nice þ symbol (which I know is technically the Old English "thorn", but it looks like a stylized 'b' and I've got some fluff about how in one of the realms they were nicknamed thorns; as in bothersome things to carry around) to go along with my use of £ for pounds and ¢ for cents... so þ for bits is what I ended up with.

It should also be noted too though that other than the main location of the default setting, all the terms are mostly for ease of play... individual realms are expected to to have their own coinage of varying values... a literal pound of silver and fractions of it just makes for an easy conversion rate between the mostly 'real metal/barter value' used in interstate trade without a centralized government to establish uniform coinage or weights and measures.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

Quote from: thedungeondelver on October 07, 2021, 06:15:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

And in orther to put men in the moon, that country had to use the metric system... Cuz it's the scientific system.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 07, 2021, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on October 07, 2021, 06:15:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

And in orther to put men in the moon, that country had to use the metric system... Cuz it's the scientific system.

Only in the internal computer codes; all the displays for the pilots were in pounds, feet per second and nautical miles, because that's what Air Force pilots train in and knew how to do the pen, paper and slide rule math for.

NASA didn't officially switch to metric primary until about 1990 and even today enough good old feet and miles remain that they still often need instruments that display both.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2021, 11:44:45 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 07, 2021, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on October 07, 2021, 06:15:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

And in orther to put men in the moon, that country had to use the metric system... Cuz it's the scientific system.

Only in the internal computer codes; all the displays for the pilots were in pounds, feet per second and nautical miles, because that's what Air Force pilots train in and knew how to do the pen, paper and slide rule math for.

NASA didn't officially switch to metric primary until about 1990 and even today enough good old feet and miles remain that they still often need instruments that display both.

Right, instruments had to be in imperial because the pilots didn't know metric.

To machine imperial (standard) pieces that need high precision they need to drop the fractions and switch to? thousands of an inch. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's using the metric way on a non metric unit.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 11:54:41 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2021, 11:44:45 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 07, 2021, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on October 07, 2021, 06:15:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

And in orther to put men in the moon, that country had to use the metric system... Cuz it's the scientific system.

Only in the internal computer codes; all the displays for the pilots were in pounds, feet per second and nautical miles, because that's what Air Force pilots train in and knew how to do the pen, paper and slide rule math for.

NASA didn't officially switch to metric primary until about 1990 and even today enough good old feet and miles remain that they still often need instruments that display both.

Right, instruments had to be in imperial because the pilots didn't know metric.

To machine imperial (standard) pieces that need high precision they need to drop the fractions and switch to? thousands of an inch. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's using the metric way on a non metric unit.

Seeing as how the 1/1000 of inch measure (i.e. the mil) came into common use in the 1850's... I think your argument is on the shaky side.

The principal element of the Metric System was not base-10 decimal mathematics (which has been in use since at least the Egyptian Old Kingom) but on the SI units of the meter, gram and second.

Fun fact; the actual length of the fixed meter wasn't agreed upon until the Metre Convention of 1875 and the other SI units not fully agreed to until 1921.

So the mil that NASA used for its engineering was already in use two decades before the length of a meter was even agreed to. Kinda hard to say the mil used by NASA was the result or the Metric System when it's OLDER than the Metric System.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2021, 01:14:48 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 08, 2021, 11:54:41 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 08, 2021, 11:44:45 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 07, 2021, 06:48:07 PM

Quote from: thedungeondelver on October 07, 2021, 06:15:06 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 02, 2021, 12:56:37 PM
Do you know how many times have I needed to know the circumference of the earth to use the metric system? ZERO.

I do agree that from a "realistic" point of view the imperial system makes more sense on pseudo medieval settings. But we don't switch to the Egyptian system when the setting is pseudo egyptian. So I guess it has more to do with where did the RPG hobby originated than with "realism".

There's two kinds of countries in this world, good buddy.  Those who use the Metric System, and those that have put men on the Moon.

And in orther to put men in the moon, that country had to use the metric system... Cuz it's the scientific system.

Only in the internal computer codes; all the displays for the pilots were in pounds, feet per second and nautical miles, because that's what Air Force pilots train in and knew how to do the pen, paper and slide rule math for.

NASA didn't officially switch to metric primary until about 1990 and even today enough good old feet and miles remain that they still often need instruments that display both.

Right, instruments had to be in imperial because the pilots didn't know metric.

To machine imperial (standard) pieces that need high precision they need to drop the fractions and switch to? thousands of an inch. Correct me if I'm wrong but that's using the metric way on a non metric unit.

Seeing as how the 1/1000 of inch measure (i.e. the mil) came into common use in the 1850's... I think your argument is on the shaky side.

The principal element of the Metric System was not base-10 decimal mathematics (which has been in use since at least the Egyptian Old Kingom) but on the SI units of the meter, gram and second.

Fun fact; the actual length of the fixed meter wasn't agreed upon until the Metre Convention of 1875 and the other SI units not fully agreed to until 1921.

So the mil that NASA used for its engineering was already in use two decades before the length of a meter was even agreed to. Kinda hard to say the mil used by NASA was the result or the Metric System when it's OLDER than the Metric System.

Okay, I didn't know that, I stand corrected, still the metric system is superior which is why it's the one scientists use.

Take care I'm not saying USA, the UK or any other country SHOULD drop the imperial and switch because I'm not an authoritarian. I'm just saying it's easier to work with.