the question How many Joules does strength values ten through twenty estimate to? a lot of negative votes and was voted to be closed very quickly... and I don't understand why.
What could be done to improve the question about Joules of energy required to lift in-game objects?
I downvoted for a number of reasons:
First, all of the edits, therefore all of the phrasing and word choices, belong to the original poster. And if the OP can ask the question in terms of joules, they can almost certainly plug in the \$m \times g \times h\$ formula that the single answer used. This may be presumptuous on my part, but it did not strike me as a question trying to solve an actual problem.
Second, the question is terribly posed. Why? Because the Strength stat is an abstraction, a dramatic simplification of a complex concept so that we can stop worrying about the fine details and get on with playing. In the real world, arm strength, leg strength, grasping strength, are all different things. In the game world, Attack bonuses, damage bonuses, lifting capacity, encumbrance are also different things. While they may be correlated, they are not unified, and there is no master conversion plan.
The only possible way this question can avoid being vague or opinion-based is to add enough specific details to point to a particular answer-- in this case, the \$m \times g \times h\$ formula-based answer, which is so specific that it even specifies the height of the character...! This dramatically increased my "not an actual problem" sense.
Third, the first words of the question body (of every revision) are "D&D is not a science based or physics based game" before barreling on and asking for a science- or physics-based answer to a gaming question. So it seems to me that the OP knew, or at least suspected from the start, that there would be pushback on the question. That does not automatically invalidate the question, and would not alone have triggered my downvote, but it sure didn't help anything.
Fourth, on the same day, the same poster asked another question (also immediately closed) which took this one as a springboard for something even more ill-posed-- trying to get a joules-based number for "1 dmg" (which I assume is meant to be 1 hp worth of damage.)
All together, this just sets off alarm bell after alarm bell for me:
This is not a salvageable question. Mainly because of the second point-- broad questions will be too vague to answer, while specific questions are somewhat misleading by relying on an improper reduction of a complex phenomenon (human "Strength") to only one of its many facets.
The downvotes and close votes were proper, in my opinion.
I strongly suspect that, of the several metrics influenced by Str, at least a pair (most probably overhead carrying capacity and dragging or lifting capacity) will lead to different results when compared to what a real-life person can do.
Apart from what Korvin said, you should really decide upon one metric that you want to compare.
Also be aware that your player(s) might try to derive other game effects of Str from the values that you provide.
That would improve the location of the question; however, you'd likely get downvoted at Physics there for lack of research, since it doesn't take much of an internet search to convert units to arrive at the equation set up and you then plug in the values. Someone at RPGSE was kind enough to do that for you.
One of the reasons that I offer you this answer is because Joules are not an in-game / in-universe unit. My initial response to the question when I first saw it in the review queue was something like what NautArch noted in the comment below this answer: what I saw was a word problem from a high school physics class rather than an RPG-related question.
Thanks for the comment reply on its rejection at Physics.SE.
The question is nonsense from the ground up.
“Joules” is not a measure of strength. Ever. It would be just as (in)correct to ask how many lumens, gallons, or parsecs each strength score equates to. It’s like asking “how heavy is blue?”
If you fixed that (maybe asking about power [Watts] instead?) you might have a question that was answerable. I would still anticipate very careful crafting to avoid being opinion-based, but it might be doable.
As it is though, the question is irredeemable nonsense.
