04-20-2017, 05:53 PM | #161 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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The sheer number of professionally trained chefs on e.g. Cutthroat Kitchen who are profoundly at sea with a microwave (who tries to cook a whole chicken in a microwave when they only have 10 minutes?) says that microwaves are definitely not magic cooking boxes. Cooking a pre-packaged microwave meal according to the directions is pretty easy, but that's the same as the oven-ready "TV Dinners" of TL 6 and early TL 7. I won't say "that's not cooking" because that's ridiculous - but it's a pretty good task modifier. I have a microwave cookbook from the end of TL 7 that covers how to cook tin-tray foil-covered oven-designated TV Dinners in the microwave. Safely. And without setting fire to your apple crumble while you try to defrost the creamed corn! Also the secret on how to brown meat in the microwave (it involves abusing metal), how to boil an egg or bake a potato without it exploding, and various other things that are Not Done any more, because the general public have consigned the microwave to "defrost convenience food and reheat my coffee". (EDIT: Sorry, I've had this argument before, repeatedly, and now I have a pre-packaged rant)
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04-20-2017, 08:09 PM | #162 |
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Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Forest Grove, Beaverton, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
It isn't Cooking. It's Housekeeping, which is somewhat like Soldier in that it can only do things that other proper skills would allow with a +4 or so bonus.
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04-20-2017, 09:03 PM | #163 | ||
Dog of Lysdexics
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: Melbourne FL, Formerly Wellington NZ
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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04-20-2017, 10:33 PM | #164 | |
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: South Dakota, USA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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Doesn't GURPS only require a roll when it is, well, significant? Rolls against base skill are for "adventuring" conditions. Many things a chef would do in his normal kitchen are going to get circumstantial bonuses. How do you calculate that +4; is it over the bonuses one might get for not being in an adventuring situation, or does it include them? Which could make avoiding TL penalties even more important. I can tell it is late, I think I am simultaneously agreeing and disagreeing with Flyndaran. As TL advances, there are more labor saving devices that Housekeeping is going to cover the use of because they grant hefty bonuses to even the unskilled. On one hand, the Housekeeper from a lower or higher TL should be able to adjust, but on the other hand, these technologies are why I'd often give someone a bonus when using the Housekeeping Skill and a bigger bonus when using the appropriate narrow focus Skill. I... should probably just turn in. ;)
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My GURPS Fourth Edition library consists of Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Martial Arts, Powers, Powers: Enhanced Senses, Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, Power-Ups 6: Quirks, Power-Ups 8: Limitations, Powers, Social Engineering, Supers, Template Toolkit 1: Characters, Template Toolkit 2: Races, one issue of Pyramid (3/83) a.k.a. Alternate GURPS IV, GURPS Classic Rogues, and GURPS Classic Warriors. Most of which was provided through the generosity of others. Thanks! :) |
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04-21-2017, 04:21 AM | #165 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: near London, UK
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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04-21-2017, 07:02 AM | #166 | ||
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: South Dakota, USA
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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Knowing GURPS, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more advanced rules for Cooking somewhere, but I don't own them so looks like I'll be trying to extrapolate from the Driving example given. For a +4 or +5 task involving the Driving Skill, it reads Quote:
Which, getting back to where I originally jumped in on this part of the discussion, is where TL matters. For a late TL7, TL8, and probably at least an early TL9 kitchen, the microwave oven is a huge time saver, even if you're not using it to fix stuff only intended to be cooked in the microwave. A typical meal at my house might include a main dish heated in the oven, but the frozen vegetable and certain ingredients e.g. boiling water, melting butter, etc. heated in the microwave. This frees up the stovetop for other things, and is faster, requires less attention, or both. Housekeeping covers more than food prep, so I'd handle a missing microwave as just a -1 equipment penalty, and if that seems too severe, I would probably also just make failures by a small margin (one to three) varying levels of late but otherwise successful. Now, if the entire household is TL6 and I've got TL7 Housekeeping skill? Either the familiarity bonus or the TL bonus (maybe both), really are going to handicap housekeeping until you get used to them.
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My GURPS Fourth Edition library consists of Basic Set: Characters, Basic Set: Campaigns, Martial Arts, Powers, Powers: Enhanced Senses, Power-Ups 1: Imbuements, Power-Ups 2: Perks, Power-Ups 3: Talents, Power-Ups 4: Enhancements, Power-Ups 6: Quirks, Power-Ups 8: Limitations, Powers, Social Engineering, Supers, Template Toolkit 1: Characters, Template Toolkit 2: Races, one issue of Pyramid (3/83) a.k.a. Alternate GURPS IV, GURPS Classic Rogues, and GURPS Classic Warriors. Most of which was provided through the generosity of others. Thanks! :) |
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04-21-2017, 08:21 AM | #167 | |
Join Date: Jul 2005
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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However, this thread is making me aware how many skills I use from default, never having tried to study them seriously. Housekeeping and Professional Skill(Librarian) are two that strike me, looking around the flat. I probably have a few points in both Cooking and Research however.
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Michael Cule,
Genius for Hire, Gaming Dinosaur Second Class |
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04-21-2017, 08:49 AM | #168 |
Join Date: Feb 2009
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
I have cooked whole chicken in the microwave before! And liver to
The secret to microwaving chicken is to have a STALWART microwave that can really crank, feeble microwaves take forever to cook the pink out and when it's done the chicken no longer resembles food I actually use a microwave fish recipe that is not only quick and easy, but very good How much is the penalty for housekeeping if people have quirk 'Hates washing dishes' and require a will roll to dirty anything, using only paper plates, plastic silverware, tin foil and other disposable cooking supplies? Anyway, I can do microwaving a chicken, but anyone microwave a Turkey? |
04-21-2017, 03:53 PM | #169 | |
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Canada
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
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If you have more time, you can totally roast an intact chicken carcass on the bone. But the point of that is that a microwave isn't a robot with Cooking (or even merely Housekeeping) skill, and in and of itself doesn't give any more a skill bonus than other usual heat sources. It also takes specific training to use, beyond "Here's how to set the heat, here's how to set the time". A experienced, professionally trained chef had no damn clue what to do with a microwave, had 10 minutes to cook chicken (he didn't even need the entire chicken, he needed two chicken breast cuts), and stuffed the whole damn thing in the microwave. Other chefs repeatedly made "rookie" errors with the microwave because they had no clue how to cook with it. It's an interesting thing, because given totally bizarre heat sources, most chefs adapt. Ultimately, cooking on a 500-watt halogen lamp is inconvenient because it only has one setting (super hot) and it's hard to put a frying pan on it - but they look at it, recognize that it's a direct heat source like an electric stove top element, and that it's just totally non-ergonomic. They've had to make convection ovens out of tinfoil and a heat gun, and the errors there were construction problems, not "I don't know the basics on how to cook with this kind of heat". Those were Improvised tools (-5 penalty) to use with their training. Or that coffee machine that they keep making them cook on - they hate it because it's stupid, but they know what to do with it. Apparently the microwave just isn't taught wherever these chefs get their training. The people who did know what to do with the microwave were e.g. the Grandmas from the Grandma special, the bakers[1], and people who got training outside of the formal chefs training (including the over achievers who got all the training everywhere). [1] Microwaves are great at certain kinds of cake baking.
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04-21-2017, 04:24 PM | #170 |
Join Date: Jun 2006
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Re: [Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping
Alchemy surely.
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