[Basic] Skill of the week: Housekeeping

[Gedrin]

Originally Posted by (E)

A few thoughts
Low TL housekeeping would include food preservation, household animal management.
Higher TL housekeeping would include more budgeting.

Houseleeping Failures could result in parasites lice. Nits scabies etc. Social stigma until treated?

Or Electronics Operation (failure: blinking 12:00, why is it so cold/hot inside, here's your ticket for watering on the wrong day...)
At higher TLs, you might loose the food preservation entirely, in favor of skills to properly set up housekeeping bots.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Anders

I have failed with spaghetti.

I know someone who critically failed to boil water and set their kitchen on fire.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Okay, yes, not things you could accidentally destroy the plumbing with, though.

The wrong Draino will eat through pipes. And your skin.

Do not critically fail your Draino skill check.

Really? Curious divide.

Most apartment maintenance is done by handymen on staff with the apartment management company. I know when I did it I was called in to do things as basic as "oiling hinges".

You're not talking about Housekeeping anymore here, are you?

First sentence yes... the rest is a divergence that could have been left out.

So have I, though only by literally falling asleep while it was cooking. Which I submit calls for no Housekeeping roll...

I submit that that is a failure at Housekeeping, probably by the penalty due to lost Fatigue/lack of sleep.

[RogerBW]

I think that in our real-world examples we are largely failing to distinguish between failure at Housekeeping and not attempting it in the first place. The canonical slobby student may be counting on someone else to have a lower revulsion threshold than him and therefore to do the work before he has to, or may simply not care about the squalid situation because there are attractive students of the appropriate sex to be chatted up. That person may have Housekeeping skill that simply isn't being used.

[Culture20]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I think that in our real-world examples we are largely failing to distinguish between failure at Housekeeping and not attempting it in the first place.

The people who fail at housekeeping (cleaning) are children or people who have never cleaned anything ever: they'll rub a dry cloth over a patch of spilled milk and declare it clean, vacuum just the center of the floor, leave stainless steel pans soaking in water for too long, letting it get rusty patches, or put new red clothes in with the white clothes for laundry. Most adults learn housekeeping by doing chores in their parents' home as children, so they really do have skill points. Actual slobs don't try. They may have an Odious Personal Habit of hoarding, or Laziness, but might have reasonable skill in Housekeeping.

Housekeeping (paying the bills) is similar. You either do it or don't, and more often than not, it's disadvantages like Wealth:Poor, Innumerate, Illiterate, Absent Minded, etc. that get in the way instead of failed skill rolls.

Housekeeping (cooking) is where adults can differentiate in skill from one another, but usually that's by either being Incompetent (quirk) or having actually learned Cooking.

[Otaku]

First something separate that just occurred to me... is there any hint of mundane medical care in the Housekeeping skill? I'm not suggesting a First Aid default or anything, but as I bumbled my own care (had a cold that included sore throat, cough and congestion) it occurred to me there are some things that overlap with areas of the Housekeeping skill. Incredibly simple, common treatments like gargling with saltwater for a sore throat, helping someone that needs rest to get it, tweaking meal prep, simple bandaging and cleaning of minor wounds, etc.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Generally, things you don't roll for are things you can't meaningfully fail. That tends to mean that your effective skill is well above 16+, generally because the TDM is close to +10.

Seeing an enemy right in front of you that isn't trying to hide is arguably dramatically significant, but because it's a +10 TDM task, an unimpaired character without any penalties on his Per check will usually not even have to roll.

...and isn't that the point? Really asking because of this next bit:

Originally Posted by Icelander

Read whswhs post again. He says that clearing a plate ought to be at least +4 TDM. Cooking a meal from raw incredients ought to be +0 TDM, in his opinion.

I did space that off; I apologize for my wrong statement. I hate to sound like I am just making excuses based on wording, but what constitutes a "meal" meal as well as "raw ingredients" likely matters, in addition to what "failure" actually means. I thought it was made clear this wasn't "slaughter the livestock" kind of raw, but different raw ingredients are easier to work with than others, and what constitutes a "meal" varies as well, especially depending upon which meal. What a failure means matters as well; I'm not sure how many failures a housekeeper with Housekeeping Skill 12 preparing three meals a day would face in a week using just raw ingredients because of those variables.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I submit that that is a failure at Housekeeping, probably by the penalty due to lost Fatigue/lack of sleep.

Doesn't matter how skilled you are or what skill you're using, losing consciousness for several hours in the middle of a time-critical process is going to be a failure.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Culture20

TMost adults learn housekeeping by doing chores in their parents' home as children, so they really do have skill points.

I've met men who were always chased out of the kitchen by their mothers. They tend to lack the cooking part of default Housekeeping; they learn it as adults but it's slower and harder for them.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Otaku

First something separate that just occurred to me... is there any hint of mundane medical care in the Housekeeping skill? I'm not suggesting a First Aid default or anything, but as I bumbled my own care (had a cold that included sore throat, cough and congestion) it occurred to me there are some things that overlap with areas of the Housekeeping skill. Incredibly simple, common treatments like gargling with saltwater for a sore throat, helping someone that needs rest to get it, tweaking meal prep, simple bandaging and cleaning of minor wounds, etc.

I might wrap 'care taking' into Housekeeping... maybe. But the rest really sounds to me like basic (even defaulted) First Aid.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

I might wrap 'care taking' into Housekeeping... maybe. But the rest really sounds to me like basic (even defaulted) First Aid.

A little of it (the bit with wounds) is very basic first aid. The rest is clearly in or edging on the domain of Physician, not First Aid.

Providing an environment where someone can rest and heal might benefit from Housekeeping, but it isn't necessarily a factor. Housekeeping might be the turning point to a bonus to healing rolls for very good conditions or a penalty for bad conditions, but I'd only consider either with more supporting context than a Housekeeping roll.

[Not]

Does "kiss it to make it feel better" work in your game world? If so, bully!