Urban Survival for Campfires Indoors?

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

It isn't more distant at all. The main technologies and skillsets involved are no different to those two hundred years ago.

While there are common skills between (like 'how to start a fire indoors', 'how to assure adequate draft' 'how to avoid chimney fire') they are very different. Modern stoves are a 75+% efficient burn and have complex vent systems, interesting places for ash to collect, more regular cleaning schedule (but higher reliability if you follow the schedule - I have had my pellet stove run for two weeks solid), fans to oil, heat exchangers to check in on.

They are generally airtight and have a sperate combustion air intake and circulation air intake (it is also quite common to draw your combustion air from outside, so that you are not drawing warm air from the house and exhausting it out the chimney)- those two factors alone make tl-8 biomass burning so radically different from tl-5 that it would be all but unrecognisable magic to someone from tl-5 shown such a device.

An indoor fire from tl-5 has its own special things to consider that my tl-8 stove understanding likely does not prepare me for (though I think I would be far more prepared to start a tl-5 indoor fire than someone from from tl-5 would be to operate my pellet stove, but gurps captures that, I get -3 to do tl-5 fire stuff, the tl-5 guy gets skill -15 to try and figure out how an he wood stove works)

Bruno has it right, it's like comparing a model t to a 2014 focus, or perhaps because of some of the fundamental differences, like electric forced draft, a model t to a Prius. There's are base concepts that driving tl-5 has in common with driving tl-8 but to say that the main technologies and concepts are the same is very disingenuous.

Here is a link to the evolution of indoor wood heating tech.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/home...urning-stoves/

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Ransom

I agree that the skillset is similar, but disagree that a modern person having that skillset is best modeled by giving them Housekeeping/TL5, as modern people who know how to operate a wood burning stove don't usually know how to do the other things Housekeeping/TL5 would entail.

Individual "tricks" of lower TL versions of skills probably fit familiarity. Only when you learn enough of them that the proper LT version could/should be bought.
A big aspect of LT Housekeeping, to me, would be lack of proper temperature control with regards to remedial cooking and having to do everything by hand sans electricity.

[starslayer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Individual "tricks" of lower TL versions of skills probably fit familiarity. Only when you learn enough of them that the proper LT version could/should be bought.
A big aspect of LT Housekeeping, to me, would be lack of proper temperature control with regards to remedial cooking and having to do everything by hand sans electricity.

In defense of the TL-6/7 housekeeper; temperature control, while nowhere near as exact as a feedback based electrical system, did exist in the form of adjustable draft.

The idea was: An air intake restricted, or exaust restricted stove can really only store so much air going through it. Thus by regulating the amount of air, so long as there is excess fuel ready to burn, you can achieve a consistent exhaust temperature. That consistent exhaust temperature can be used to heat a thermal sink (big metal plate/box, ceramic box, etc), which you can then put food into and have a relatively good idea what the temperature within will be (it may even have a bimetal thermometer on the side of it so that you know what temperature is being achieved).

This is actually the concept that kamodo style smoker/bbqs use today, and they are generally more temperature consistent then there propane burning cousins. (This is also a good example of how technology remains similar, but changes over time- something like the big green egg is similar in design to a 2000 year old mushikamado, but the advances in tolerance, materials, and thermal understanding between 70BC and 1970AD make for a very different cooking device both in capability and method of operation)

[McAllister]

Just to make sure, y'all are aware that Housekeeping doesn't have a TL per RAW, correct? And thus that Flyndaran is correct when suggesting that the proper use of gadgets from different times is best modeled by familiarity, when the gadgets are difficult enough to use to warrant it?

There's also a perk for being able to use one peripheral aspect of a skill at Attribute level without any training in the base skill, which might be useful if this is a Survival or Urban Survival skill use, and is obviously worthless if it's Housekeeping.

[scc]

Probably a bigger problem for lighting fire in urban environments then anything else mentioned so far would be finding something safe to burn

[DanHoward]

I have to get this off my chest. The word is THAN, not then.

... a bigger problem THAN anything else ...

... more temperature consistent THAN THEIR propane burning cousins ...

In any case, as previously said, Housekeeping is not TL dependent. There is no such thing as Housekeeping/TL5. It is just Housekeeping, with any differences in TL sorted with familiarity penalties.

You don't need a skill roll at all to simply set and light a fire. If you have Housekeeping or a Survival skill then it is assumed that your character is familiar with the appropriate tools. You only need a skill roll if the situation is urgent or critical to the plot for some reason.

[McAllister]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

I have to get this off my chest. The word is THAN, not then.

... a bigger problem THAN anything else ...

Come on, DanHoward, why do you feel the need to post about other people's grammar when it couldn't possibly effect you?

;)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by McAllister

Just to make sure, y'all are aware that Housekeeping doesn't have a TL per RAW, correct? And thus that Flyndaran is correct when suggesting that the proper use of gadgets from different times is best modeled by familiarity, when the gadgets are difficult enough to use to warrant it?

I didn't take the time to make sure of that, but I thought it was likely true. But my real point is that anyone who does housekeeping at TL1-6 knows how to build fires indoors, whereas at TL7 you start getting gas or electric kitchens, so it's less inescapable.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

You don't need a skill roll at all to simply set and light a fire. If you have Housekeeping or a Survival skill then it is assumed that your character is familiar with the appropriate tools.

Of course not, but I still do it to establish how long doing something takes.

You only need a skill roll if the situation is urgent or critical to the plot for some reason.

That's certainly one way to play. The other is to roll for everything.

[Mr_Sandman]

Of course, the OP was asking about setting 'campfires' indoors, not about lighting a wood burning stove of any particular tech level. To me, that implies lighting and safely maintaining a fire for heat and/or cooking in a building or room that doesn't have a stove or fireplace designed for containing and venting a fire. That certainly sounds like urban survival to me.

On the topic of lighting a wood burning stove, I'd say most people in industrialized countries who do it today are operating from a default, with huge situational and equipment bonuses due to being inside with no wind, dry wood, newspaper, kindling, dry matches, on a grate designed for making lighting easier. For people operating at lower tech, for example those with indoor open cook fires that are still common in poor, rural areas throughout the world, lighting a fire is part of housekeeping or any survival skill they may have. For a character who has housekeeping but never had to light a fire as part of keeping house, I'd assess a fairly large familiarity penalty, or let them use any survival skill instead.