Posts made by The Sands

@Wretched I need to get a food dehydrator at some point.

@Wretched I wonder if they are going to make mention of the fact that he was also the first Trickster for the Arrowverse's Flash.

(edit: I should add, when they did this is was pretty cool because he also played the Trickster in the 1990 Flash).

I'm a big, fat dummy. The container I use for sous vide is 12 quarts, not 12 gallons.

So I'm pretty sure an awful lot of the cooking I do could be done in the 8 quart liner for an Instant Pot. You would probably want a smaller immersion circulator than the one I use, but the one I linked up above which is made for the Instant Pot is almost certainly in that category.

So if you've already got the pot it wouldn't take up very much more of your kitchen space to do sous vide, at least in a limited fashion.

I think that what people are trying to get with sous vide is called onsen tamago which I don't think is the same thing as the marinated eggs for ramen. I could easily be wrong, though, having only had ramen in America.

@Auspice It doesn't take that big a kitchen. As long as you have space for the container (granted, that can be asking a bit since it isn't small) everything will go inside it when you aren't using it.

And like I said, the things it does well it does amazing. It's like anything else, your earliest results will probably still need a little bit of work so all those people who want to sell it as taking absolutely 0 skill are full of it (you can mess up searing at the end, you actually can overcook things despite what people say, etc.) but it is a pretty fast curve. It lets you make really moist chicken and cook pretty tough pieces of meat (e.g. London broil, tri-tip, corned beef) until they are fall apart tender (if that's what you want, you don't have to cook them that far) and they still won't be dried out. The only thing you need to be aware of is that it won't give you the Maillard reaction so you will often need to do something else at the very end to get that.

(Also, some people really, really like it for doing eggs in a sort of Japanese soft-boiled style. I never really got into them that way so after experimenting for a bit I gave up, but your mileage may vary)

@Macha While it does not directly answer the question of Instant Pot recipes I think this also falls under the idea of 'lifehacks cooking'.

I do a lot of stuff with sous vide cooking. Like Instant Pot you're going to find a lot of people who try and tell you it is the universal panacea that can cook anything and cure cancer, which it isn't, but what it does do is handle certain tasks way better than anything else around.

Since you've already got the pot you can get started for about $80. Since I use it about 3-4 times a week I've got some additional stuff but that will get you started.

One of the things I make on a pretty much weekly basis is in the morning I take two chicken breasts out of the freezer, throw them in a reusable silicon bag with some weights and a grocery store marinade and set the temperature to 134 degrees (N.B. I use a 12 gallon container instead of an 8 quart pot. It's much larger than what I need for two chicken breasts. I'm only mentioning it because I want to be clear I haven't tried doing it in the 8 quart pot.)

Just before dinner I take them out, put them on a baking sheet, sprinkle on some garlic salt, and but them in the over on Broil to crisp up the skin.

Super easy. The chicken is extremely juicy.

I'll also do something similar with tri-tip streak (although I marinade it the night before rather than throw it in a bag with the marinade). Instead of the oven I put a skillet on the stove with a little butter, let it get hot, then throw the meat on it with some garlic salt to get a crust.

@Macha Instant Pot Steamed Clams in Wine, Garlic, and Butter

• 3 pounds of clams
• 1 cup white wine (I used Pinot Grigiot)
• 1 stick butter
• 1 medium bulb of garlic (about 35 grams)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 pinches of Old Bay Seasoning Recipe
• 2 pounds of small potatoes (I used creamer potatoes about the size of radishes)
• 1/2 lemon
• 1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley

1. Chop up garlic
2. Slice potatoes in half
3. Turn the Instant Pot to High Saut\e and wait until it says 'Hot'
4. Add half the butter and potatoes. Saute for two minutes
5. Add garlic and saute for another minute.
6. Pour in white wine and add salt. Continue to saute another three minutes.
7. Turn off Instant Pot while you perform the next step.
8. Make a bed out of the potatoes and place clams on top. Sprinkly with Old Bay Seasoning.
9. Lock on Lid and close Pressure Valve. Set to High Pressure for one minute.
10. It still takes about five minutes to heat and build pressure. Vent to release pressure when the cooking cycle is over.
11. Turn cooker off again and remove clams and potatoes with a slotted spoon.
12. Turn the Instant Pot back to High Saute and simmer for five minutes.
13. Take the stainless steel liner out of the Instant Pot and turn the Instant Pot off.
14. Melt remaining half stick of butter in the liquid.
15. Add parsely.
16. Mix and pour over the clams and potatoes.
17. Squeeze lemon over everything.

So I just made this and it turned out pretty well. It took me probably about 45 minutes start to finish (not counting a couple of early prep steps like washing the clams). It makes enough for two people to get pretty full. If you need to stretch it out more you can add some more of the potatoes. I also bought some kielbasa sausage to add if I needed to extend it but I didn't end up using it so I can't say for certain how that final product would come out, though I suspect it would be delicious (I'd probably leave out the lemon at that point, though).

@Auspice I've used a couple of different cultures, but basically once I've gotten a successful batch I use it as starter for the next. I'll check the yogurt in the store to let you know the exact strains.

One thing I've been told is that anything you are going to add has to be added after you've made the plain yogurt. You can't add vanilla or sweetner to the milk and then make the yogurt. Instead just make plain unsweetened yogurt and when you are done mix in the other ingredients.

Other bits that I've sort of picked up and learned (but see below):

Let the milk cool down normally after you've boiled it. I saw a lot of people talk about ice baths to bring the temperature back down faster and did that several times. The problem (as I understand it) is that there are proteins in the milk that you want to let break down. They'll inhibit the coagulation. I think once I started doing that I had more success.

Let the starter warm up for a bit before you add it. When the bacteria is sitting around for a couple of weeks under refrigeration I think it can go into a sort of hibernation and it will take several hours to wake up and begin doing anything after you've added it to the boiled milk. I haven't read anything talking about this but I know something similar happens with yeast when you are brewing and since I started doing this I think I've been more successful.

The caveat that I mentioned above is that I'm still a bit hit and miss as well. I'm getting it right more often than not but just recently I made a pot where almost nothing at all seemed to happen and the final product was pretty much the consistency of water. At the end of the day, though, it isn't like regular baking or cooking. Like brewing the material is being changed by microorganisms rather than simple chemical processes and sometimes it seems like they've got tiny little minds of their own.

@Macha Not exactly dishes but I've got a couple of accessories. Hard boiled eggs come out great (you can get rings that hold about half a dozen eggs) and get a vegetable basket (not the little thing that came with the instant pot but a full basket with legs). Throwing broccoli or cauliflower in and steaming it is great. I'm still trying to get artichokes right.

It also does great rice (that doesn't take any accessories). I've been using mine to make yogurt but that can be a bit hit and miss. I'm still trying to figure out the variables. Sometimes the yogurt sets up nicely and sometimes it doesn't set at all.

(edit: I'm going to be using it tomorrow to do a basket of steamed clams. I'll copy down the recipe and let you know how it turns out)

@Thenomain said in Good TV:

You mean Star Trek: The Next Geriatrics? I’m honestly disappointed at all the returning characters, and will wonder how they deal with Data after, you know, what happened.

They downloaded a copy of his positronic matrix into B-4, the android body that was recovered earlier in the very same movie.

Remember, always back up your Data.

@tehom said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

Things might have been a tad different in those societies if the people in question had the ability to turn someone into ashes with their mind.

Even more than that; we did not have an real understanding of genetic inheritance during the medieval period. If, as seems proposed, the civilization in Sacred Seed does have at least a passing understanding of genetic inheritance it creates a very different situation for women.

The most desirable women would be those with strong gifts. These are, by their very nature, not the kind of women you are going to be able to push around. Given how human reproductive cycles work these women are not going to only be protected by their direct power but they are going to be protected by indirect power as well because in many cases they will have multiple males competing for reproductive access. If any one of them tries to get too pushy it offers an excellent opportunity for the other males to gang together and 'remove him from competition'.

@cobaltasaurus said in Miami, Blood in the Water:

. . .why are you still arguing?

Because two players have gotten together to discuss something. That mandates that there be at least three arguments.

@coin said in Development Thread: Sacred Seed:

@Carex

I don't know how to say "alien, fantasy cultures do not have to operate under the same psychological logic and behavior that human beings have, because they are alien and fantastical" any other way, so if this is a problem of you not wanting to follow that train of thought, then that's on your and your inability to suspend your disbelief.

Well, the caveat I would argue is that an alien or fantasy culture operates under the logic of its inhabitants and if those inhabitants operate under a logic that we recognize we can largely predict the outcome (e.g. if the inhabitants regard murder as being a bad thing it is a pretty good bet that there will be laws against murder). To make a culture operating under a completely alien system would require the population to operate under a fairly alien logic, which can make things very difficult to play.

With that said, I absolutely don't see things being set up as a 'rape factory'. Societies in which all inheritance is passed through the male line tends to do that because the 'men own everything'. That does not appear to be the case here, however. Everyone who is seeded gets an inheritance. Furthermore, while there is a general genetic advantage for males in archaic melee combat which results in a cultural belief that 'men are the fighters' the nature of the Seeded upends that and creates a system whereby, I assume, the 'strongest warriors' are pretty evenly split between male and female. It is even possible women might hold a slight edge for some reason which could then offset the fact that in the general (non-player) population of Unseeded men would have a slight advantage in force of arms (I am not proposing modifiers to CG to give advantages to one sex or another as PCs do not typify the general population).

As a result it is completely possible for the society to be based largely around a lot of medieval European concepts (in the same way that something like GoT is) while not being a male dominated patriarchy.

@lithium said in Best Superhero System for a Mush?:

This part is only problematic for a MU* when GM/Staff don't do it /enough/ or consistently.

Yes and no. The real issue is that it can be very, very difficult to do 'consistently'. In most game systems powers are pretty cleanly defined. Occasionally there is an interaction between two powers that designers didn't foresee and a house rule needs to be made.

In the Hero Games system it can be much more tricky because you are basically 'building' every power. Sure, it's easy if you just say something like 'no more than 60 Active Points in a power', but then how do you handle someone who says 'you know what, I'd like to make a super special 75 Active Point attack that takes a full turn to power up and leaves me half dead when I'm done'. Storywise it isn't that bad a power. It's a bit more than the attacks that the other people are able to pop off with reckless abandon but not a lot more and it comes with some big limitations.

And that's a relatively easy case. What about someone who apps a penetrating one hex area effect autoattack Presence Drain with a really half-assed excuse for how the power works? Such a person seems to have noticed an oversight in how most people build characters (relatively low Presence relative to cost, lack of hardening on Power Defense, and stupid rules governing Primary Stats reduced to 0). Shut them down as well? What if someone feels they actually have a really good explanation for how that power works? Clearly it is still broken but it doesn't look like they are deliberately gaming the system and it is less than the 60 Active Point limit. If you veto it because it's broken how much does it need to be 'fixed' before you can approve it?

I'm not saying it is impossible for a GM/Staff to be consistent, but it can get very difficult (and remember, I love this system. I'm not bad mouthing it because I don't think anyone should use it. I'm just admitting its flaws).

@runescryer said in Best Superhero System for a Mush?:

@thatguythere Champions and M&M deal with Superspeed fairly well. They describe/code the superspeed 'hundreds of attacks' as Autofire (Champions) or Multi-Attack (M&M). So, it's only 1 roll needed. Also, with the generally lower strength of speedsters, it's really only effective against minions/henchmen/agent type NPC's, which is in keeping with comics; Flash clears the field of the henchman hordes while the big guns of the Justice League take on the Big Bad Boss.

This kind of thing is really the reason I like Champions so much. It is possible to make a Speedster who can autoattack one guy who doesn't have high defenses, do a selective area of effect to target lots of mooks, and unleash the 'jackhammer attack' which is a single attack with a higher damage value against a heavy target. You can also buy +8 with your Computer Programming with the limitations of using Endurance and 'only to offset time penalties' so that you can do a day's worth of programming in a single turn, selective area effect teleportation usable on others which cannot move people through solid objects (imagine the Flash grabbing up and relocating all the civilians in an area) or Change Environment with the effect being that the area gets cleaned up.

In short I like Champions because unless a power is extremely game breaking* (I make matter explode from the inside, I can remove a person from reality) or super problematic to enact (I can see the future, so I want the GM to tell me what players are going to do before they tell him) you can create it.

This works really well when you do a sort of 'horse before the cart' method (I've got a cool idea, how do I build the power). Unfortunately it has big weaknesses because A) it is complex, and B) people can build absolutely horrible things when they use the 'cart before the horse' method of 'I'm going to build something broken and then come up with the effect to justify it'.

Problem B can be handled by a GM with a firm hand (I don't care that the math works, no you may not do that) but that is somewhat problematic for a MU*. Problem A is even harder to resolve. Still, I dearly love the system.

*This doesn't mean that you can't build game breaking powers and have the math 'work'. I'm just saying that there's a good reason you can't make the math work if you have a concept of 'literal undefeatable fighter'.

Like a couple of other people have said, Champions gives you a lot of freedom. Unfortunately you pay for that freedom with some complexity. I personally am an enormous fan of the Hero Game system and don't mind the complexity but I know it isn't everyone's cup of tea. It is more than just a pure combat system as it has a nice selection of skills including certain skills that can be purchased multiple times with different 'modifiers' such as Languages, Sciences, and Professional Skills.

I'm not sure why people are saying to throw out speed. They seem to be saying that will mean everyone gets an action, but you're suppose to start most combats on Phase 12 when just about everyone has an action, so that doesn't quite make sense to me (I believe people with Speed of 1 don't get a Phase 12 action but Speed 1 is slower than your average innocent bystander).

A couple of observations:

• Look at ChampionsMush to get an idea how to try and make characters somewhat balanced with one another. I don't think their mechanism is perfect but when I played there (N.B.: this was probably 5 or 6 years ago so they may have changed some) it seemed to do a good job.

• Be aware that the system was built by a person who was a huge fan of Marvel comics and it will support that style best. Characters like the Hulk and Thor have massive Strength stats (like 75) but in relative terms they will work. Someone like Superman who can lift ships weighing hundreds of thousands of tons would have Strength of around 125-150 which will cause problems.

• Don't be afraid to veto/limit powers and modifiers. Duplication or Summoning when lots of duplicates are created (or creatures are summoned) will grind everything to a halt for everyone but the one player. If you're going to allow it you probably want a fairly low limit to how many duplicates can be created for reasons of playability (again, look through the rules for ChampionsMush since they've dealt with that). You might wish to restrict certain other powers for thematic reasons. Faster than Light Travel is not particularly unbalanced but you may not want a campaign where people can easily bop around the solar system. In a similar vein it isn't terribly expensive to purchase movement powers where a character can instantaneously accelerate to many times the speed of sound. If you want people to do that it's fine but don't feel obligated to allow everyone to do that (because as soon as one person does everyone else will buy it) just because the 'math works'.

@faraday said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

It really doesn't. It proves the supposition that if you make the menial task fun or worthwhile then it's no longer menial.

Please excuse a brief detour to Semanticsland here but I think it may be necessary.

Technically some definitions of 'menial' are things such as "not requiring much skill and lacking prestige" and if you use those definitions then it is, at least in theory, possible for something to be menial yet still fun (I don't know how off hand. I'm just saying that the definition does not explicitly exclude fun).

On the other hand Mirrian-Webster gives the definition as "lacking interest or dignity" and they aren't alone in their definition, either. Using that type of definition it would seem to be impossible to be both menial and fun (since I think there has to be a component of interest for something to be fun).

And before anyone accuses me of being a grammar nazi or Semanticsman or anything of the sort, in a discourse it is important that people be clear when using a term that they are using it the same way. If I tell you I can pick up a blue whale we can't have a meaningful discussion about the possibility if you think I mean the cetacean when I am talking about a small bath toy. In neither case would one of us be 'wrong' because we are each using very real definitions of the words that can be pointed to. We would not be able to have any kind of meaningful conversation, however.

So I would propose that perhaps a different less ambiguous word should be used and perhaps context added for 'what is meant when I say this'.

@ganymede Arguably in your examples those activities are no longer 'boring'. It isn't just that drinking blood reinforces the fact that the character is a monster in a vampire game. It's that there is a real risk to it since the character may get caught. In fact, once something establishes that there is no longer a real risk (such as getting a blood doll) it does tend to move to an 'off camera' activity in which the character simply automatically gets a certain amount of blood per day.

@arkandel said in What's missing in MUSHdom?:

@kanye-qwest My whole life I wanted to play on a Lord of the Rings MU*.

My whole life I have avoided doing so because players will destroy the fond feelings in my heart about the setting.

Honestly, LotR is not necessarily a very good setting. It has a lot of problems similar to Star Wars as a setting (N.B. this isn't a knock on the series. It is an excellent series. I'm simply discussing why it doesn't work well as a MU*).

The problem is that many of the characters in the story are uniquely or at least nearly-uniquely powerful. Gandalf isn't just some human who spent times studying old books. He's a divine being of immense power (but with restrictions on using that power). Aragorn isn't just some guy who spends a lot of time out in the woods. He's one of the last descendants of the Numenorians who were humans who were basically able to look out the window of their homes and see Heaven (and he's not even just a 'regular' Numenorian but is the 'chosen one' of the Numenorians). Legolas is an elf which in Tolkein's setting are all semi-divine beings (they can't even die, instead if their physical form is destroyed they simply wake up in Valinor).

The only reason these guys don't curb stomp Sauron is because Sauron was basically the right hand of Satan and because they are forbidden to by Eru (though they can mitigate Sauron's power so that mankind can chose between good and evil).

All of which works really well for the book but not so much for a MU*. Even for a tabletop game you can handle the 'small group of extremely special characters' but for a MU* you would be dealing with hundreds if not thousands of these types of 'special snowflake+' characters over the life of the game and most likely you would have them confined to a fairly small area of the 'planet' such as a large city.

@ganymede For the most part even the model of 'making sure the business endures' is a method of trying to maximize return on investment. It simply relies on the idea that if you make X dollars per year over Y years you will make more money than if you make 2X dollars over 1/4Y years and then go out of business.

The thing, however, is that those formulas are an awful lot more complicated than that. I'm not an MBA so if I mess up a term don't shoot me but I understand a lot of the mathematical theory since it has application in other things such as population growth curves. In short if you get $1000 a year for 1 year that is better than getting $100 dollars a year over 12 years because you can reinvest the $1000 and assuming a reasonable rate of return you will be left with more money at the end of 12 years in the first case than in the second. Sure, the business does ultimately take in an extra $200 but you still earn more money 'plundering' the business at the very beginning and then investing that money elsewhere.

That's not to say that there are no stupid MBAs. Usually when you get people doing this kind of thing its because markets are going crazy and so they are calculating that it is better to plunder the company since with 24% ROI they will ultimately make more money, completely ignoring the fact that 24% was last years market and there's no guarantee that the market will do that again this year (and it almost certainly won't do it for 10 consecutive years). It also isn't meant to excuse their disregard of the human cost of those actions. All I'm really saying is that in a lot of those cases where a business decision doesn't 'make sense' it is often because they are looking at something different then you are.