TRPG General Chat - 2020-11-24 (page 1 of 3)

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12:08 AM

58

Q: Feature Preview: Table Support

No waffling, right to the point: What? When? Where? Table support 2020-11-23 Meta Stack Exchange & DBA Meta More table support week of 2020-11-30 DBA Stack Exchange Even more table support week of 2020-12-07 Network-wide launch (if no major issues found) That's right. It's finally...

discussion markdown tables

FYI^

12:20 AM

Flee Yon Interdict

@Rubiksmoose oh snap

@Adeptus Very mice :D

@Rubiksmoose GAAAAAAAASP Yaaaas

And i do mean that sincerely

So progress update - All moved in with the partner and the kids, have established a new environment in the bedroom (nice setup for the TV and some consoles, to play as we relax). Have hung up some of my paintings around the house, and "fancied up" the living areas with some antique wooden furniture I inherited from my grandparents

And while it is still half full of my boxes I've moved over, the "office" area is starting to come together, so I now have a work station for when i do my writing

12:38 AM

@Ben Awesome! :)

@TheDragonOfFlame AP exams can happen any year that you take AP classes - they're not restricted to any specific grade, I think. Different schools may only offer them to students in a certain grade or higher, though, at least by default.

I know that my middle and high school curriculum had (non-AP classes) Algebra II in 8th grade, pre-calc in 9th grade, and then AP Calculus BC in 10th grade at the earliest - but I know some students started taking AP Calc BC in 9th grade around then, so they might have skipped a year or taken a summer class or whatever.

@kviiri I don't know what the designers saw in the DnD 5e ranger... I don't think they knew either. Hence the DnD 5e ranger. :P

@ThomasMarkov I assume MathJax ends up looking nicer for the reader... I wonder how it compares for accessibility, though.

Dev 1: Can we have a class that can do a bit of everything?
Dev 2: How do we do that without it making no sense at all?
Dev 1: Ahh but that's the thing... we only make it *look* like it makes sense.

@Ben "do a bit of everything" seems to be vastly overstating the ranger's capabilities :P

It does more than it should at least lol

TheDragonOfFlame

12:54 AM

@V2Blast here in Canada you take AP courses for 3 years and at the end you take an AP exam

@TheDragonOfFlame I don't know the actual rules and regulations and whatnot (if any) there are on AP exams in the US (or elsewhere), but I know our school offered some AP classes like AP US History as a 2-year thing (toward the end of which you take the AP exam), but most AP classes were just 1 year. (Plus our school didn't teach an actual class for some subjects like AP Computer Science, but they could be taken as an independent study course.)

TheDragonOfFlame

@V2Blast hey, hey. Cut rangers some slack. They are a class based on an archetypal explorer in a almost entirely combat based game. They are great at exploring so if you play the one rare game in 1000 that actually does any actual exploring then they are great. Revised ranger is also good, but not extremely balanced. Tashas ranger fixes a few things, but also makes the class... weird

@TheDragonOfFlame Eh... The way in which they're "great" at exploring is to effectively negate that element of the game (but only in certain situations; when not in those situations, many of their features do nothing). I don't know what the best design for them would have been - but the PHB ranger wasn't it (in my opinion).

user image

I made my gf cry (admittedly she was already crying due to a bit of a breakdown) when I sent her this

1:17 AM

...a friend has been drawn into a "D&D invented the roleplaying game" debate.

It's such a tautological argument that it's hard to attack; if you let D&D define roleplaying games, then D&D invented them.

But it's a great opportunity to share this picture of HG Wells playing the Little Wars game he wrote.

1:33 AM

@BESW uggh that’s a thing I wish didn’t exist

I attribute it at least in part to the hobby's beatification of Gygax.

TheDragonOfFlame

@BESW correct me if I’m wrong: is that not a war game?

@V2Blast you are right they are pretty bad. But I got to defend them because who else will? ;)

@TheDragonOfFlame Well that's kind of the point, isn't it? A wargame is only NOT an RPG if we allow D&D to define RPGs.

Which then becomes tautological; D&D is the first RPG because RPGs are whatever D&D is.

TheDragonOfFlame

You don’t really rp in a war game

You control multiple characters each, and the entire point is combat

You don't?

Okay, so I've played tons of RPGs where the entire point is combat, and tons of RPGs where I control multiple characters.

Most published D&D adventures are combat-centric, and the reason for combat is as important as the reason for a battle in a "wargame."

And games as diverse as Ars Magica, Wanderhome, and Cozy Town, all encourage/expect players to handle multiple characters.

TheDragonOfFlame

1:42 AM

By my definition, a role playing game is one where you interact in character with other characters: war games are not intended for this purpose

@BESW that article is fascinating

(I switched keyboards and forgot the qwerty layout which is why that was garbled)

@TheDragonOfFlame So Cozy Town, Microscope, Lovecraftesque, and Everyone Is John aren't RPGs. Solo RPGs like Alone Among the Stars and We Forest Three aren't RPGs.

TheDragonOfFlame

Correct those are just games to me

I'm not playing an RPG when I describe Miriam's actions in third person in our Cthulhupacabra game.

TheDragonOfFlame

No you are

1:45 AM

But I'm not in character.

TheDragonOfFlame

Third person character interaction is still in character

What about Monopoly, in which we barter and trade in the role of greedy capitalist landlords?

TheDragonOfFlame

I will admit I don’t know a whole lot about this

And monopoly is not a role playing game, unless you describe actual interactions which I don’t think almost anyone really does

Though that would be fun

You don't describe interactions, you actually play them out: You roll the dice and the dice tell you that you owe $5000 to another landlord. Then you barter with them to instead trade your railroad, but they refuse and you go bankrupt, so there's an auction of your properties in which everyone competes and bids.

Here's the thing for me: I don't want a clearly defined line between RPGs and other kinds of games. Chasing "who did it first" and "what technically counts" doesn't seem useful to me, and trying to nail down hard definitions just makes it harder to welcome innovation both in the industry and at the table.

TheDragonOfFlame

But you don’t have a character or anything right?

It’s complicated and like I said I don’t know a whole lot

Role-playing game

A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game; abbreviated RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.There are several forms of role-playing games. The original form, sometimes called the tabletop role-playing game (TRPG), is conducted through discussion...

1:50 AM

Everyone in Monopoly is playing a capitalist landlord.

TheDragonOfFlame

Yes but you don’t have any specific personality or a backstory

I don’t really know

But I think a role playing game is a game designed for roleplaying

And to be clear, I'm not arguing that Monopoly is a roleplaying game in any useful sense. I'm just using it as an example of how the lines are blurrier than we like to think.

Clue/Cluedo is a great foil for Monopoly in this conversation, because while in Monopoly your character in the game is simply "capitalist landlord" and your goal is "gain a monopoly," you DO interact with other players a LOT and you make important choices about how generous or cutthroat to be with them, whether to establish alliances, etc. In Clue you play specific characters but don't interact with each other in any meaningful way.

Neither of them is a reasonable candidate to argue as "designed for roleplaying," but then... neither are all the things we call RPGs but only have rules for combat.

TheDragonOfFlame

@BESW I love clue and always get into character when playing XD it adds a lot to the game

Even most editions of D&D leave the development of motivation and character entirely to the player, with little or no mechanical support.

TheDragonOfFlame

It is difficult to make those sort of “rules” but if you know any systems that do I’d like to see them

And I see your pount

But I don’t think war games are rpgs

2:01 AM

Bubblegumshoe has a mechanic for relationships with NPCs; each relationship has a number of points that you can spend to have your relationship help you somehow, and you regain points by roleplaying scenes with that friend.

In Golden Sky Stories, your relationships with others give you points that can be spent to do supernatural things, and their relationships with you give points to improve your rolls.

Various versions of Fate represent relationships with actual character mechanics to a greater or lesser extent, and almost every version of Fate wants you to have a mechanical hook for your motivation that both gets you into trouble and helps you do things.

The entire mechanical tension in Misspent Youth centers around your ability to corrupt your character's optimistic and positive attitudes in order to succeed even when the dice roll badly.

We Forest Three also derives its tension from how much of your character's identity will be sacrificed to achieve a selfless goal.

TheDragonOfFlame

Honestly isn’t it more fun to just role play and not worry about rules in those situations?

I could say the same about combat.

It's down to personal preference and the needs of the table, of course.

I find combat-specific rules tedious and unnecessary; I prefer to run combat as the physical expression of a conversation, so the rules are about persuasion and relationships and motives, not about how much damage a sword deals if you hold it with two hands.

(You may be familiar with this kind of combat if you've seen wuxia films.)

So to me, there's a lot more similarity between D&D and "war games" than there is between D&D and Cthulhu Dark.

D&D is a war game where everybody gets an army of one.

(H*ck, a lot of war games have a "morale" stat which is more insight into the inner lives of the characters than D&D tends to mechanize.)

TheDragonOfFlame

@BESW I am extremely interested in how you would do thissss

You are sort of right, as d&d rules don’t specifically do very much for roleplaying BUT. D&D was made with roleplaying in mind, where war games where not

Fate-ifying Star Wars: Luke vs Vader in Cloud City

Dec 7 '17 at 22:28, 14 hours 8 minutes total – 32 messages, 2 users, 0 stars

Bookmarked May 27 '18 at 23:10 by BESW

TheDragonOfFlame

Though it is of note that first addition d&d (or AD&D whatever) was not made with roleplaying in mind at all

You showed up at a dungeon and killed stuff, then you did it again next week

2:15 AM

(Not strictly how I'd run a conversation-focused setpiece, but a lot more focused on character and motive and combat-as-conversation than D&D allows.)

TheDragonOfFlame

Cool

In particular, exchanges like these:

in Fate chat and game room, Dec 7 '17 at 22:29, by BESW

Vader makes a few offensive gestures with his lightsabre, but Luke blocks them easily because Vader is actually Cleverly creating an advantage to place a free invoke on Luke's aspect Don't get cocky, kid! He succeeds with style and says, "You have learned much, young one."

in Fate chat and game room, Dec 7 '17 at 22:30, by BESW

Vader attacks Forcefully, spending a fate point on Luke's aspect Vader killed my father! by taunting him with Obi-Wan's death and using up all his remaining free invokes. Luke takes it hard but wants to stay in the fight, so he fills his lowest consequence slot with Filled with hatred.

in Fate chat and game room, Dec 7 '17 at 22:31, by BESW

Luke accepts a fate point to be compelled by his hatred and immediately spends it on an all-out Forceful attack. Vader's player also gives Luke his own free invoke on Filled with hatred, because in order to achieve his goal he needs Luke to be rewarded for leaning into the hate. Luke succeeds with style and reduces the outcome by one stress to push Vader off the edge of the platform because that's cool.

And you asked why mechanize this stuff and not just RP it? Well, a big part of that is because a system like Fate empowers particular kinds of choices and pacing.

TheDragonOfFlame

That looks quite fun

When Vader spends a fate point on Luke's aspect Vader killed my father!, that gives Luke a token that he can spend later... and means Vader doesn't have that point to use himself later.

TheDragonOfFlame

But it seems like a GM could be quite biased if a player ever dies

They would be the one to kill the player, no dice involved

*character whatever

2:23 AM

So the point economy creates a back-and-forth of crisis and triumph which effectively reflects the kind of pacing we see in stories.

(And it bribes players to have bad things happen to their characters, because they know it'll give them the currency to be awesome later.)

There are dice involved, I just didn't include them in the description; but also, in Fate it's really hard to die. Generally speaking death is the most boring thing that can happen to a character, so the system avoids it.

If Luke gets taken out by Vader, he's gonna get Carbonited and taken to see the Emperor. That's fun.

But what happened was, Luke's player decided to concede: that means you don't get what you want out of the scene, but you get to narrate how you fail, and you get a point for every consequence you took during the scene.

in Fate chat and game room, Dec 7 '17 at 22:32, by BESW

Luke's player decides he needs a breather and concedes, narrating that the objects Vader's throwing around smash open the Big window (now that it's important, it automatically becomes an aspect), sucking Luke out of the fight.

in Fate chat and game room, Dec 7 '17 at 22:32, by BESW

Luke now has a moment to recover, emptying his stress boxes, and he gets two fate points: one for conceding and one for conceding with a consequence. He sadly underestimates Vader's power, though, if he thinks this will help when Vader returns for round two.

What about Fate-ifying the prequels? Or the postquels?

And we know how that rematch ends: Luke gets taken out. Vader wins. But Vader's goal is to bring Luke to the Dark Side, so he takes Luke out not by chopping off his hand, but by dealing a mental blow with the revelation of Luke's parentage which makes him question his entire motive for becoming a Jedi.

Luke losing his hand is the choice of Luke's player: Vader made an attack that dealt more stress than he could soak with his stress track (which clears without consequence at the end of the scene), so he could either choose to let Vader win at that moment, or he could choose to stay in the fight by taking a lasting consequence of his choice: Lost a hand, perhaps.

@MikeQ I haven't given that much thought. A lot of scenes in films can be described with Fate mechanics, because Fate is designed to encourage common storytelling beats and pacing.

But it's very rare for a Fate conflict to have "kill the other person" as a motive. Even if they want to kill you, it's not just to kill you, it's because that's how they think they'll achieve their real motive. Which gives the table a lot more room to play with interesting outcomes.

This is actually really well modeled in Luke's eventual confrontation with the Emperor: the Emperor wants to turn Luke to the Dark Side, and Luke wants his father to redeem himself. Nobody in that room starts the encounter wanting to kill someone else, and Luke's motive is what lets him avoid killing the Emperor.

@MikeQ It might be fun to Fate-ify the confrontation between Luke and Kylo at the end of Last Jedi, those motives and aspects were messy.

It might also be a good model for how Fate doesn't have to distinguish between physical and mental conflict.

Another major reason for using social mechanics is that games can prompt me to think about characters and situations in ways I wouldn't on my own.

Bubblegumshoe models teen sleuths as integrated members of their communities with reciprocal bonds to the people around them, not just their friends and family--you can get a bond that you won't want to reinforce, even.

War of Ashes' Roar/Froth prompts me to posture and perform before a conflict, to enthuse myself and intimidate my enemy.

TheDragonOfFlame

3:22 AM

@BESW just a note I may have come off as argumentative or strong headed in that conversation. That is not my intent, I have great respect for your opinions and you seem to know a great deal about this subject. I have a passion for debating which often earns me enemies. I have an insatiable urge to understand everything and I play the devils advocate in order to understand. I’m sorry if I was rude or argumentative

No worries. I was being provocative, myself.

I would caution you against "devil's advocate" positions though. The term comes from a very specific context in formal debate, and taking up a position we disagree with in casual conversation is rarely a useful technique; it's more likely to produce misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and make people think an idea has more support than it does.

We can explore ideas without pretending to have opinions we don't.

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: Can non-concentration spells with a duration be cast multiple times from one Spellwrought Tattoo?

Tasha's Cauldron of Everything contains the wondrous item spellwrought tattoo, which allows you to cast a spell: Once the tattoo is there, you can cast its spell, requiring no material components. The tattoo glows faintly while you cast the spell and for the spell's duration. Once the spell ends...

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Hot RPG Questions

3:54 AM

5

Q: How does the Transmuted Spell metamagic work with Flames of Phlegethos?

In Tasha's Cauldron of Everything there's a new meta magic option that reads Transmuted Spell When you cast a spell that deals a type of damage from the following list, you can spend 1 sorcery point to change that damage type to one of the other listed types: acid, cold, fire, lightning, poison,...

dnd-5e spells feats metamagic

TheDragonOfFlame

@BESW not exactly a position I disagree with but a position opposite to yours in order to figure out what you mean as well it was sort of my actual opinion

I've given this subject a lot of thought and talked with a lot of people about it, and my conclusion is that nobody can produce a universal definition of RPG, but everybody can develop a personal, always-changing set of qualities they look for in a game that makes it likely to scratch the itch they call RPG.

There's enough common overlap in those sets of qualities that "RPG" is a generally useful term for communities to use, but it's like a set of overlapping word clouds: there will always be fuzzy edges, and that's a feature, not a bug. But those fuzzy edges mean certain questions like "what was the first RPG" or "is this an RPG" will never have clear objective yes/no answers that everyone can agree on.

3

This doesn't make such questions wrong to ask, but they need to be asked in the context of understanding that the harder we try to answer it universally, the closer to 無 the answer will become.

Hot RPG Questions

4:19 AM

4

Q: Is my Urban Ranger Class Archetype / Variant balanced?

(Homebrewery Link) Design Considerations I used various Reddit comments, the Pathfinder 1e Ranger Archetype, and the 3.5 UA Archetype as my guides for this class variant. The idea is to use the Alternate Class Features UA (maybe also in Tasha's?) to flavor the Ranger without creating a class fro...

dnd-5e homebrew-review ranger

4:53 AM

@V2Blast MFW we're getting proper Table support: 😍

5:37 AM

@Carcer Or start singing "One Jump Ahead"

Their own theme music is a debatable third, depending on the quality of it.

Maybe that's just stealth though 🤔

1 hour later…

7:05 AM

@Xirema Haha, yeah :D

7:18 AM

Re: who invented RPGs: LARPing goes way back. War re-enactments for pleasure have been done since Ancient Rome and has been big scene in the US since their Civil War. The latter is arguably a better example because it is more about the enjoyment of participants, which emphasizes its nature as a game over performative theatre

And there's the occasional example from all over history of elaborate play-pretend, such as when Peter the Great and his drinking pals pretended to be a church

Not to mention childrens' games.

7:40 AM

See also the Han dynasty LARPs (some of which were erotic but others were historical and/or satirical), and at least a hundred years of British and American "parlour games," some of which were published pre-made scenarios and others of which survive as games like "werewolf"/"mafia."

The only way D&D gets to be "first RPG" is if we define RPG as "the unique combination D&D made," in which case we have to throw out most post-D&D games that we commonly accept to be RPGs.

@BESW now I just need to ask, LARPS during the actual Han dynasty or LARPS of the Han dynasty?

@trogdor The nobles of the Han dynasty liked to get together for days or weeks at a time and play-act like they were famous figures from Chinese history.

that's why I asked, it seemed like something they might have possibly gotten up to

XD

And even "enjoyment" is a wobbly criteria because games like 14 Days or Dog Eat Dog or Your Dead Friend aren't really aimed at the "casual recreation" demographic.

I think RPG is,... a very loose term that can honestly cover a lot of games and isn't very,... picky about it honestly XD

7:50 AM

Yup.

And now I want to find out if anybody's made a "module" for turning Monopoly into a more formal TRPG.

I could call freaking Hollow Knight an RPG

I mean, Monopoly you could say you are playing as yourself

you could also say you are playing as the hat the shoe the car or the dog (or wtv your edition of the game uses)

Yourself, if you were a capitalist landlord scheming to gain a monopoly.

so I guess it fits

that too

but yeah I definitely subscribe to a lot of games being RPGS

as long as the only criteria is playing the role of a person who isn't, in the strictest sense, yourself

which could even cover Hide and Seek really

you wouldn't normally run around just trying to find people/hide in a really good spot on a day to day basis without having the game as a premise? role playing

I realise that seems like reaching to some people maybe, but

Jeeyon Shim has a bunch of games where the point is to be yourself; in fact many of her games are designed to get you more in touch with yourself.

she is incredibly cool

7:54 AM

Like Have I Been Good? is a game about reflecting on your relationship with your dog.

You play it with your dog.

(Your dog is not the one asking the title question.)

lol

I will not play that with my dog, my dog meows at me

XD

in fact she is often screaming at me, and I suspect she isn't even a dog at all (the joke is she is a cat)

And then there's Riverhouse Games, which makes things which are often/probably games and most of them call themselves RPGs, but... I wouldn't argue too hard if somebody wanted to make a case that many of them aren't.

Six Spells To Help You With Your Curse is pretty dang magical and I think it only works because it's an RPG.

Jul 26 at 2:50, by BESW

These Games Are Free Sale A sale hosted by Riverhouse Games. There are GOOD GAMES in here. Yes.

8:20 AM

...at some point on QI the regrettable Jeremy Clarkson reminisces about a time in school when he spent a week living with other students and a professor, all trying to stay in character as various Romantic authors the whole time. It was apparently quite miserable.

Hot RPG Questions

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Q: In terms of RAW what stops a wish manipulating the deck of many things

In terms of RAW what should happen if a player with the deck of many things drew the wish card or cast wish, and then wished to only ever draw specific cards from the deck, or to the only ever draw the good cards?

dnd-5e magic-items

I'm just re-reading Bluebeard and it appears I've misremembered one fairly major plot point

Now I feel like writing my own version down because it'd make a good story

@BESW oh wow... that doesn't sound good :(

I've heard good things about Bluebeard's Bride from Magpie Games. An investigatory horror tabletop roleplaying game based on the Bluebeard fairy tale.

@kviiri a knight's tale: [little girl to Ulrich] when we joust, I always say I'm you!

8:30 AM

And if you want written retellings, may I recommend "Bluebeard's Wife" by Ursula Vernon?

3 hours later…

11:00 AM

@Rubiksmoose the inside of my head right now is like the "spaceship!" guy from lego movie, except he's saying "tables! tables tables tables tables tables TABLES!!!"

AncientSwordRage

@BESW Giles Brandrith

not Jeremy Clarkson

@trogdor Ironically one of my cat acts vaguely dog like, having been raised by a dog

@ThomasMarkov it looks like Dao Genie question got me Socratic, to my surprise

@AncientSwordRage my cat,... is significantly more dependant on attention than I had been led to believe before ever having cats XD

that being said I have house sat for several houses to take care of cats and their level of need for attention has varied greatly

so I guess some people just have happened to have cats on the low end of that spectrum

AncientSwordRage

11:16 AM

I don't really know what influcences that

my recollection is that we treated our cats equally, but they're massively different in temperament

actually my point is mostly that cats actually just do have very different personalities

I also treated both of the house cats the same as I recall, only one of them became "my" cat

that's why I only talk about one as though she was my cat even though technically I do happen to have two, well actually sort of 3 now

we've all but adopted a third cat who lives outside

XD

I guess we actually have adopted him, we just don't let him inside because our cats have never like strange cats and he's not had a vet visit (which we have scheduled) yet

@AncientSwordRage Ahah, that would explain why I couldn't track it down.

I knew it was one of the longwinded old white guys.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW I see why it was hard to track down

if they didn't tack on ".... in the world" then it's probably not Jeremy Clarkson

Easy enough with the name. ...That puts his story about ten years before D&D.

AncientSwordRage

@trogdor is the plan to abduct him into being an indoor cat

11:26 AM

@AncientSwordRage he does not need to be abducted into that, he has tried to come inside on multiple occasions

we think he had previous people who let him in and out as he pleased and fed him

mainly, I personally wouldn't mind him being an indoor cat if it weren't for the fact that our current indoor cats are old and have never liked any other cat other than each other, and even that has been rough on some occasions

AncientSwordRage

@trogdor the absuction would mean they wouldn't go out though

@trogdor ooof

we let our cats out technically

@BESW ah but um [sweats, adjusts jacket] there's uh [clears throat, fumbles with something on the desk] there's a [takes off fogging glasses, lets out a shaky breath] there's ... there's no dice! aha!

they just live mostly inside

@doppelgreener lol

I assume he would still be allowed out when he both asks for it and someone notices and lets him out, but he certainly wouldn't have as much freedom in that case

I've advocated that he remain an outdoor cat but there are other factions that have a dream of having this cat living inside

AncientSwordRage

lol

11:30 AM

at the moment it's a little moot because the other indoor cat is sick and slowly dying and his agitation with a new cat living in the house with him is under consideration at the moment

AncientSwordRage

that's quite reasonable

that reminds me, one of my friends cats went into remission recently!

this is kidney failure

AncientSwordRage

that sounds unpleasent

and we've noticed that despite the fact he eats my cat's food, she remains,... round, and he's been losing weight

AncientSwordRage

round is not the worst shape, but that doesn't sound healthy

11:33 AM

she has arthritis

but seems very strangely otherwise pretty ok

we took her in to the vet after the other cat's diagnosis and they basically said she has no right to be as healthy as she is

XD

AncientSwordRage

hahaha

she's still old, and has arthritis mostly due to her weight, but is otherwise doing pretty well

Bugging you must be very good for her health.

I've had that exact thought before

AncientSwordRage

I'm uot of coddee

:'(

11:36 AM

it's like she relieves stress by constantly yelling at me

@AncientSwordRage XD

what do you mean exactly?

AncientSwordRage

I thought I'd leave it to prove my point

I'm out of coffee

oooh

Well you get right back into that coffee, young man.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW You know what they say, out of the frying pan, and into the coffee

I don't really drink coffee

not regularly anyway

I prefer not to be even somewhat dependant on a stimulant to wake up XD

also most coffee doesn't taste great anyway

(the cold brew I have had has been an exception to that rule)

11:53 AM

[grin]

lol

Do you know if your parents leave the coffee maker on after it's been brewed, to keep the coffee hot?

Because that's a major reason hot coffee from modern drip-brew machines tastes bad, and it's specifically why restaurant coffee usually tastes bad. Leaving the heat on longer than it needs to be, burns the coffee.

I have never been the slightest bit interested in asking about their coffee so I have never asked about it or looked at it in the morning while they were using it to see

XD

It's also why "percolator" prepared coffee (I put it in quotes because technically almost all coffee pots are percolators but there's a specific kind which gets that name) is generally not as good as drip coffee; percolators dump the coffee back into the boiling water that gets run over the grounds, so it's constantly being re-boiled, and thus part of the brew is already burnt by the time the coffee's ready.

Drip coffee makers, on the other hand, pass the boiling water from the water reservoir over the grounds and into a second pot, so it doesn't get multi-boiled.

I think this one drips over a filter

12:00 PM

i'm very interested in what a percolator is here, so i can turn away from such a machine on sight. (generally any coffee that comes from just a machine is probably not great, but on days i really need a coffee, i need to know what i'm in for.)

Restaurants leave it in the second pot on the heating pad to keep it hot, partly so that it's not picking up germs while it sits around waiting for customers, and partly so they can serve a piping-hot cup of coffee without the customer waiting for it to brew.

I just took a look at it and the pot sits directly under it, and it has a tank that looks like it's only for the boiling water

oooh, wait, is it something that looks like a big ole kettle?

@BESW honestly if i ever get a cup of coffee straight away, something is wrong

good things take time. this is triply so for coffee

so it looks like it has space for the beans and the water but not space seperate from the pot itself for the finished "coffee"

AncientSwordRage

It gets called 'filter coffee' here in the UK, and most places I know have a huge thermos for it to sit in

12:02 PM

@doppelgreener Yes, that's the electric counter-top kind of percolator. Percolators are actually really cool, mechanically. They were originally designed so you could easily make coffee on a stovetop.

[rummages]

AncientSwordRage

Percolators here are just 'coffee in a filter cone' showers

so like to me a percolator is also known as a moka pot, which has separate chambers for boiling water and coffee, and produces some pretty great results

AncientSwordRage

Unless we mean Mokapots?

user image

@BESW oh no!

AncientSwordRage

12:03 PM

so, for me it's the 'filter basket' getting showered in hot water that makes it a percolator

user image

AncientSwordRage

that's a great diagram

both of them

<3

Percolators work because when water boils while it's under the flat cone at the bottom of the water reservoir, it generates bubbles of steam which force the water up the narrow tube to pour out over the coffee.

moka pots have a lower chamber with water, uses the pressure of heat to force the hot water upwards and through a filter containing coffee grounds (the middle), and the water comes up through a spout (top center) and stays in the top section. once it's "done" you'll start hearing sputtering and seeing steam, and it's time to turn off the heat and serve it.

they generate a similar effect to espresso machines

People think that bubbling-up action is percolation, because it sounds like the noise of the word. But percolation is actually the seeping of water through the coffee grounds, which almost every kind of coffee maker does.

AncientSwordRage

12:05 PM

@BESW which is why it's a confusing term

@doppelgreener I feel like I new that but never acknowledged it until now

Moka pots look like Significantly Improved percolators. I'm guessing they need a lot more water than you get coffee, though, because the bubbling-up action needs a fair amount of water in the tank to make it work.

only a little

AncientSwordRage

they make an amazing noise

yeah the one over at this house is two separate things

the boiler itself and then the big pot that holds the finished product is seperate

user image

12:07 PM

They also make a shot in about 30 seconds.

(Electric percolators are a little better than stovetop ones, because they only heat a very small amount of water directly under the collector.)

@BESW there's some very big moka pots, but i use one this size that can make two double shots of coffee.

and it has a little bit of water left in the bottom at the end, but that's about it

So there is little overextraction.

like, 90% of the water becomes coffee, at least

that is some efficiency

12:08 PM

you'll see the two chambers are almost the same size, and i'll 3/4 fill the bottom one, and the top one will be about 3/4 full

Troggy's coffee maker is probably more like this:

user image

yes

AncientSwordRage

@BESW thats what my parents use

that's what it looks like except they fit more snugly together than that

ooh, huh

12:10 PM

This one only ruins the coffee if you leave the pot on the heat after the brewing cycle is done, because then you're just... cooking your coffee.

@BESW Those seem to be very common in the USA, virtually unseen in Australia, and sometimes seen in some countries in Europe. I've never had coffee from one that I'd write home about.

the opening that the pot under the brewer has is very small, and there is an equally small hole above it to drop the coffee

It does, however, have a lot of hard-to-clean places that are good for nasty things to grow, so that's a fun way to flavor your bean juice.

lovely

maybe that's been a contributor :U

because it looks like a regular filter coffee method, just, with a machine

@BESW I also have no idea how often they clean it

AncientSwordRage

12:11 PM

The worst thing to clean is the milk wand

user image

if i went for filter coffee i'd just get something like this

or one of the filters you can sit on top of a cup

It also takes up more space on your countertop, which makes it less attractive to cultures where Too Many Small Kitchen Appliances is not a lifestyle goal.

in fact, I'm quite regularly the one doing cleaning stuff in the kitchen and they have never asked me to, or shown me how to, clean this thing so,.... I'm entirely unsure if it even gets cleaned

just on account of it's dreadfully easy to clean and is about the same amount of work and time in brewing

@doppelgreener We make coffee in a way similar to that, when we want fresh-hot or are too impatient for coldbrew.

12:13 PM

@BESW this household worships at the altar of too many kitchen appliances

(The link I gave above is also a decent discussion of percolator vs drip from someone more interested in the tech and practicality of it than in being a coffee snob. But is also a bit picky about his coffee.)

I would be remiss if I were to call most of them small though

AncientSwordRage

@doppelgreener it can't be automated on a timer though

@AncientSwordRage that's true. my schedule is so chaotic i'm not sure i would want my coffee on a timer, lol

i actually kind of enjoy making my coffee, so that's a bonus point i factor in for the above thing

someone who wants as little to do with the making of their own coffee as possible would take that as a big negative

@doppelgreener We have an old Chemex pourover.

We don't get the special cone-shaped filters, we just use regular drip-maker filters. It's close enough.

12:24 PM

@doppelgreener yeah my parents just want the machine to give them their wake up juice XD

Coffee machines delay the amount of effort to a different time, they don't decrease it.

For cold brew, which is what we usually do, we have a pair of flash chill iced tea pitchers. We fill the tea leaf filter with coffee grounds and fill the pitcher with water, and leave it in the back of the fridge for a day. Then take out of the filter and drink that coffee for a couple days, and start the filter in the second pitcher in time for it to be ready when we run out of the first.

AncientSwordRage

@Akixkisu but its hard to make wake up juice before having wake up juice

@BESW I should get back to making cold brew

Our cold brew process reduces prep/waiting time to a background chore that can happen any time of the day every few days.

@AncientSwordRage I've been using a handgrinder for years, it has improved my habits ;)

12:30 PM

Heh. We just use whatever pre-ground coffee is cheapest at the bulk discount store.

Makes it part of the wakeup process.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW making it carefully almost always trumps buying 'fancy coffee'

Aye.

Hm, it is just very easy to ruin fancy coffee.

And from what I can tell, a lot of the "fancy" part of coffee, taste-wise at least, is that it doesn't get too acidic from the heat of the brewing.

Paying for that is pointless if I'm not heating it up.

12:31 PM

And some fancy coffee isn't much better than cheap coffee.

There are some lighter roasts which are well worth buying if you are into that, but if you are into darker roasts, then a lot of it comes out as a wash.

AncientSwordRage

@BESW From what I can tell, the fancy-ness is that if you heat it carefully it tastes nicer than non-fancy coffee heated carefully

overheated it's all the same

Pre-ground versus grinding is also interesting in that the fresher coffee tastes more aromatic (mostly due to storage when you have pre-ground in larger batches), but it is also easy to grind coffee in a way that makes it taste worse than pre-ground.

Getting a grinder that does espresso well is an investment not worth it for most people.

12:57 PM

yeah I have practically no knowledge of coffee making

it could be that my father wakes up and does more work than I see to make the coffee and keep the machine maintained

like I said much earlier in the coffee conversation, I haven't paid much attention to the process

They may figure that running boiling water through it every day is sufficient cleaning.

that could also be it

I had to complain several times about our old tea kettle to get it replaced

it had,.... gunk in it

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