Do you have what it takes to keep your household happy?  Find out by joining the [AoR] Household Challenge (HHC)!

Based on real-life family budgets*, the HHC keeps you busy producing, trading, and purchasing the weekly provisions necessary to keep your household thriving.

Tatiana will help you set up your personalized HH Manager crafter.  She will need a full permission picture to display.  Your profile picture will work nicely.

Scoreboard:

For convenience the HH Management scoreboard is located in the QH [AoR] Market.

Levels of difficulty:

• Individual: A household of one person
• Family: A household of five people
• Estate: A household of ten people, including staff.

Choose your starting level.  If ever you find the challenge too easy or too difficult you can always switch levels taking your earned points with you.

 

Progress bar:

Keeps track of your accomplishments and runs from 0 to 100.  One hundred points is considered a full year of management.  After the first year is completed the progress bar is reset for the second year.  Your total points continued to be displayed on the HH Management crafter (they are also stored in the AoR Database so they will never be lost).

 

Once a week:

Use your personalize HH Manger crafter to provide the HH basic provisions and the HH extra provisions.  You will receive one point for each successful transaction.

Individual level Basic example (in units, so 40 slices of bread which equals 5 loaves of bread)

Bread:40:Butter:16:Cheese:16:Egg:6:Milk:8:Sugar:16

Individual level Extra example (in units, so 5 glasses of Apple Cider or one bottle)

Apple_cider:5:Potato:8:Chicken_raw:8:Tea_leaves_dried:1:Beeswax_candle:7:Castile_soap:8

 

The provisions may change slightly over the course of the year depending on the season.

Provisions may be procured in varies way:; hand-crafted by the player themselves; purchased or bartered from another player; purchased from Myriam.  To encourage our roleplay please use Myriam as a last resort.  If an item is out-of-stock you can contact Tatiana to replenish the supply.

 

Once a month:

Use your personalize HH Manger crafter to provide the HH special provisions.  You will receive one point for a successful transaction plus an award ribbon that can be displayed on your HH Manager crafter.

For the month of March 2023 the challenge consists of:

• 1 (6 units) Egg Board
• 1 (8 units) Potato Soup
• 1 (8 units) Apple Pie
• 1 (8 units) Orange Tea
• 1 (5 units) Hard Cider - any brand will do.

 

Start at any time:

It’s never too early or too late to start playing.

 

Go At Your Own Pace:

The only expectations are those you set for yourself.  If once a week is just way too much work, you can participate as often as feels like fun for you.  The monthly challenge is, of course, optional.  Some players may wish to skip it while others will ignore weekly and just play monthly.  It’s all good!

 

 

* A New System of Practical Domestic Economy:  Founded on Modern Discoveries and the Private Communications of Persons of Experience

Image: Historical Jewelry: The Chatelaine

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 24 Feb 2023 08:57:20AM

Update to Extra Weekly Menu:

Now that the breweries are up and running, the Apple Cider has been replaced with Small Beer (for individuals) and Brown Ale (for families).

Finally!  A new monthly challenge for the month of April 2024:

To complete this challenge you must provide:

• 1 (8 units) Roast Ham
• 1 (8 units) Onion Soup
• 1 (8 units) Strawberry Pie
• 1 (8 units) Tea
• 1 (16 units) Sugar
• 1 (5 units) Cinsault (a fine rosé wine made in Provence which will pair beautifully with the ham)

You are encouraged to purchase any items that you do not wish to produce yourself.  Please check to see if they are available from a local merchant before buying them from Myriam.  If they are currently out of stock please contact Tatiana to replenish the supply.

p.s. Yes, this has been a long year in the making.  I kept telling Aph that it was on my "to-do" list and it's finally done.

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Tips & Tricks

Whether you are playing at the Individual or Family Level (not to mention the Estate Level which hasn’t been attempted yet) this challenge is hard!  After a year in real-life playing time here are a few personal observations.

 

A cash crop or craft is required:

You literally can’t grow/craft it all.  Even if you wanted to some items, raw chicken for example, must be purchased from Myriam. This means that you must have some source, however small, of coin-generating income.

 

Focus your skills & labour:

This challenge is based on real-life family requirements, and it does a good job of illustrating just how labour intensive running an 18^th century household can be. The variety of skills and quantities of time necessary to craft all the household items on a weekly basis is not only daunting but can become a drag.

Being a Capricorn, I am destined to be a “jack of all traders and master of none” but even I find the weekly grind to be too much work and not enough fun so I’m now concentrating on one master skill to pay the bills.

As my income allows, I will be purchasing more from the marketplace. I will also continue to enjoy dabbling in many of the crafts for the sheer pleasure of just doing.

 

Spending is good!

As the song says, “Money makes the world go round” and spreading your coins throughout the AoR economy is one of the best ways to encourage our active roleplay.

I must keep reminding myself of this as it is one of my hardest lessons.  Like Smaug the dragon, I instinctively want to sit on my pile of gold and treasures.  Go figure!

Instead of racking up coins and goods that sit unused and unseen in my inventory I am converting them into HHC points and basking in the warm glow of a challenge well met and a community well served.

 

Go At Your Own Pace:

Worth repeating! The only expectations are those you set for yourself.  If once a week is just way too much work, you can participate as often as feels like fun for you.  The monthly challenge is, of course, optional.  Some players may wish to skip it while others will ignore weekly and just play monthly.  It’s all good!

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

Congratulations to all the participants of the April Challenge, you did good!

• Aph
• Candace
• Maria & Adrian's Family
• Mikhail
• Queen’s Hamlet Family
• Thomas & Catherine's Family

 

The June Challenge highlights some of our brand-new recipes:

• 1 (16 units) Brie Cheese
• 1 (8 units) Lobster Tails
• 1 (8 units) Strawberry Tart
• 1 (4 units) Peppermint Tea
• 1 (5 units) Apple Brandy

--
Proprietress of Tatiana's Tea Room ~ Owner of the Provence Coeur Estate ~ Webmistress of this site

updated by @tatiana-dokuchic: 01 Jun 2024 08:29:07AM