u/EvilPersonXXIV

I've tried running Blades in the Dark a few times before and I've wanted to like it more than I actually do. Just for fun, I've decided to flip through the rulebook and I'm starting to notice that there are things I've been doing wrong. I think the game is starting to click with me.

This brings me to a simple question. Can players change their mind about an action if they don't like the position or effect?

I ask this because largely, my mistake running this game in the past has been that I made the inner workings of the game too obvious to players, which killed the immersion. For example, when it came to action rolls, the players would be in a position and I would make it very clear that if they don't like the position or effect, they could try something else instead. What this led to is a lot of games where players would change their mind until they found the action that would work best.

Would it affect the game negatively if once a player stated their goal and chose their action, they don't get to change their mind at all?

For those who don't know, brining poultry is a cooking technique involving submerging raw poultry in a salty solution before cooking. The salt penetrates into the meat which has the benefits of giving the meat uniform salinity and having the meat be juicier as the meat fibers retain more water.

I HATE brined poultry. Every single time I find myself eating poultry which I dislike, I find out that it was brined. Uniformed salinity doesn't hit the same as heterogeneous salt. I'd rather taste the salt in bursts rather than have salt contents be evenly distributed through the meat. This is why pretzels have chunks of coarse salt on top of them rather than have the correct amount of salt evenly mixed throughout the dough.

The salt isn't even my biggest gripe though. It's the fact that this serves the pointless and futile quest for "juicier" meat. I don't understand why there are a million "life hacks" to make meat juicier. I'm not anti-juiciness. I'm not out here eating jerky.

It's true that fat carries flavor. A juicy steak is amazing because it's dripping with melted intramuscular fat which allows the flavor of the steak to coat your taste buds. A slimy and wet chicken thigh is disgusting because most of that juice is just water. Water dilutes flavor. Having a chicken breast retain more water makes it juicier but at the cost of diluting more of the flavor, watering it down with salt water.

Not only does brined poultry rob you of heterogenous salt content and dilute the flavor of the bird, but it also ruins the texture. This part is a matter of preference, but I typically hate the texture of a brined bird. It's almost gelatinous, feeling more like lunch meat.

"But the alternative is to have the meat be dry" one might say. To that, I have a solution which never fails me when cooking poultry. Just make a sauce. A flavorful sauce, gravy, jus or whatever fixes any shortcomings a bland bird might have. I never get tired of chicken thighs because I can always coat them in sauces, playing around with flavors. Pan frying a chicken thigh and making a sauce with the fond is one of life's great pleasures.

And this is why I hate brining most of all. The salinity of the brine solution ruins any gravy to be made from the drippings of the bird. You just can't make a gravy with a brined turkey without diluting it with a lot of water or else it'd end up being way too salty. Why would I want to sacrifice the gravy in exchange for brined turkey, when the problems is solves are solved way better by the turkey. If the meat is too dry and bland, just pour some gravy on it! It's so much better.

I wouldn't feel so strongly about my feelings towards brined meat if it wasn't for the fact that I hardly see or hear any similar opinions. I have yet to find people who know of brining poultry and don't consider it a necessity for making good poultry. It's talked about as if it's a universal life hack that makes any meat better. "Don't forget to brine your poultry" they say.

So many family members brine their turkeys for the holidays and I hate it. So many people in my family have a bunch of tricks to make turkey juicier. I said fuck it and decided to take on the task of cooking turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas and everyone loves my turkey and gravy. People ask what my secret is. The secret is not brining and letting the bird do most of the work by being delicious, respecting the bird.