So, continuing on from my previous post, here's my examination of how scrolls work in 10Rogue, and how I've been applying it to my various D&D games.
In the original game, the player can find scrolls with magic words written on them. Similarly to D&D, each can be used only once (no multiple-spell scrolls here). When initially found, the scroll is only distinguishable from other scrolls by the particular nonsense words written on each: there appears to be no pattern or hint. The only way to figure out what a scroll does initially is to read it aloud, which still doesn't always reveal its effects initially. For instance, after reading aloud a scroll, the player might receive the message "You hear a high-pitched humming noise", and is given the option to name the effect to be able to distinguish it again later.
The only way to identify scrolls with certainty (unless the effect is immediately obvious, such as a scroll of sleep) is to use a scroll of identify; this is also the only way to figure out what a scroll, implement, or potion is without reading, zapping, or quaffing it. But the primary difference between 10Rogue and old-school D&D is that past experience is a reliable guide to the future, whereas D&D encourages DMs to vary the appearance of their magic items in order to yank their players' figurative chains.
I think that initially there shouldn't be clues, so as to encourage experimentation, but after that there should be some amount of consistency and repeatable results. The two exceptions to this are poisons and cursed items, which by their nature should be designed to fool the unwary. After all, if the players just shotgun every blue potion they see - without bothering to check the consistency, scent, opacity, etc. - it would just be natural for their cavalier approach to give bad results once in a blue moon. "Nope, upon closer inspection, the potion does not smell like peppermint; it smells like garlic. It's also thick and chalky, instead of thin."
Anyone have any feedback as to whether this would have good, bad, or sideways results in a long-running campaign?
I wrote about something similar recently and made this observation: the full range of possible details, clues, hints or subtleties is simply too much to deal with effectively over the course if a campaign. We're better off assuming that the characters have knowledge and experience that let's them figure things out, within a reasonable margin of certainty.
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