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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 8378973" data-attributes="member: 6801228">And with limited information you end up in one of two scenarios1) Everything is dangerous, so we take an hour to investigate and test everything we encounter in every way we can to keep as safe as possible. Turtle, turtle turtle. 2) Flip a coin, heads you live, tails you die. You alive? Flip a coin, head you live, tails you die. And neither one of those is enjoyable for me. And having dealt with a lot of people, both in a RPG context and in a written "Quest" context, who have dealt with this war approach... they don't find it fun either. In fact, it has lead to multiple people thanking me for not pulling various crap things that others have pulled on them.Because why not, your goal is to kill the PCs, might as well.No. This is an example of the game giving you a way to make a choice, instead of flipping a coin. The whole reason it has gotten to the point it has is because of BS like this.They are dead. "Well, technically being trapped for eternity and unable to do anything ever isn't dead" doesn't sway me. They are dead, roll up a new character and never wear an item that hasn't been identified ever again. Seriously, no one should ever experiment by putting something on in your game, unless they are truly fine with it being a coin flip of death. It is utterly pointless.Then it might be worth the risk. But see, this is the difference between this item and the boots. I can make an informed decision here. I can weigh risks and rewards, I can check with you via this "small body of knowledge" and maybe figure out those DCs. This is a fine item, once you know the risk vs reward. But if I have no knowledge, I can't make a decision.Just for laughs? I mean, why have an item like that that you can never know what it does? Again, this is removing a player's ability to make a meaningful choice. Firstly, if I was in your game and had a magic ring I couldn't figure out what it did... I'd never wear it. Trash heap or sell it, because it could be another instant death item. Then, if someone did wear it... it could still be an instant death item, because they say the wrong thing in-character. Poof, guess you shouldn't have said "I wish I could see their face" you didn't know about that secret magic item you were wearing, and now you are all going to die. And sure, it could be beneficial. But it isn't a choice, it is just random luck.Chaos sure, but why deceive and trick your own players? What do you hope to gain. High risks can lead to high rewards, but not knowing the risks just makes it random chance. And no, I don't mean, "You know you risk dying" I mean actually being able to make a decision based off real information.See, there are two problems with this. 1) No one would make this item. It is completely nonsensical. There is no single reason to make a potion that is a better healing potion, and disguise it as a giant strength potion. It makes no sense.2) It is such a waste. Sure, if you drink it hoping to get strength, and you were low on HP, then at least you got something. But if you weren't low on hp, you just wasted a resource to get... nothing. Seriously, this item bothers me more than any other item on your list, because it is just so mean-spirited. It is meant only to deceive the players into wasting it. There is no situation where it makes for an interesting decision or a useful resource, because it can only be wasted. And the only time it can't be wasted... is when if it was just a normal healing potion it would likely have been used anyways, or used to better effect. It truly makes me wonder why. Why even bother. It seems like the only point is just to force the players into situations where the deck is stacked against them and it is only luck and random chance that they survive. Or, they plan things out to such a degree that nothing can ever go wrong, and they are terrified of everything, because it will go wrong anyways, because even the things they know are potentially lies that will turn around and hurt them. It just makes for such a bleak game.Just because there is precedent doesn't mean it is a good idea. Again, with these sort of items being common, you just literally touch as few things as possible, until you've used magic to identify everything, because doing literally anything else is just asking to be killed.Yes, the game has a lot of luck involved... and it doesn't need more. We don't need to set things up to have the game even more unpredictable. In fact, I think we need the opposite. We need players to have more information, so they can actually do something by choice, instead of being left to either turtle and distrust everything, or flip a coin to see whether they live or die.No. I don't do that. If touching something has a serious risk of death, then I tell the players. Sometimes they touch it anyways, other times they avoid it, but I'm not going to trap random items with deadly-poison and just wait and see if the PCs are dumb enough to pick it up and die.I had fun, because the guy was doing a good job, and we were willing to go along with it. It was only like his 2nd or 3rd campaign ever too, so we cut him a lot of slack.We started to stop having fun towards the end though, and start getting annoyed. And, again, if you have to do that for every bit of travel... then you are going to start getting people more and more annoyed.</blockquote>

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