Colorful Potions Part 2: Designing a potion list

Reviewing the ideas of the Colorful Potions it is clear that we will need some lists of characteristics that our potions may have.

• colors
• tastes
• smells
• consistency
• physical description (like bubbling, swirling, sparks)
• name of the potion (perhaps a history)
• description of the container
• possible side effects
• quality of the potion
• recipe (is there a recipe which the players could uncover)
• rarity

Some of these characteristics are unique to the recipe of the potion and some may vary. To not adding another dimension of complexity the smell and taste should be the same. Just beware that it might be hard to smell some tastes like for example a salty taste.

Let's create lists for each of these entries and discuss their impact on the game:

colors
The impact on the game is minor. Perhaps there might be some situations where you are not able to distinguish colors like in the darkness or using special types of darksight.
Colors could be: red, blue, green, yellow, gray, black, white, colorless, multicolored, light and dark versions of some of them.
There might be several more colors, but since I want to have several potions that might have the same color a smaller set will do some good here.

tastes/smells
I guess these might be unlimited, but lets make up a list of some obvious ones: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, fishy, honey, almonds, vanilla, dung, earthy, like flowers, like beef, smoky, acidic, like soap

consistency / physical description
this is just a description for the feel during drinking and how it behaves when it is poured out of the flask.
sticky, watery, cream, with particles in it, fuming, smoky, bubbling, light emitting

name of the potion / rarity / recipe
The name of a potion shouldn't just be "Healing Potion". Give it a name connected to your campaign.
Synonyms for potion:
potion, elixir, tonic, liquor, dose, balm, medicine, brew, philter, draught, analgesic, application, balsam, compound, cream, formula, oil, water, salve, agent
The name is strongly connected to the campaign you play as is the rarity of a potion. The rarity is most likely connected to the price of a potions and also to it's recipe. The ingredients might be hard to get or the recipe is a secret only shared among a guild. It might also be that for healing potions you need divine power to brew them or the priests/gods might forbade them: They may be illegal, which might be typical for poisons. Think about a priesthood in power that ban all healing potions to ensure that people have to come to their temples to receive healing.

quality and side effects

These both go well together. Let's define quality of a potion: a normal potion should have the desired effect and none to moderate side effects. A better quality potion should have either a better effect, a longer usability or a less side effects. A low quality potion should have instead a lesser effect and stronger side effects. All this should also be incorporated into their price. 

Another option might be to say that an strong effect also implies a strong side effect

side effects: none, weak, medium, strong

quality: low, normal, high

potion effect:: weak, normal, strong

Colorful Potions Part 1: Not just a drink?

A while ago I stumbled over several random tables in the net (like Inkwell Ideas, Seven Sanctum and Chaotic Shiny) that allow for generating descriptions of potions. They offer randomly generated potion descriptions.

How can we use these description to add flavor to our game?

Lets collect possible cases which could alter our potions:

• There is only ONE true recipe for a potion. All healing potions in your world would be of the same physical appearance.
• There are several recipes for the same potion. This would mean that healing potions can be either red, blue, green or whatever. Might be that every alchemist has his own recipe to produce potions.

• Potions could  have different strength based on their recipe. Could someone brew a strong and a weak version of a potion? For D&D 3.5 where potions may base on the spell effect the potions strength might be related to the experience of the creator. Is it possible to identify the strength of a potion?

• Related to the above case: Potions could exhibit side effect based on their recipe.

• Does the origin of the potions effect matter? Does a divine potion looks different from a alchemist one? Possible general cases here might be: divine, magic (wizards and witches?), alchemy, herb based?

Allowing for different recipes with different strength and possible side effects would easily mean that every potion in your world might be unique and you would have to note down for every potion what they are and how (strong) they work. This might only be practical if in your world only very very few potions exists. Otherwise you will end up in a huge amount of book keeping.

On the other side I like the idea that my players could start as novice alchemist and learn during gameplay which kind of potion they found.

Which options should be included to make up an interesting system but keep the amount of book keeping to a minimum?

All gold that shines? Part 1 - How does your gold look like?

Think about this small dialog:

DM: With your last hit you see the live vanish out of the goblin and he sinks to your feet.
Player 1: Cool! I will go through his pockets. Do I find something?
DM: You find 5 gold and 16 silver pieces.

It is more than once that I was frustrated to just say something like that to my players. How about this scene?

DM: With your last hit you see the live vanish out of the goblin and he sinks to your feet.
Player 1: Cool! I will go through his pockets. Do I find something?
DM: You find 5 gold ducats and 16 silver florin.

That sounds much better for my understanding and I would hope that the dialog would continue like this:

Player 1: Wow! Do I know from which kingdom they are?
Player 2 to 1: How old are they? Why do these goblins have these type of coins with them?

Nice role playing opportunities!
But for the sake I fear that this dialog may also be more like this:

Player 1: How much are these in normal gold and silver?
Player 2: Do I have to account for them differently than the other gold?

The first case would open up a lot opportunities for interaction with your world. You can set up things like this:

• Plot hooks. Where does these coins come from? A distant land or perhaps an ancient kingdom
• Interaction: These type of coins may be forbidden to use in the current kingdom because they are minted by an rival kingdom.
• Clues: The coins could lead to a villain from another land that payed the goblins. Think about the Persian gold paid to the Spartan priests in the movie 300.
• Adding depth to your game through emphasizing differences in cultures by their different types of currency. I also thing about different coins for Dwarfs or a magical currency that is made and used by wizards.

But also the second case shows some truth:

• If there are different coin systems: Are there different prices for the daily goods if they are paid in different currencies?
• Adding different coin systems would add also an additional amount of accounting on the player side. If you have a group that love to track their weights, ammunition or material components then they would have no problem with that. But this is likely not the reality.

I'm not sure yet if the pros outweigh the cons.

A more simple solution might be to say that all gold coins are always gold coins. They than may have different names and shapes but all gold coins are always one gold.