In item abilities there are usability flags that can be set: "Usable Before ID" and "Usable After ID." Normally, which is to say in all cases I know, these checkmarks are used, if at all, to allow some item abilities to be applied before identification. Maybe it doesn't matter for the item whether it is identified. If and when there are such items, it doesn't change the basic approach to identifying, which is that an unknown item is "cloaked" with mystery and in that sense "bad." The cover of mystery is only an obstacle, it should be removed as quickly as possible. Lore is "good," the Identify spell and temple services for identifying are also "good." The player wants to get rid of the blueness of an item, which is always the same item, only the mystery stands in the way of knowing whether it is cursed and what exactly it does.
That's very straightforward, but it's not the only approach to identifying. It may be more... promising to think of the not-knowing state and the knowing state about an item as two layers, with different possibilities and uses. One rules out the other. If a player finds something that looks like an old hoe, he might, for the sake of the example, till the ground with it. If the hoe turns out to be an enchanted dwarven axe, characters may take it to a fight, but the domestic function will be ruled out. Another possibility: a book with good, useful information on politics of a region. A character might make use of it to deliver a lecture or influence elections. But that use would only apply until the character identified the book as a cypher hinting at treasure - or maybe the words at the start of every chapter spell out a magic formula. Another example: as a quest reward, the party gets a powerful chalice for summoning demons. It is not identified but can be used all the same. If their honesty, desire for truth or curiosity lead them to find out just what the chalice is, it may turn out to have been made by demons themselves, and (knowing this) only evil-aligned characters get to use it. In short, instead of treating blue items as "bad," different directions that players' knowledge leads them to take may be represented by their use of identified or not identified items.
I'll throw you another frisbee example: palimpsests. These are scrolls and books where a text has been scrubbed off and another written over. Rarely this was done more than once to the same piece of parchment. Traces of a bottom text would sometimes emerge (represented in our case by the blueness, mystery, of the item). But what to do? Someone who didn't know about earlier layers (didn't have the item identified) would be able to read and make use of the top text, but getting to the bottom until very recently, when X-rays and ultraviolet light began to be used, required effacing the top with a sponge or acid. It was the surface truth or the deeper truth, as usual in life. Decisions, decisions. Now in our case think about a magic scroll with another magic scroll below - but is it more powerful or less? Is it worth the gamble? Or a mundane text could hide something magical; or a magic text could spread over something that would turn out to be a primer on sheep breeding.
Different layers - different truths.
And the engine does let us do these things. I'm treating many of my items as ID-optional: the information revealed might just give useful hints to the player or inform him about the nature of the quest he is on. Let players decide how inquisitive to be, instead of wanting to ID everything because they think there is a curse. And this is a moral decision and a role-playing chance in every case: if they just wave and go along, some innocents might suffer in the end. But in addition to information, it's possible to actually have different mechanics based on the identification status, as I wrote in the beginning. I got a ring with 3 + 1 abilities. An ability that's only "Usable Before ID" no longer shows up as a button after the item gets un-blued. And abilities that are only "Usable After ID" wait until identification - but, of course, players shouldn't assume that there will be any. Just because an item is blue doesn't at all have to mean hidden powers. All it means is that there is some cause of uncertainty about it. Not to push this to absurdity, but identifying might in some cases only confirm that the item is as banal and boring as it seemed - or more so (in the case of glamorous fakes).
Edited by temnix, 14 December 2017 - 11:59 AM.
