What if magic items can't be identified?

By Mike Vivisector

The setup

Many OSR systems don't have perception rolls.

"Figure it out yourself!" they say, after telling you to get of their lawn. "Just say where you look or what you're touching, and I'll tell you if you find anything!"

Now, I think this is a good system. A perception roll is a boring way to resolve searching. It removes agency from the player and makes something that could make the situation very tactile and real into something abstract and gamey.

The logical end point of the perception roll is a game in which player input is completely superfluous and stats determine everything. And that isn't fun. So, some say, no perception rolls.

So, given that many people think that way, why do we still roll arcane knowledge or intelligence to identify magic items?

The problem

"This is a mysterious ring; ancient, covered in runes." 

"I want to examine it, see if it's magic." 

"After spending some minutes sniffing, touching, and examining the thing, you can safely say it exudes an aura of magic. It makes your hairs stand on end. Sparks jump between the metal and your fingers." 

"I want to figure out what kind." 

"Okay, roll an intelligence check." 

"Made it." 

"Yeah it's a ring that gives you +3 to lockpicking."

That's boring. Yes, also because I used a boring magic item in that example. But not only is it boring, it is soooo gamey.

An aside:
DnD uses numbers because it wants to quantify and make concrete certain variables. But just as "16 Strength" doesn't mean anything in the world of the fiction, so do the numbers on magic not mean anything. Or the words fire damage.

Numbers are an unelegant crutch; a necessary evil. They should be avoided in descriptive language if possible. They break the fiction.

A solution

When running the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, my players tried on the Ring of Eyesight that makes a player's eye go hard as glass and pop out of his socket, and the ring which turns a finger into a two-pronged poison dagger. They loved it and were horrified at the same time. They laughed and were fascinated and audibly disgusted.

They also figured out some magic effects by running intelligence checks. They went "oh, that's cool I guess."

Don't allow your players to identify magic items. Yeah, not even wizards. Let them detect if it is magical. Then, if they succeed what would otherwise be an identifying roll, let them find out only how the magic works. Is it an ongoing power? Or is it a power that can be released? Is it an on-target magic? A self spell? Or a latent power, like a buff? Tell them what they perceive, so that they at least have some notion of how to activate the power. Using an unknown power is fun; clicking all the pixels in order to find the one that lets you proceed isn't.

Then tell them the associations they pick up: "You can tell that it's something to do with throwing." "You think the magic has something to do with food." "You think the magic is dangerous." "You feel an immense sorrow", "You smell burning". Roll a 1d6 for associations. There's a 1 in 6 chance the associations are totally wrong.

Then, let them find out the effects by experimentation. Because that's fun and unpredictable. Furthermore, it keeps magic strange and potentially dangerous.

And it saves you form saying the words "it gives a d6 bonus" or something equally magic-breaking. Just tell them, when they use it, to roll an extra d6. Don't tell them why. Don't break the magic. Remove the extra die when they remove the magic item. But never acknowledge that the object is responsible for the d6. That makes it knowable, concrete, gamey. As long as you never name the effects in concrete, numbery ways, it might still have other secrets to reveal and as such, it might remain mysterious.

I will be playtesting this idea.