Calm down now! It's not all THAT crazy!
This may be a little long and rambly, please bear with me:
Currently, the way it works (AFAIK) for recipes, whether alchemy, herbalism, cooking, what have you, is that you, the player, gather the various ingrediants, and through trial and error, try to work out what combinations make what.
The benefit of this system is that it keeps the knowledge of all of the recipes from just everyone knowing them, it creates a sense of progression as recipes are slowly learned over time.
The cons are that once one of your characters know a recipe, ALL of your characters know that recipe. The other con is that I simply do not, will not, can not have the time to gather resources and sit there trying different combinations out to maybe get a result, so players with more time to spend in game have a great advantage over me and those who are in my 'boat'.
Then you get into the realm of recipe books and knowledge of alchemy and herbalism (as reflected by skill points put in them that your character do has, but YOU don't).
I know there are some recipes you can pick up, or clues to recipes that you can pick up as loot. But where is the recipe book in the Library? Proprietory feelings towards recipes one has discovered is a good thing, I guess, it gives the knower of recipes an advantage and keeps proliferation of recipe knowledge from getting crazy... but those are totally OOC concerns. ICly, why wouldn't a character who would normally share their information not share recipes and formulae? (Other than the obvious response that there hasn't been such an altruistic scholar of herbs in play yet).
Also, our fictional characters with their fictional knowledges of fictional plants and reagents should have general knowledge about what goes with what and what combinations might have what effects, being able to make educated guesses?
Someone with no skill in chemistry might be hard pressed to make an explosive, but with that skill, they might know that mixing a strong base with a strong acid might produce an explosive effect and work from there.
Similarly, I have no knowledge of herbalism, but my druid does!
I am not required to know, for myself, how to instantly tame animals that are rushing me for swift death but my ranger can. I cannot play a stringed instrument with any proficiency, but we assume my bard can. I'd die in a protracted sword fight (or even a short one) with muscle bulged savages, but my fighter prevails. Why, then, am I expected to know for myself which herbs to mix for certain effects when my druid has a vast store of herbal knowledge supposedly gained through a lifetime of sylvan experience?
What I propose:
In character teaching of recipes and discovery of recipes based on skill and knowledge of character, not patience of player.
How it works:
Teaching of Recipes:
Set up some sort of quest from a 'teacher', this could be one of the Steward's Druids, a Stargazer Wisewoman, an Ilmaterian Priest. Upon completion of the quest, the character receives one of the simpler recipes. Make this one of those limited times you can take it quests. Upon the final completion, perhaps the teacher passes on a more moderately difficult recipe. Maybe this is even a 'quest tree' that you can ever only do once. And of course only if you have the appropriate skill at the appropriate level. The game checks, "Herbalism > 10?" if not, the Druid says, "You are not ready for the next level of teaching" or some shat. If it is, then the Druid says, "Go get me some Bonga Fern and I'll show you something totally overpowered." These would be Party Limit 1 Quests.
Discovery of Recipes:
Again, set up a quest. At the end of the quest, there is a one use item that the character gains, an OOC item that, when used on a potential reagent, herb, or ingrediant makes a skill check. If successful, the character has deduced the means to create one item that includes that ingrediant in its recipe. Difficulty of this skill check could also be increased by the power of the the end item, what have you.
Example: I get the OOC item, I use it on Bonga Fern. Let's say, for sake of example, that Bonga Fern + 2 Nightshade makes choking powder, while Bonga Fern + Meatloaf makes Herb Bag. Lets say that herb bag is 20 difficulty to make, and choking powder is 30. If you get at least twenty on the roll, you're character has figured out how to make Herb Bag. You will have to do the quest again, then try the OOC one use item on either Bonga Fern or nightshade (and score a 30) to deduce how to make Choking Powder.
The quest in this case would be less about fighting monsters or exploring but one in which they are perhaps, meditating or tooling around in an alchemists shop or what have you. Doing something that would lead to inspiration resulting in discovery of a recipe.
Finally, there is the idea of Recipe Unlocking. A strong advantage a PLAYER has over other PLAYERS, is that once a PLAYER has figured out a recipe, the PLAYER knows it, and therefore all of his characters do. We can say what we want about RPing your character as NOT knowing the recipe, but who is going to sit there and spend a day or two or three or more futzing around with their characters herb bag trying to discover a recipe when the player already knows it? There is no rule: You must announce your desire to create a recipe, then wait as many days to first create it as it took you to discover it the very first time!
Unlocking Recipes would work in a manner that every time you level or every time you try to create a recipe (maybe with an 'Experiment' tool, limit 1/Day), there is a chance based on appropriate skill roll, that your character uncovers a recipe. This not only gives you the list of ingrediants, but also Unlocks the recipes use. That is to say, if you haven't unlocked Herb Bag, then it doesn't matter how many Bonga Ferns and Meatloaves you mash together, you aren't doing it right.
One could also combine the two above ideas.
I just feel like your character's ability to discern how best to mash stuff together to make useful stuff should depend more on your character's skill in that department and less on the player's ability to randomly collect stuff, randomly arrange it, and then randomly discover it. Or even on the metaknowledge already gleaned from past characters.
I think that the above is feasible, makes sense ICly, and removes an OOC allowance that is unnecessary.
There are too many OOC factors that grant advantages that we just have to accept (individual player twitch skills, for example) to allow for ones we can fix.
All the best,
Jayde
We've got a big thread going on this sort of thing here. (//%22http://www.escapefromunderdark.com/forums/showthread.php?t=43158%22)
Mostly about how to make recipe learning more about character effort and less about player OOC knowledge. DMs don't like free distribution of recipes even IC since it's seen as a "spoiler". I wanted to release a few recipes back in the UD days, but was clearly told "only release hints about the recipe in books". There is actually a book in the library with some information.
Your first idea's good but it is still essentially random, there's no way to make a directed approach. The pyromaniac deciding to seek out info on Fire Bombs, or the surgeon looking for information on healing herbs. The idea of an "experiment" tool you can use on items to get hints though is a great one, especially if it's a 1/day itme that works like Tracking in that it gives better results the higher the roll you get.
Not odd that I missed that thread, even though it's only a few days old. Interwebs is slow and spotty out in the Stan, so I can't really check on most threads.
Consider these then either redundancies or more brainstorming on the thread you linked.
Yup, that's why I linked it. Thought you might like to know that this is Johhannes' pet project now, so things should be changing.