The problem with that is that it theoretically encourages startscumming. I don't think anyone is going to practically do that, though, so it should be fine.

Neither start scumming or paying attention to flavours are things I care to do, I guess unless you force on-line play (something I'd like less then cheat checking) you have to live with something. My preference is to allow someone to just quick start rather than re-download the old save.

I feel like the information leaks from everyone having the same savefile are less important than everyone having the same starting town/stuff/whatever. Changing this feels like a fix to a problem that doesn't really exist. I did not use any of the information leaks in my game this comp either, for example.

The only times I know of that the fixed start has mattered were in Ironband and in FA (ironman, to boot) thrall mode, and those are very much special cases.

I personally can't help but remember object flavours. And once I've realised I've remembered 2 or 3 correctly I get the cognitive struggling of admitting that I know them and not wanting to 'cheat'. I also find it tedious setting the options to my own preferences at the beginning of each run (not everything lives inside .prf's)

Let's remove the ID game from all competition variants! That would fix the problem :)

Perhaps, randomization should be on realtime turns NOT game turns. -- Probably really hard to implement.

Outside of variants with crazy use-id systems, knowing flavors is of negligible importance.

As for setting options, I fail to see how your proposed system avoids that really.

Well the issue is that things like potion flavors are usually randomized when the save is first created, and competitions work by giving everyone a pre-created save file. The point at which the save starts is going to be AFTER the game has already decided to make CCW the gloopy green potion and heroism the speckled brown potion.

Im not sure its worth it to take measures to prevent some perceived cheating. Because I think if players want to cheat, they are going to cheat anyway, by hacking the code to get free identify of these randomized flavors or whatever. I remember a npp comp a few years back where someone had like 50 artifacts by clvl 20, I think I had 2 at that same point in the game. I thought dude had obviously done some hacking, and I cant really imagine how that makes it fun, but I dont think its worth getting upset about either. Theres nothing at stake, Im just here for the enjoyment of it.

I dont think anyone is trying to cheat, its just that you cant avoid noticing that that pink speckled potion is lose memories so next time you play you know not to drink it.