Rainbow of Potions
In running games I love giving the players a room of several different coloured potions and putting them in a scenario where they want to use potions.
This gives you space to pull a classic gag where the green potion is actually a poison
More importantly, it gives you the space to create magic items alongside your players. Players presented with a myriad of options with unknown effects will often gamble! But first often they speculate and often very blatantly articulate their expectations for what each potion does.
“The Yellow potion is piss” is obviously a line that could maybe grow stale, but it is nice to see players try and figure out if red is healing and blue is magic!
Want to make orange barkskin? Go for it! Green is secretly acid you can throw! Purple lets you speak every language but everytime you speak a new language you take psychic damage? Sure!
The point is the creativity of players is a good resource to you and if the players trust you to make cool potions you can always give them lots of potions to work with.
If your players get too keyed into your basic colours start exploring new shades! Vermillion is extra healing but crimson is vampirism! Ochre is commune with nature and orange is enhanced eyesight (because it’s carrot juice)
This can be adjusted to the tone of your table and setting but that first room of potions can tell you whether or not they want potions to be serious, silly, or somewhere in between.
Your player says “I think the violet potion gives you a shield” run with it! Or table a players idea to use later.
Rather than rolling a check on a table your potions are now a little minigame for players to roleplay through. It’ll get them comfortable asking questions about how potions smell, how they look compared to other potions they’ve already encountered, and their place in the setting of the world - I bet the EVIL LICH does has some potent magic but also some crazy poisons in his stock room.
You also set the tone that magic items are not always good in a way that is comfortable and low stakes AND if you need to adjust your adventures difficulty give yourself a means to adapt but changing a potions effect on the fly.
Fill your rooms with rainbow potions. At worst the red one is health and the blue one is “fortnite shield” at best every potion is a cool effect that you and your players came up with collaboratively while talking about an earlier set of potions.