When I think of my favorite foraging systems, there are two that come to mind. I agree with a lot of what’s been said on how much foraging does a lot for crafting and the outdoor experience, so I’ll try to highlighting what lend the most to my experiences with it.
In Accursed Lands, you have some seasonal forageables, and some constant forageables. With proper skill in botany, you’re able to decipher that the “man-shaped root” is in fact a mandrake, but are still able to test its properties to try and guess its use, even without its name. Touching poison ivy would lead to itchiness and a brief rash, and eating marrow would help to get your wounds to heal faster. My sister and I both played botanists at the time, and we really enjoyed experimenting by tasting, smelling, and eating different plants to see how they might interact with our characters.
That plants were seasonal did lead to some hoarding, but I don’t necessarily see the problem with it. Approach a gatherer ahead of season, let them know what you’re looking for, and hopefully you can expect your quota met when the season rolls around. If a player tries to hoard things, why not steal from them? Try buying it at a higher price? These kinds of issues can drive in character interactions, so working too hard to render them impossible seems like it takes away from the game to a degree.
Another thing I enjoyed about foraging in AL was that, once you learned enough about a plant, you could generally guess where to find them. Some plants can only be found near water. Some can only be found in the desert. It made each biome an adventure of its own, and lead to us traveling great distances in hopes of discovering new things to experiment with. The risk came from travel. Bears, wolves, and more fantastical creatures always posed a risk if you were wandering around without paying attention.
Likely, what made foraging so enjoyable was that it was separate from scavenging. While you might only be able to find four mushrooms in a forest room (more or less depending on your foraging skill), you could find limitless branches, stones, grass, and other basic materials that you simply wouldn’t run out of no matter how much you gather, and anyone could find them.
The second game I enjoyed foraging in is a graphical MUD called Farwoods. In this game they implemented gathering nodes that the system would populate the world with according to different rules. Much like AL, nodes would only spawn in places you’d expect to find them. Timber was found near trees, glass shards were found near ruins, etc. You would only be able to see the nodes with a high enough foraging skill, and you were limited to how much you could gather from said node. Once you had gathered your amount, it left a limited supply behind for other players who happen upon the node, which lead to forage parties becoming an effective method to gather materials.
Scouts would go out and locate nodes and their party would follow their directions to gather the rest of the materials the node offered.
To prevent a single player from gleaning everything a room has to offer, it seems like something like this might be helpful. If a player wants more than they can gather themselves, they can solicit others to gather for them, adding to the sense of community.
Worth noting that thieves would sometimes find and camp nodes to try and muscle items out of gatherers, so it paid to have back up along with you. Admittedly, in FW, being able to gather so few items from each node felt extremely crippling, so if something like this were implemented I’d hope you’d be able to gather a good amount before you’ve exhausted your share.
In summary - yes to seasonal forages. Yes to location based. Having different forageables appear during the night and day might also be interesting. Putting a comfortable limit on how much a player can gather from a node might prevent frustration and lead to teamwork.