"MG tracers & Gondolin swords." Topic

I suspect most of us, if not all, have heard the the maxim, "Tracers work both ways" (by the way, if you ever want to feel like you're in Star Wars, shoot tracers at night).
The thought occurred to me that those Gondolin swords in LotR (The ones that glow blue when Orcs are near) may work the same way.
Hard to do an Orc ambush if your sword is glowing blue all the time.

Yep. In OD&D, and 1e AD&D, glowing swords were both a boon and a bane. A glowing Long Sword would shed sufficient light to see in a 20-foot radius, in a dark, unlit dungeon. A Dagger would light up to a 5-foot radius. I don't remember what the book said about a 2-handed sword's radius of illumination, but it was not better than a torch -- maybe the equivalent, but not better than the trusty torch.

Originally, this was sort of the fantasy standard trope: all magical swords and daggers would glow! It quickly became apparent that this saved PC's from stocking torches, a consumable which needed to be properly managed, but the only way to turn them "off," was to sheath them! Of course you also had to extinguish your torch if you wanted stealth, as well, and that was more challenging to manage as you then had to re-light it, in the dark… Cheers!