I really don't know what is so hard to understand about this. You are playing a role-playing game. Part of the role-playing game is that you are playing a role due to, you know, it being role-playing game. One of those roles is that you are an inexperienced adventurer. The expectation is that you as an inexperienced adventurer would not know the detail of a monster that an experienced adventurer would know. No one is saying you cannot use fire. Everyone is saying you cannot prepare only fire spells when going to this area because that would be you having information to knowledge that your character does not have. But do you want to know what every single DM would reward? You go into a library to look up trolls. If you know that they're supposed to be trolls in a specific area because it's called troll canyon, do some research. I guarantee you that the DM will actually reward you. What you want is a reward given for no effort. You want to say that your character has the information because you as a player have the information, but again, this is a role-playing game and you are playing a role that doesn't have the information that your player has. The limitations on you being an inexperienced character and not having access to that information is something that you should probably ask the DM at the start, but it also does mean that you're going to be limiting pretty severely the role-playing aspect of the role-playing game. If you would like to have your cake and eat it too, then I highly recommend trying to do something in the game that would actually demonstrate that your character is trying to learn something about the various creatures, so that way you could not only get vulnerabilities from that, but also be rewarded in general and look like a good player. Just a general hint and tip from a DM who is tired of this shit.

> Just a general hint and tip from a DM who is tired of this shit. Try being a better DM that doesn’t unnecessarily put their players into unsatisfying situations where they have to play against themselves. Make the thing their characters learn actually be something the player has to learn. It’s not difficult.

> Just a general hint and tip from a DM who is tired of this shit. Try being a better DM that doesn’t unnecessarily put their players into unsatisfying situations where they have to play against themselves. Make the thing their characters learn actually be something the player has to learn. It’s not difficult.

In my experience, knowledge checks are for "My character has a high int stat and I can't be bothered to think about this puzzle, solve it for me".

Those are both great examples of why a character might try to throw anti-troll paste (tar) at trolls. ::: spoiler spoiler A red cape doesn't mean anything different than a black cape to a bull, and sucking venom from a snakebite isn't a thing outside of movies. It won't hurt, but it won't do much good either. One myth that *will* cause damage is putting ice on a pit viper bite though, so remember to avoid doing that. :::

Funny that you use those examples, since they're both wrong. If anything, we should be running at the trolls with stinky socks because someone wanted to sound smart at a bar once and made up a factoid that spread like wildfire among the common folk.

if your headed to a place called troll canyon you should probably do some research on what trolls are weak to beforehand

I feel like trolls are common enough that even a farmer would know they don't like fire or acid.

I never said it wasn't derogatory, and yes actually, acknowledging that different ways to play the game are fine does absolutely make it okay. "Tell me ahead of time and I won't play at your table" "You won't catch me doing that" ya bro they want to play the game the way they have fun and not force themselves to play it a way they don't enjoy for the benefit of others. And instead of letting that be, you have to whine and okay the victim.

So you read that entire message and you only boiled it all down to that one single response despite going on forever about your own problems? Zero allowance of criticism against you, but all of the criticism against everything else? Sounds familiar. Yeah, the last paragraph I wrote in that other message? Yeah, that seems to be way more relevant to this now than I thought it was initially. Have a good day.

Are you the original commenter's PR agent or something? The original comment is literally whining and playing the victim...

No, the conversation did not start out with you being effectively called a bitch. A meme was posted that you decided to take incredibly seriously and incredibly personally. But you are 100% being an ass.

"Don't worry, it's just a name!" Gets attacked by trolls. "I thought it was just a name!"

I really don't know what is so hard to understand about this. You are playing a role-playing game. Part of the role-playing game is that you are playing a role due to, you know, it being role-playing game. One of those roles is that you are an inexperienced adventurer. The expectation is that you as an inexperienced adventurer would not know the detail of a monster that an experienced adventurer would know. No one is saying you cannot use fire. Everyone is saying you cannot prepare only fire spells when going to this area because that would be you having information to knowledge that your character does not have. But do you want to know what every single DM would reward? You go into a library to look up trolls. If you know that they're supposed to be trolls in a specific area because it's called troll canyon, do some research. I guarantee you that the DM will actually reward you. What you want is a reward given for no effort. You want to say that your character has the information because you as a player have the information, but again, this is a role-playing game and you are playing a role that doesn't have the information that your player has. The limitations on you being an inexperienced character and not having access to that information is something that you should probably ask the DM at the start, but it also does mean that you're going to be limiting pretty severely the role-playing aspect of the role-playing game. If you would like to have your cake and eat it too, then I highly recommend trying to do something in the game that would actually demonstrate that your character is trying to learn something about the various creatures, so that way you could not only get vulnerabilities from that, but also be rewarded in general and look like a good player. Just a general hint and tip from a DM who is tired of this shit.

In my experience, knowledge checks are for "My character has a high int stat and I can't be bothered to think about this puzzle, solve it for me".

I feel like sometimes people refuse to "meta game" in a way that is also metagaming, except targeting bad outcomes instead of good. Like your characters live in a world with trolls. They're not a secret. Choosing to intentionally avoid fire because "that's metagaming" is also metagaming. You're using your out of character knowledge (fire is effective) and then avoiding it. Usually cleared up with a "hey dm, what are common knowledge and myths about this stuff? or whatever.

That's true. I also *often* got:"My character is actively avoiding every other character as well as engaging with the plot, because they have a busy social life, a day job and are naturally suspicious of anything new. No, I want to play. It's just what my character would do." That's also a kind of metagaming, because they know, as a player, that they can only pull that crap, because another player or the DM will have to do all the work of bringing the party together and on track.

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I've had players do that kind of counter-productive behavior. I usually tell them that we're here to engage with the game's premise. If the game's premise was "we're going to rob a bank", your character needs to have reasons to engage with that. You can write a book about Jimmy the Marketer that works a 9 to 5 and has a rich social life, but that's not what we're here to explore. If i'm running the game, I really make sure to hammer on this stuff during session 0. I also don't typically approve "you all met in a tavern" setups. Your characters should have history together when we start. I don't want to have to handwave "wait, why would i trust this guy I just met to take first watch?" again