Aldarc
Legend
That's debatable. And regardless of original intent, D&D has developed its own D&Disms as parts of its game culture regarding its in-game assumptions about its settings and its monsters.Except there is an obvious difference here in that, this is a specific piece of information about a monster in the game that is clearly intended to create a challenge for groups to figure out. The problem with it, is every player knows the solution now. Again, my view is they probably should pull a page from ravenloft if they want to preserve that early feeling we got with trolls by having each troll, or each group of trolls have their own weakness that the players need to figure out.
So do I have to let my character be turned to stone and die like a chump to figure out that the medusa/gorgon turns people to stone with sight? How many times must I go through that ringer before I can play a character who knows basic legends and folklore of their own setting? If my only contextual answer is having an appropriate backstory or forced to roll, then I think that this leads to a scenario where everyone creates characters who are the multi-generational children of a monster-hunting family just so they don't have to faff around with the prospect of feigning ignorance of trolls.
Assuming we were not pulling something like "our vampires are different," then there is folklore about dealing with vampires. D&D follows many of these same tropes for theirs. Is the challenge about vampires meant to be knowing their vulnerabilities? Or is the actual challenge about preparing for and being able to create the opportunity to actually exploit that knowledge?
I don't think that challenges like trolls, vampires, or medusas should necessarily be about being forced to go through a game of charades where you "pretend ignorance" about it until the DM permits you to know or have your characters figure it out. That's not roleplaying. That's essentially metagaming about not metagaming.
The Troll Vulnerability Mini-Game, IMHO, makes more sense in the context of the resource game in D&D that has been subsequently minimized in importance. You need fire to fight the troll. You don't really have anything apart from your torches to use. Your wizard prepared one Fireball and only one, but if they spend it, then they will not have that spell available for later encounters, which could include other trolls. But in the current context where wizards now commonly have Firebolt as a cantrip to cast at-will and can spontaneously cast a prepared Fireball spell? Yeah, the whole faffing-around with the Troll Vulnerability Mini-Game seems more tedious and pointless now than it was before.
And so it is worth considering that although the monsters are roughly the same in that they exist throughout editions, perhaps how they are used as a challenge should also change?