In games, preclusion does not equate to inclusion.
The qualification "in games" is redundant.
Preclusion does not equate to
inclusion in any circumstance.
Monster weaknesses aren't a puzzle to solve. They exist to give the PC an advantage if the PC can find out about them and then take advantage of them.
This is self-contradictory -
they're not a puzzle, they're just something to work out so as to better succeed in the game!
Nobody is forcing a player to alienate himself from his character. There is no alienation at all.
Playing my character as ignorant of something that I, the player, am not ignorant of is a textbook example of
alienation!
pemerton said:
As I've posted upthread, this is why Gygax had those long lists of traps and magic items and monsters: those early D&D players kept generating new content precisely so they could use puzzles and secrets in their games. They didn't recycle the same stuff and then ask their players to pretend not to recognise it!
Yes, they absolutely recycled monsters and items and expect players to pretend not to recognize them. I know, because I played in several different games that did that.
You played with Gygax and co?
The only player posting in this thread who played D&D back in the mid-70s, as far as I know, is [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]. What you are describing is not "the earluy days of D&D" - it's the sort of "world simulationist" style that emerged in the late 70s and which, at that time, would be especially associated with systems like RQ and C&S.
AbdulAlhazred has posted that it's hard to know what was going on and how early GMs (including Gygax and Arneson) were reconciling wargamng with
being a character. My own view is that
nothing in their game texts, in the scoring rules for the tournament modules, in accounts of tournament play, etc suggests that players were expected to pretend their PCs were ignorant of monster vulnerabilities that the players themselves knew. And this is reinforced by such things as the Moldvay Basic rulebook (p B3) instructing new players to read the Monster chapter.
The bottom line is that it's impossible to engage in "skilled play" when you're deliberately holding back from taking what you know to be the skilled decision.
pemerton said:
There's no metagaming in imputing my knowledge of trolls or hydras to my PC.
So now you're claiming that the very definition of metagaming is not metagaming?
I would not say that a player inputing their knowledge of trolls into their characters is metagaming anymore than a player inputting their knowledge about apple pie to thermodynamics in their characters entails metagaming. Trolls are part of the world that the characters inhabit.
Adding to what Aldarc said:
metagame thinking, according to the 4e DMG, is to make in-character decisions that treat the game as a game. This can also be called a form of "breaking the 4th wall". Imputing knowledge to my PC isn't doing this - it's simply a part of PC building.
I could play my PC as ignorant of what a crossbow is, if I wanted to, but not doing so is not metagaming. Likewise for trolls. (This is another thing that [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] has elaborated on not far upthread.)
In D&D if the game doesn't explicitly give the player an ability to do something, the player does not have that ability unless the DM grants it.
Alternatively, from p 9 of the 4e PHB: "Through your character you can interact with the game world in any way you want."
If the PC grew up near the Troll Moors or had an uncle who was a troll hunter, it would be reasonable. If the PC grew up in the middle of a desert, a thousand miles from the nearest troll, it wouldn't be reasonable.
In D&D the DM absolutely has the authority to rule that the PC does not know about trolls. The following is from 4e on backgrounds. Note how it puts what information the PC knows due to his background in the hands of the DM, not the player.
"Invent situations where their backgrounds are useful. Let the character who was raised by a blacksmith charm some important information out of the baroness’s blacksmith—or notice an important fact about how a metal lock was forged.Give the characters important information they know because of their past history, such as the location of a particular shrine or magical location that appears in the lore of their original homeland."
<snip>
The DM decides what information the PC knows due to his backstory. It's 4e RAW.
D&D(even 4e) doesn't automatically let the player decide what the PC knows due to backstory. It explicitly puts that into the hands of the DM.
There is no such rule in 4e D&D.
The text you quote from p 11 of the 4e DMG advises the GM, in some circumstances, to provide a player with information. It doesn't instruct the GM, either expressly or by implication, to regulate what a player decides his/her PC knows.
The fact that you read it the latter way, and assert a GM's unilateral authority to decide what is or isn't reasonable for a PC to know, appearrs to demonstate a desire, as GM, to dominate the fiction and to tell the players how to play their PCs and how to approach the game. That's fine if that's what you and your table enjoy, but (i) there is little support for it in the 4e rules taxt, and (ii) surely it can't be surprising that some other posters would look at that and see "Mother may I" and railroading.