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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7578867" data-attributes="member: 42582">"Fine print" normally refers to elements of a contract that are concealed/obscured from a consumer party to the contract.I'm not sure how you see this term applying in the case of a RPG.If a player knows that trolls are vulnerable to fire, the GM can't direct the player not to know it: if a player knows something, s/he knows it. What's the "fine print"?If a player purports to stipulate that NPC Z believes such-and-such and has such-and-such intentions, and the GM actually has control of Z in play, then the GM can stipulate whatever s/he wants about Z's beliefs and intentions. (The GM may or may not which to have some regard to what the player has stipulated, depending on the details of who introduced Z into the fiction and who is responsible in play for playing Z - as I discussed in my post not far upthread.) What's the "fine print"?I'm not certain, but you seem to be suggesting that if a player writes into his/her PC's backstory I know what Z thinks, where Z is a NPC played by the GM, then the GM is obliged to tell stuff to the player about Z's thoughts. But 4e doesn't work like that. If a player wants to oblige the GM to provide that sort of information, then the player has to declare an appropriately-framed Knowledge check.Again it's not clear to me what you have in mind.I am asserting that if a player actually knows that standard D&D trolls are vulnerable to fire, and if a GM frames that player's PC into a confrontation with a standard D&D troll, then there is no rule in 4e that directs the player not to use his/her knowledge, nor any rule that permits the GM to decide what action declaration the player should make.If a player wants to write something into his/her PC's background that would explain that knowledge about trolls, that's the player's prerogative.That's up to the player and GM to decide.But it also goes back to my principal point: if a GM wants to run a game in which XYZ is secret, but in fact the players in the game know XYZ, then something has gone wrong. Because - self-evidently - XYZ in that case is not secret!</blockquote>

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