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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8725725" data-attributes="member: 4937">But you can't know that.  You can't say, "I know the characters wouldn't know what a vampire is." or something like that.   Because that's not a statement of fact.  That's a statement of opinion.  In the real world, if there was evidence of a vampire, some people would be skeptical and some people would immediately be going, "We need garlic and holy water."  It might turn out to be a serial killer pretending to be a vampire, in which case the skeptics would be right, but both reactions would be reasonable for a character.And in the D&D world, every rural peasant probably knows as much or more about vampires than you or I do because they live in that world.  Sure if that's all the evidence you have.  But if you go outside and instead of a skunk you see a guy in a halloween mask with a chainsaw, and you unload a shotgun into him and it doesn't seem to phase him, you are now at the point where, "Is this Jason or is this a guy in bullet proof vest?" becomes reasonable speculation and how you react will depend on you as a person.  I won't be able to tell you how you react in that moment.  But, "Jason is real!" becomes reasonable in context.You just completely admitted the wrongness of your position.  Yes, half of the people would not even think it was real.  The rest of the population would make other choices.  You don't get to decide which part of the population a Player Character is in.  The Player gets to decide that.  Stop telling Players how to play their character.  You've been doing it the whole thread.Yes they are!  People aren't stupid if they use their common sense in situations that are well inside the bounds of normal.  But as soon as things well outside the bounds of normal happen, it's utter stupidity to keep acting like your common sense is relevant your evidence is "We are outside the bounds of normal". More importantly, you don't get to tell the players as a GM that they should be stupid for the sake of your story.  The Players are the ones that decide what their characters know and how they react.  If the players want to pretend that they don't know something because they think their character wouldn't, then great.  That's their call.  But you as the GM don't get to tell them, "Your character wouldn't know that.", because you as the GM cannot know that.  The full life  experiences and knowledge of the character isn't listed.  If you are using some common trope, then chances are no matter what the world that knowledge is common to many many characters, including possibly the player character.  You never as a GM write stories that depend on the player's lack of knowledge.  It's just terrible GMing to insist, "Pretend you don't know that", or "You have to pretend you don't know that because your character wouldn't."  I think exactly the same thing, which is why I think you are obviously wrong.  And this especially true of the D&D world.  In the D&D world, common sense tells you that there are zombies and invisible things, so if the door opens on its own, every NPC's first thought ought to be, "Something invisible entered the room, quick throw something at it and see if it bounces.  If it's corporeal, we can kill it."Characters will be plenty stupid in play without deliberately being stupid because players will in the natural course of things make tons of mistakes.  Acting in character with enforced stupidity is almost always wrong.</blockquote>

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