[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]: For me, it depends a bit on the game.
In BW, I wouldn't ask "Who is this guy? Do you know him?" Because either, (i) it's framing, in which case I'm in charge (as GM), though perhaps using elements already established by the players, (ii) it's a consequence of a successful check, in which case the action declaration has already established what happens on a success, or (iii) it's a consequence of a failed check, in which case I'm narrating some adverse thing happening.
If, in circumstance (i) or (iii), a player
volunteered some connection between his/her PC and the NPC, that would be quite permissible. Either I'd "say 'yes'", or I'd call for a check, or - if it was an attempt to revisit something that had already been tried and failed, then I'd enforce Let it Ride and so veto the attempt.
MHRP is a bit different, though. For instance, Wolverine's player earns 1 XP "when you declare someone an old ally or foe." In my MHRP game, the heroes were raiding a Clan Yashida office tower in Tokyo, looking for information (i) about the attempted theft of some Stark Tech, and (ii) about the whereabouts of Mariko, who was missing. At a certain point Wolverine was in combat with a NPC ninja/martial artist. Wolverine's player, in character, announced that he recognised this person, and their paths has last crossed in Hong Kong (? or Madripoor, or . . . I can't remember the details), and this time Wolverine was not going to let said ninja get the better of him. The XP was therefore earned, and the fiction established. There's no real sense that I've got veto rights as GM, and MHRP doesn't have a mechanic, analogous to a Lore or Circles check, that I can fall back on as a "roll the dice" alternative to "saying 'yes'".
I'll tag [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] on this, because I know he's interested in difference of techniques/approach across different games, and this is an example where different system (at least to me) seem to generate different expectations over what sort of role the players will have in introducing content, and what the circumstances are in which permission to do so is enlivened.
Also, for completeness - on the whole I would tend to run 4e more like BW than MHRP.
Returning to the concept of "ask questions and use the answers", I think the very premise isn't compatible with my GMing style's emphasis on immersion and verisimilitude. And as a player, I don't see how I could maintain my IC focus when I'm confronted with an OOC request from the GM to add an element to the game world.
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Are your players simply phenomenal at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)?
At least in my experience, when players are volunteering who their PCs might know, and how; or are declaring something like a Circles check or similar check (eg Streetwise in 4e) to meet a contact; that
reinforces immersion and verisimilitude. Because it increases the player's sense of being able to move around in the gameworld with the same sense of comfort and predictability as the PC would experience.
At the start of my Cortex Fantasy game - for which I had written up pre-gen PCs - I asked the players to vote on the setting (Japan or Vikings - the PCs were suited to either), and then to help establish the basic logic of the game:
After people chose their characters, and we voted on vikings over Japan, the next step was to work out some background. The PCs already had Distinctions and Milestones (that I'd written up, picking, choosing and revising from the Guide and various MHRP datafiles) but we needed some overall logic: and the swordthane needed a quest (one of his milestones) and the troll a puzzle (one of his milestones).
So it turned out like this: the Berserker (who has Religious Expert d8) had noticed an omen of trouble among the gods - strange patterns in the Northern Lights; and similar bad portents from the spirit world had led the normally solitary scout (Solitary Traveller distinction, and also Animal Spirit) to travel to the village to find companions; and the troll, a Dweller in the Mountain Roots, had also come to the surface to seek counsel and assistance in relation to the matter of the Dragon's Curse; and, realising a need for a mission, the village chieftain chose the noblest and most honourable swordthane of the village - the PC, naturally - to lead it.
And so the unlikely party of companions set out.
It was the players of the berserker, the scout and the troll who came up with those motivations for converging on the village. If the campaign keeps going (so far we've played two short sessions) it will be my job, as GM, to weave them together in a way that speaks to the unfolding situation of play.
This isn't exactly the same as what Campbell said, but it's not utterly different either:
this sort of exchange where we are teasing out the details of the fiction whether written down beforehand or not is not something I view as playing the game. We can't play in the fiction until we know what it is.
