D&D General My Metagame Rule

[James Gasik]

I always ask the DM about things like trolls, werewolves, vampires, etc.. Even though it seems (to me) that it should be something people know (like holy water working on undead), I've had to play with a few DM's who get bent out of shape about that in the past. Which, I mean, I get to a point.

A battle with a werewolf when you can bypass it's weakness is a lot less challenging. I've always felt many monsters with fatal flaws are kind of bad design; either you can exploit it and it's an easy battle, or you can't and it's a real slog.

Long ago I ran a troll encounter in a forest where it was raining heavily and there was a lot of fog and mist, so that it could effectively engage in asymmetrical warfare without revealing it's identity.

I damn near ripped the party to shreds with it's constant appearing, getting a few attacks in, and running off after taking minor damage, and repeating the process once it regenerated.

I could tell my players were getting upset, so I decided to change it's cool loot (Boots of Many Tracks) and let them see some big ol' troll footprints in the mud. They tracked it to it's lair, and now that they knew what they were dealing with, it was over in two rounds. Not terribly satisfying, in my opinion.

 

[Charlaquin]

I always ask the DM about things like trolls, werewolves, vampires, etc.. Even though it seems (to me) that it should be something people know (like holy water working on undead), I've had to play with a few DM's who get bent out of shape about that in the past. Which, I mean, I get to a point.

Yeah, same. The anti-metagaming sentiment is so deeply imbedded in the community that a lot of DMs just think it goes without saying that players aren’t allowed to exploit monster weaknesses without making a successful knowledge check or whatever. And unfortunately a lot of them can get really touchy about it. So while I don’t expect my players to ask if they know about trolls or vampires or whatever, I always ask when I’m a player, unless I know the DM doesn’t require it.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think we vastly underestimate how ignorant people are about "common knowledge"