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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8059903" data-attributes="member: 16814">Can I play a character who's uncle told them about trolls, or who survived a caravan ambush thanks to some quick thinking caravan guards?Can I play a character who learned the name of a lich through some backstory?Here's the think, when a player declares an action that appears to leverage out of character knowledge, I think we'll both ask, "and how does your character know that?"  The difference is that you'll ask it because you are policing the play of the character and I'll ask it because I want the player to add to their character with a new story which I can then leverage in play.  So, if you face trolls and the player pulls out a torch, you might ask because it appears to be metagaming and you want to prevent that -- because trolls are a harder challenge if everyone faffs about a bit.  I'll ask because I'd like to hear why this character knows to use fire against trolls -- it evokes more character from them and makes the player present a fuller character in play.  So, yeah, if the point is to play a character who isn't you, I get that in droves because I ask my players questions to find out more about their characters and don't just try to restrict play because "mah trollz!"</blockquote>