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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7834403" data-attributes="member: 29398">Where my experience is they're more often asking if they've ever been exposed to, and-or remember, some piece of knowledge in their unplayed past that might come in handy now.For example, say they find a corpse, obviously of a Cleric but wearing a holy symbol that's never come up in play before.  Neither I nor the players have any way of knowing whether or not any of the PCs have ever chanced upon this symbol before their played careers began; I'm not about to force a "no" but nor am I willing to guarantee a "yes", and so out come the dice.My problem is that I've had players who would game this to the max, and just assume their characters always know everything.  And to a certain point I don't mind this approach, as when it comes to things like this I see it as the players' job to try to get an edge (whether fair or not) for their characters and my job as DM/referee is to prevent them from doing so.  Dice are a good way of shutting this down.Randomizing?  I see it as vital.  Not everybody consistently remembers what they need to at the time they need to; or remembers it correctly.Real-life example: I'm the vocalist in an amateur band.  Sometimes I remember the lyrics to a particular song, sometimes I don't (for the same song) and rely on the lyrics sheet in front of me.And just ask anyone who's ever sat an exam. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Also, memories morph over the long term.  Back to the holy symbol: sure some character might remember seeing 15 years ago but even that doesn't guarantee that any information recalled about it will be accurate.</blockquote>

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