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<blockquote data-quote="TheEvil" data-source="post: 2080858" data-attributes="member: 23261">One of the arguments that has come up in that past against 'common' knowledge is that we live in a mass media society and D&amp;D by and large isn't.&nbsp; This is very true.However, what exactly to you think bards, minstrels and storytellers beguile their audiences with?&nbsp; Episodes of Days of Our Lives with gram in her youth?&nbsp; The tales they tell are generally about heros fighting monsters.&nbsp; Since every village is going to have at least one person who tells stories to while away the cold, dull winters, and since I expect that medieval people get tired of reruns too, there is going to be a good pool of general knowledge, a good chunk of which would probably be embellished, false or misunderstood by the teller.&nbsp; As others have pointed out though, monsters actually exist in D&amp;D.&nbsp; In classical story telling and mythology, most of the things that happened were long ago or far away.&nbsp; In D&amp;D, it may well have been last week near in the spooky hollow near farmer John's son's sheep pasture.&nbsp; You know the place.&nbsp; There is also the matter that adventures who hear a bard's tale may decide to correct any inaccuracies they hear.&nbsp; I can easily imagine a group of heros, off to slay the local monster, loading up on, say, catnip when they hear the story of how the young shepard used it to distract the beast.&nbsp; I can also see irate survivors 'enlightening' the bard on its true effacacyI think most people will agree that the real problem here isn't players who have a reasonable working knowledge of D&amp;D from play experience.&nbsp; It is with people who have a habit of commiting the various monster stats to memory.&nbsp; There is also the minor matter that there isn't a good source of disinformation for the players to assimilate the way that the characters would.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheEvil, post: 2080858, member: 23261"] One of the arguments that has come up in that past against 'common' knowledge is that we live in a mass media society and D&D by and large isn't. This is very true. However, what exactly to you think bards, minstrels and storytellers beguile their audiences with? Episodes of Days of Our Lives with gram in her youth? The tales they tell are generally about heros fighting monsters. Since every village is going to have at least one person who tells stories to while away the cold, dull winters, and since I expect that medieval people get tired of reruns too, there is going to be a good pool of general knowledge, a good chunk of which would probably be embellished, false or misunderstood by the teller. As others have pointed out though, monsters actually exist in D&D. In classical story telling and mythology, most of the things that happened were long ago or far away. In D&D, it may well have been last week near in the spooky hollow near farmer John's son's sheep pasture. You know the place. There is also the matter that adventures who hear a bard's tale may decide to correct any inaccuracies they hear. I can easily imagine a group of heros, off to slay the local monster, loading up on, say, catnip when they hear the story of how the young shepard used it to distract the beast. I can also see irate survivors 'enlightening' the bard on its true effacacy I think most people will agree that the real problem here isn't players who have a reasonable working knowledge of D&D from play experience. It is with people who have a habit of commiting the various monster stats to memory. There is also the minor matter that there isn't a good source of disinformation for the players to assimilate the way that the characters would. [/QUOTE]

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