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Message: <blockquote data-quote="doctorbadwolf" data-source="post: 7066039" data-attributes="member: 6704184">The first statement, I simply stated that I don't like that approach. Didn't assume anything about your game. Just the approach of requiring a specific background element to have been established in order to even make a roll. Since you weren't clear about whether you meant Background or background, I expressed that I wasn't sure. In the second statement, you literally said that you specifically mean Background, so it was hardly an assumption on my part to carry on as though you were talking about requiring a mechanical choice to establish the opportunity to make a roll to know something. Then you seemed to me to misunderstand what information I was unsure of and curious about, so I tried to clarify, and it just kept getting worse. All of which is tangential of course, as you said in that first post I quoted from. The upshot is, I don't think it is a good DM approach to require something like a Background (ie, one of the PCs mechanical options) to establish the opportunity to know some lore. (Obv you can't recall what you don't know)I also don't like the approach of requiring a previously established background element, whether it is mechanical or purely story. I've no issue with requiring an explanation of how the character might have come to know the thing, as I already explained in the lich phylactery example I used a handful of posts ago. I do think that it is perfectly sensible to allow rolls for knowledge without even that requirement if it is something that could reasonably have been in a bard's tale, if the character is reasonably bookish/well read, or has traveled a lot and presumably spent a lot of time in taverns and such, where stories are shared, etc. and just as reasonable to require special circumstances to allow a roll for secret knowledge, like phylactories in a world where a lich is beyond rare, and only ppl with specialized knowledge would even know what a lich is.</blockquote>

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