Player Knowledge
Game Knowledge
Player knowledge is a peculiar thing in RPGs. The more you play and consume in the RPG community, the more knowledge becomes deeply ingrained in your awareness. Without spoiling too much, things such as needing to stake a vampire through the heart or how to interact with certain dungeon threats becomes second hand whether or not your "character would know that".
As a base rule, I do not delineate between Player Knowledge and Character Knowledge when it comes to the tropes of an RPG game. If you as a player have fought a particular kind of creature before and know things about it, it is your choice whether your character would have that information. However, this is not an invitation to look up monster stats in preparation for a particular threat. The deliberate act of looking for game stats is a form of cheating (moreso cheating yourself but also disrespecting the GM and the rest of the table).
How does your character know this stuff? As an adventurer, you have a complex past that we have not seen all of. You may have learned it in a book or heard in an an older adventurer's stories. If it is common enough of a threat, you may have grown up with a nursery rhyme of folk saying that alludes to it. On the whole, it is okay if you are aware of certain monster tropes. I may even be deliberately playing into those tropes to allow you to be clever and knowledgeable. I don't want everything to be knew and surprising. If I need something to be unknown, I will make sure it is new and fresh.
Comments