Knowledge Checks Tend To Suck

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Does your character know that trolls are weak to fire? Does the player have a chance to roll to see if their character knows something the player themselves doesn't know?

These are the principles I go by on this issue, and I'll expand on why I see it the way that I do.

1. If the player knows, the character can act on it. Call it intuition if you must. But the player shouldn't give the information to other players.

2. If the character knows it, the DM should let the player know what their character knows.

3. If the character might know it, do a roll, with modifiers as necessary to get the appropriate probability based on what upbringing the character should have had, how obscure the knowledge is, etc.. In 5e, this is approximated through skill checks, with advantage/disadvantage used to alter probabilities.

4. If the character has no reason to know it and the player doesn't know it, it remains unknown unless the knowledge is obtained through experience.

This method alleviates several issues. For players who have seen and heard it all, they aren't having to do knowledge checks the first time they encounter something when the player themselves already knows the answer to the problem. There's no time wasted doing the song and dance of "Oh wow this troll keeps regenerating what ever will we do?"

Instead, the player is able to utilize their accumulated knowledge if they choose, less experienced players can learn as they go, and DMs are encouraged to use original or modified creations.

Secondly, this method prevents situations where a party is going to all be able to roll knowledge checks and be fairly positive that at least one person will pass. This kind of behavior kills tension and experimentation.

Thirdly, simply not having the answer to something means that players may need to look for the help of NPCa more than they would otherwise. How often do you hear of groups bringing a purely academic scholar with them? Or a hired survival expert? How often do they need to use divination magic?

The prevailing model of play seems to consist almost entirely of the super awesome adventuring party... And their pets. The party is almost entirely self sufficient. I'm personally not a fan of this model of play.

I also believe that DMs should be wary of thinking in terms of modern knowledge. Knowledge was far more specialized before the advent of the internet, and even more so prior to the printing press. Without having a widely accessible database of information, people would mostly be specialists in knowledge that is local to them and/or in their specific field of interest. Common knowledge will vary based on the level of education and availability of books, literacy, etc.

It follows that simply wrapping every kind of flora or fauna the group encounters under simple Nature checks is bound to come up with odd outcomes. I'd suggest that you keep these things into consideration when you determine probabilities.

There's no "superior" way to run D&D, but the kind of D&D I enjoy has an adventuring party that regularly interacts with civilization for information and resources, while delving deep into a deadly world of the unknown.

Got some contrary opinions? I'd love to hear them! Thanks for stopping by.

P.S. Don't be that ass who checks the MM while you're playing. Nobody likes you.

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