this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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Ok, I'll throw my hat in the ring.
Metagaming is fine, actually.
Obviously, don't read the module you're a player in, but knowing to use fire on trolls is just basic game knowledge. It's ok to be good at the game, because it is a game. If you're playing dungeons and dragons, or pathfinder, or any other rpg that spends most of the pages on combat rules, then you're playing a tactics game. I like tactics games (I'm not good at them, but that's a separate conversation).
I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to come up with a brilliant plan to do a thing, and then be told that I'm not allowed to do it because me figuring out the puzzle is metaknowlede.
It is exclusively in the tabletop rpg space that being good at the game is considered a bad thing. It's in a similar vein that I hate tutorials in video games, especially when I'm being prevented from doing things that I already know how to do (because I've been playing games for multiple decades now and I have some amount of media literacy) for no other reason than the game hasn't taught me yet. So arbitrarily, I'm not allowed to use fire damage on the trolls until some npc tells me that trolls are weak to fire? That's asinine.
If you want to play let's pretend with dice, that's fine. just be honest about the kind of game that you're running from the get go so I know not to join your table.
To some degree, this is why Knowledge Checks exist. If you're going to Troll Canyon and you make your Know(Local) check to have an idea about what a troll is and does and you get a high enough roll, you know. If you don't, maybe you forgot. Maybe trolls aren't common to your neck of the woods. Roleplay your reasons.
That said, I believe DMs reserve the right to mix it up a bit. As an anecdote, I had a friend play in a game in which they were hunting a White Wyrm in the glaciers of the north. The experienced players, knowing that White Dragons breath frost, fully stocked up and pre-buffed with anti-cold gear. When they arrived, they positioned themselves on a large ice-flow and pushed off towards the mouth of the cave. But the cracking of the ice awoke the dragon. Dragon came flying out, spotted the players, and immediately engulfed them in a plume of fire. The ice flow melted, the party floundered in the freezing water, and two of them died to a happy dragon who'd just been offered an easy meal.
The players were initially upset, but the DM tisk-tisked. "Everyone knows that dragons breath fire".
If you're not playing "Let's Pretend" with dice, I'm not sure what kind of D&D game you're actually playing. A dumb-as-rocks barbarian should presumably see the troll as some big meat sack to be repeatedly bludgeoned into a fine paste. And that may possibly work, at least to the degree that the threat is neutralized for the purposes of the combat. A savvy Bard probably has a song or two about the proper remedy for persistent trolls - and a clever player might even dash off a cute little poem or song to help the rest of the party recall.
The dice keep the game spicy, but you shouldn't be shy about leaning into the cinematics of the situation.
In my experience, knowledge checks are for "My character has a high int stat and I can't be bothered to think about this puzzle, solve it for me".
Personally, I generally dislike puzzles in RPGs. My character has 20 intelligence. In real life I'm rocking at best 12. I am not going to make the intuitive leaps to solve this cipher like my character would. You're not asking the fighter to demonstrate a shield bash or the rogue to pick a lock.
Riddles and puzzles aren't nearly as interesting as explained choices, anyway. Do you take the Sword of Rivers from the tomb, fighting the guardian and potentially causing drought and famine in the region? You've been told it's the only thing that can stop the Fire Elemental Incursion back home. Much more interesting than trying to figure out what a poem means or a sliding block puzzle, to me.