Sangnz

From me a no. I prefer my rpgs to be designed around as minimal amounts of metadata as possible. My personal take is that if my character has no way of knowing I shouldn't either, sure if a game has a way of me studying to learn about a monsters strengths & weaknesses, like a knight school..., then all good that means there is an in game reason for my character to have that knowledge. Some meta cannot be avoided but it should be minimised. Most new monsters are introduced 1-2 at a time so you can get a feel for them, if you pay attention the game for the most part is good at introducing us to monsters and how tough an area is. Most "traps" like the bear cave can be avoided with some common sense. However many games, I feel, have numbed our common sense and ability to pay attention by leading us by the nose into areas or giving us quests designed to our level or have everything dynamically level with us meaning while we are challenged we rarely are in any serious danger. Hence we often run around like muppets until we get that first wakeup call,