Do you tell it?

[Sotiris]

QUEST 4: THE DWARVEN FORGE
About the Fimir spellcaster. Do you tell heroes, when opening the door, that "this Fimir is a spellcaster", or not?

QUEST 10: GRIN'S CRAG
About the Guardian of Grin's Crag. When activated, do you tell heroes about the Spell Immunity and how many Body points it has?

[knightkrawler]

The Fimir: No. I have a rule that after a hero has entered a door and completed his move, one monster in that room has a complete move. He'll know right away.
Even if I'd not use that rule, no. There's no reason to tell them aside from making the quest easier on them which completely goes against anything HQ.
Same goes for the Gargoyle statues coming to life. I see outright disaccord between the mechanisms of HQ and that way of playing. Now, playing with children might be different.

Rules say you should read aloud introductory (Mentor's briefing of the heroes) to the players. The notes are for you except for excerpts where you're told to read them to the heroes. the fact that those are sprinkled into some quests - clear instructions to "read the following" and some such - indicates that you're supposed to keep all other text in notes sections to yourself. Including monster and character stats which serves as the perfect transition to the second question.

Grin's Crag: No. The mechanism is made for the heroes wasting one spell (if clever enough) and finding out that way. Again there's no reason whatsoever to tell heroes any information until you have to or they find out themselves. It's part of the game. Dungeon Crawls are called that way for a reason.
Body points is open for debate. I think it's in the rules that the EWP should keep the monster cards behind the screen for HIS consulting. The heroes may momorize monster stats, making several experiences against the same stats. You can go with that when dealing with characters, where there's still a point in memorizing because character stats are in the same way logical among themselves as regular monsters' are. I myself like that suspense.
If you tell your players all monsters' stats or make the cards or charts available there's no point in not telling them character stats. But this is also not along my tastes. I go with suspense and the possibility of strategy variation for both heroes and myself.

[GimmeYerGold]

I had a room with a statue Gargoyle, and didn't say anything, and it confuses the players so much, which I think is good!

Sometimes they ask, "can we attack it?" and I just shrug. I guess "you can't tell," or "you don't know for sure" is a better answer. Like a magic 8 ball Zargon, "ask again later!"

If I get impatient with the players for asking too many questions about what they can and can't attack, i'll joke, "there's a Z-target ring circling the monster. Press A to attack!" as if we're just playing a video game

[cynthialee]

Spell casters are obvious as spell casters in my humble opinion.
They have sigils and runes written on their bodies or robes, and bones and feathers hanging from belts, scroll cases close to their juju bones, and a wand in hand and typically a dagger on the belt...Perhaps this monster looks a little less robust as his brethren. Spell casters look very different than warrior types.

Anyways that is my vision of a monster spell caster and that is obviously a shaman or mage and not a warrior. He dies first!!!

[Count Mohawk]

Well, even if the Heroes know the Fimir in KK-4 is a Rust caster, they can't do much about it since he has Orc minions in the way.

[Sotiris]

I'll keep it secret, even the spellcasting ability of Fimir as kk wrote. I'll try τhis method of telling nothing, you're totally right.

Afterwards the "tactic side of the game" is: 4 people against 1,
this single person may hear their thoughts & tactic plans and knows the dungeon map.
On the other hand, heroes don't know anything of the map or EWP thoughts.

[knightkrawler]

It's that teensy bit of RPG that we all seem to strive for without changing the game and its simplicity even the slightest.
If you tell your players these things, you lose quite a portion of your possibilities and their "training", that is to say a chance to advance in gameplay through experience. And there's the second portion of the game you can modify without modifying: advancement, not by numbers and more cards, but through suspense.

You can make entire quest packs based on suspense, riddles, trial & error.
You can also tell your players all stats and special rules if you play with children and have to nurture their sense of maintaining joy and having small and big instances of success.

[TMU]

I also believe it is best not to tell the players about these kind of special monsters. Bosses are another matter. Clever group of heroes figure it out by themselves

[Goblin-King]

I agree with old man TMU. If you tell these things it doesn't come as a surprise.
There are some orc statues that break your weapn if you try to attack them. I think it's obvious that the quest writer expects the heroes to try.
Why write such a rule if the whole point is just that the statues are indestructible?
The classic question, is "Is the gargoyle a statue or alive"... Sigh... Guess you'll have to attack it to find out...

Basically the players should just stop meta gaming so much!!!
Actually I think I'll create a new rule that increases the amount of monsters each time the players try to meta!

I do let the players know monster stats on both regular and bosses, just like I can demand to know their remaining BP at any time.
Those things are common knowledge and the game shouldn't punish poor memory skills for stuff like this.
But special rules and spells and stuff like that stay hidden until they come into play.

[sajungzak]

I agree with old man TMU. If you tell these things it doesn't come as a surprise.
There are some orc statues that break your weapn if you try to attack them. I think it's obvious that the quest writer expects the heroes to try.
Why write such a rule if the whole point is just that the statues are indestructible?
The classic question, is "Is the gargoyle a statue or alive"... Sigh... Guess you'll have to attack it to find out...

Basically the players should just stop meta gaming so much!!!
Actually I think I'll create a new rule that increases the amount of monsters each time the players try to meta!

I do let the players know monster stats on both regular and bosses, just like I can demand to know their remaining BP at any time.
Those things are common knowledge and the game shouldn't punish poor memory skills for stuff like this.
But special rules and spells and stuff like that stay hidden until they come into play.

Yeah, I tell them, not when the piece is put on the board, but when they attack. I use glass beads with a read streak for bp. I'm making multiples of equipment cards from the EU version, artifacts, and potions; and, some day, I will acquire gold coins enough to be able to play with little or no writing needed on the character sheets at all.