Do you think Dungeon Masters tend to take into consideration a character's prior knowledge before an event or do they tend to play solely based on what your actions? For instance if your character is a cleric then he should recognize when he is in a shrine of a certain local god rather than having to discover it through searching. For me the cleric would have a common knowledge based on his profession and he would just see things others wouldn't.
It easy for the Dungeon Master to forget that characters have knowledge even if the players do not. A very good Dungeon Master will know how to dispense information to the players because of their character.
Seraphina,
Agreed. Sometimes it's a fine line between giving players information their characters would know and keeping information that only the players know and not the characters out of the game. Good Dungeon Masters can do that. KN is doing just that in the 3.5 Play as You Are game we're in.