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Now, THAT is a mark of a bad DM.But that assumes that the players knows this going into the game.
Again, I think this assumes that the players know what's going on before hand. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who's created a character for a campaign only to find out that it was vastly different from what I expected or even from what I was told.
Agreed
For what it's worth, in our game:
Druid has character background, done as part of character creation (as do all the other characters). If their background explains how they've travelled and studied and investigated and researched animals from all over the world their entire life... then I will allow them to make knowledge nature checks to see if they are 'familiar' whenever they like. Their background will need to explain how they did that as well as managing all the other things they might want their character to be able to do, but if they can find a way to do it "reasonably" (as agreed between me and the player) then cool.
If, as with our current druid, they spent their entire time in a river valley in NE/central Varisia, and embarked on their L1 adventuring career because they felt a call to more or less the other side of the world, then I ruled that they were automatically familiar with anything from the temperate mountain/lowland/river type domains, but as they'd never been anywhere else, and lived in a rustic backwater... then they simply would not be familiar with anything else - though they could still make knowledge nature checks to see what facts they might know about any animal they encounter, or what they could deduce from it's appearance and behaviour (I like the kangaroo example from earlier "you don't know what it is exactly but from looking at it you'd bet that..."). But that is not familiarity in my view, that is raw knowledge. Like me knowing conceptually that big rig trucks have sleeping quarters. I still don't know how comfortable they are.
How do they become familiar with those kinds of animals? By seeing them, encountering them, stalking them, catching them, or, yes, summoning them for study. If the animal is basically a variant of something they're already familiar with like a type of snake, then they pretty much only need to see the variant to be able to wildshape to it. If it's totally new (a monkey, for example, as this druid hadn't even been to the port where they might have seen say a sailor with a pet monkey) then they'll actually need to spend some time familiarising themselves with it before they can change into it. But once they've done that, they only need to lay eyes on a howler monkey, or a bonobo, to be able to change into it.
That works for us, and we all agree that works for the purposes of verisimilitude. Nobody feels put out about it, in fact I think the player likes the fact that how her character progresses will be unique.
All anyone can say with any certainty is that the rules say you must be familiar. They do not say how you gain familiarity, they do not say what it actually means. So, RAW it's completely up to the GM. RAI? anyone's guess but I'd say it's completely up to the GM and his players to agree something that works for their playstyle, campaign and to ensure that no player feels hard done by. Just be consistent once you've decided.
And no-one has to be a dick about it at all.