One of the most annoying things for both members and the staff to deal with is meta-gaming. If you don’t know what it is, then read ahead and all shall be explained.

The theme is realism. That’s what meta-gaming is all about. You must be realistic to make this RPG successful. Meta-gaming has many forms. It’s most common one is the controlling of other people’s characters. That is a big no no in the RP world. However, there are other kinds of meta-gaming that people also sometimes do.

• Controlling another person’s actions and/or reactions. You don’t have power over other people in real life, so you normally don’t have it here as well. Notice how I said normally. If your power is possession, then of course you have control. Just use your common sense.
  
• Controlling the effects of something (a punch, spell, etc.) on another person. This is usually a BIG problem for a lot of people during fights. When you are writing a fight scene, most people want to say that their actions had an effect, but you can’t. You make attempts with your post, and the other person decides if they connect or not.
  
• Unrealistic actions and/or reactions. This is a tie-in to above. During a fight, if you are suddenly a superman and nothing seems to touch you because you are the best damn fighter out there, then that is meta-gaming and you will be called on it. Especially if you don’t even account for your abilities in your bio.
  
• Following the action. Running to a certain location just because there’s something interesting going on there that you want to be part of, and it doesn’t make sense for you to be there, is another form of meta-gaming.
  
• Creating NPCs. Creating people to interact with such as random people on the street or drivers that you interact with defeats the entire purpose of RPGs. You are supposed to be interacting with other players not yourself. Now giving a general description of a place being crowded or people on the street is fine as long as you aren’t actually interacting with them.

At times you may find NPCs violating this particular rule. Sometimes, that is needed to be done in order to avoid the meta-gaming of others or to drive the plot forward in a very particular way. If and when you come across it, don't question it.