My ideas on being "Meta"...

There's occassionally some concerns about being "meta" expressed during play, and I wanted to lay out
what my ideas about that are, and provide a forum here to discuss. I'm open to other ideas, but my
default this is what I think about being "meta" as applied to our campaign:

- Anything the DM tells you to consider is not meta. The gods are active in Faerun and may often mettle
subtly or less subtly in the lives and minds of mere mortals. So, if the DM says “consider how the
various factions might think of your actions”, you can always interpret it that this idea pops into your
character’s head, either from their subconscious or as a gentle nudge from the divine.

- There is nothing more meta at the gaming table than discussions of what is or isn’t meta. Let other
players find that line for themselves, and play your own character as you feel is right for you. If you
want to discuss that, do it after gameplay is over.

- It’s ok to be meta for the sake of humor. Humor always gets a pass. D&D is less fun if it’s dour.

- “Gaming” the rules is meta. Playing D&D as if it were a board game is meta. We all do this on
occasion, and it can sometimes be fun, but not when it disadvantages other characters who are trying to
stay within the bounds of what their character would know, and not when it pulls everyone away from
the game. So, don’t do hugely implausible or out of character things during combat to take advantage
of specific rules or to stack effects unless your character would know these things and would be likely to
react in that way.

- It isn’t meta to consider the fun in the game as you make decisions in-character. If there’s a path down
which you know or suspect the DM has prepared content, it is not meta to play your character as
making decisions in line with going that direction. If your character’s background and specs could
naturally be played in a way that creates unhealthy tension in the group or would lead to a TPK, it isn’t
meta to play your character in a way that veers away from that.

As long as you’re motivating your character from their background and characteristics, you’re not being
meta. And there’s not just one course of action or way forward that can be motivated from your
character’s background. Not being meta is just keeping a continuity with that in a believable way. It’s
not a mandate for your character to act in any particular way, only a mandate to make the other players
believe that your character could behave in that way.