* Player-to-PC Knowledge: Using OOC knowledge to affect your character's IC actions.

* PC-to-Alt Knowledge: One of your characters may know something IC, but unless there is a real RP'ed reason for an alt to have the same information, they do not have it.

* There is further reference to basic metagaming in this article as well.

*Using familiars to gather information or spy ICly or OOCly. Familiars cannot relay information to a PC.

*Using familiars to carry out orders of a PC. Familiars are pets, simple animals. They cannot understand or be trained past what a normal animal of that type can understand.

* Tell Owls vs. Assumed Correspondence: It is acceptable to RP sending an owl via tells to another player with IC information, but discouraged. Use the internal owl system when possible. Assuming that such correspondence has taken place when it has not is metagaming.

* Using Parties to Metagame Player Locations: Just because you can see in Parties where other players are does not mean that your character has that knowledge. Do not use party to OOCly move your character to another PC's location.

* Using Parties for OOC Rez: Using parties to find and OOCly rez other players is also an example of metagaming. There are times when this may be acceptable, only if the death is OOC to begin with.

* Allowing party conversations to affect the mood or attention of your PC. Party chat has a drastic negative impact on the RP of this server, usually stemming from attentions being pulled from RP to party chat. This results in detached RP, the character comes across as uninterested or distracted, because the player is. The player doing it is very rarely aware, but this is still OOC injected into the RP and therefore at best, it is the same as metagaming. In addition, while party chat can be lighthearted and fun, someone who is switching back and forth from lighthearted and fun party chat to serious RP usually seriously affects the RP. This is just the way the human brain works. Again the player is very rarely aware that they are doing this, and it affects not only the PC of the one in party chat, but the one(s) they are RPing with in such a way that is nearly impossible to ignore.

* TeamSpeak or Skype calls during RP can have a utterly horrible impact on RP, similar to the impact described above, but a good order of magnitude worse. If in a TeamSpeak or Skype (or similar) "party," please either go to the OOC room or keep the talking to a minimum. Characters become walking zombies at times when the players are in a voice party.

* Unintentional metagaming: OOC discussions especially in party chat, tells or MSN about the goings on, situations, or feelings of characters will -very- likey cause unintentional metagaming because it's impossible to not metagame deep OOC knowledge of another character. Most of the time people don't even realize they are doing this, because it is so subtle. The effects of this however can be very deep at the core of a chatacter having drastic effects that are often not fully realized as having a root in metagaming. The result is oddly OOCly scarred RP.

*"That would be cool" metagaming: OOCly deciding the RP of your character because it would be cool or fun is at best borderline metagaming. There are valid reasons for doing this, and invalid reasons for doing this.

Valid reasons (examples):

-Your character ICly would do something against server rules, so you OOCly decide to alter the RP
-Your character ICly would do something that would get them killed or injured badly and you don't want them in that situation, so you alter the RP
-Your character is stuck in an RP rut or other situation that affects the RPability of the character, so you alter the RP. Usually this is done with allowing your character to have an life-changing realization about them self, which is RPable.

Invalid reasons (examples):

-You think it would be cool to RP something, so you alter your character or OOCly decide to create a situation to make it happen
-Your are OOC friends with someone so you alter your character to fit with their character, or OOCly come up with RP for them
-You don't like someone or are annoyed OOCly about something that someone is doing so you have your character react IC.

The reason this should be avoided is two-fold:

1- There is no basis in RP for the initiation of the RP. This causes a "hole" in the RP that cannot be fully explained IC, so it will fall back to OOC. For characters interacting with yours that do not RP this way, this will immediately cause odd RP confusions, sometimes on a subconscious level that merely result in being frustrated OOCly on both sides.

2- RP of this nature is automatically OOC. The reason for the RP started OOC, so it's foundation is OOC. Any IC conflict will already have an OOC component to it. Nearly all OOC conflict on the server has a root in this kind of "metagaming."

* Crossover Metagaming: Taking something that is IC and reacting OOCly, or taking something that is OOC and reacting IC. Specifically, the latter is the "metagaming," but the former can get you banned. Keep IC IC, and keep OOC OCC. Something negative happens to your character (by DM or by another PC), always remember you're here to RP. Things happening to your character that your character doesn't want are part of RP. Likewise, using OOC knowledge to impact your character's actions or knowledge is the most basic form of metagaming, and is very destructive. Keep IC and OOC separate, because they are.

* OOC-based RP is a style of RP that is rooted in the player's wants and desires, rather than the character's. A minimal amount is required: "I want to RP here, so I need a character that's RP-able." Past that, it's metagaming. If you find yourself really getting worked up at what's happening ICly to your character (so long as it really is IC, even I get worked up when OOC happens to my character), then you are probably getting worked up because it's your own expectations for your character's RP that are being thwarted. This -is- metagaming, because it is OOC impacting IC, and it is a form of RP that is not allowed on this server. It will never be supported by the DM rulings made. The rulings will always be as IC as possible, which is guaranteed to make someone with this RP style very upset.

There may be times where "metagaming" is appropriate (and we use the term "metagaming" lightly here, because depending on how you look at it, it's not actually metagaming):

* Someone logs in and would have been invited to an event but they weren't only because they weren't logged in, sending them a tell impling the invitation is acceptable.

* Only a few people are logged in, none of which normally interact, it may be acceptable to OOCly agree on a situation that will cause interaction in the interest of RPing.

* When all players involved agree OOCly to imply that something has happened (usually in the interest of time), implying that RP is still valid RP.

* It is sometimes acceptable to OOCly decide to have characters "bump into" each other when both players agree, if player time is limited and it's reasonable that the characters would, or probably would have already, randomly met anyway. This is done in the interest of time, as the "bumping into each other" is something that would be occuring ICly at Hogwarts anyway, the decision here is to make it happen when the players are actually logged in.