Metagaming

Metagaming means letting your character act on knowledge the player has but the character could not possibly know, and avoiding it helps everyone's story feel fair.

Metagaming happens when the line between what you know as a player and what your character knows inside the fiction gets blurred in a way that affects how you play. A simple example: you overheard two other players discussing a plot twist before the event, so your character suddenly "suspects" the villain without any in-game reason to do so. Even when it happens by accident, it can flatten surprises and make other players feel the story is being skipped rather than lived. Most games ask you to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate as a basic courtesy to everyone at the table or on the field. If your character genuinely has no way of knowing something, try to play as though you don't know it either. When that is difficult, a quiet out-of-character check-in with a game organiser can help you find a fair way forward.