Do you role-play in MP games and why or why not?

[Omnirizon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagame

As applied to Dom3, it can also be when out-of-game events start effecting your in game behavior. For example, something out of game leads to a player having certain behavior in game that is non-sensical taken out of the context of the out-game in-game relationship.

For example, due to out of game time constraints, a player is forced to do turns in a hurry. This leads to them forgetting to do something in game, or making a mistake in game. If they are sent a role-played communication asking about their unusual behavior, they may say "I'm sorry, I was doing turns in a hurry and forgot". Turns? whats a turn? You speak in tongues! You see, "turns" don't make any sense in the game world, because we assume our imaginary game-beings don't live their lives "in turns". Additionally, out of game events have shaped, even if in a minor way, in game events. This, I suppose, happens, and the best thing to do is to, dramaturgically, reestablish the game illusion by fitting events into a roleplayed scheme and reestablish normalcy and seperation between in game and out game.

Sometimes, however, players refuse to reestablish the illusion, integrity, separation, and normalcy between in-game out-game because it is in their benefit to do maintain this breach, or is in their benefit to exploit out of game knowledge. This is the most egregious example of metagaming, I believe, in Dom3. This is occurring when nations make strategic decisions based on out of game occurrences. For example say a player plans to turn AI, so his neighbors immediately begin attacking and carving up the territory. It can also happen when out of game occurrences or turned into and justified as in game occurrences. For example, a player has forgotten to send gems/items they agreed to send (due to doing turns in a hurry), and then refuse to send the items because the player to receive them began attacking said player. If the attacking player chose to wait to receive the items before attacking, while they had been planning to attack for in game reasons, then they would be metagaming. Yet the player who forgot to send the gems/items/money now refuses to send them, because they are now being attacked by the player to receive them. They justify it by saying they won't send gems to their enemy. Yet when the gems should have been sent, the two nations were not openly enemies. In-game events traceable to out of game occurrences have become relevant to more in-game events and are now justified totally in-game, forgetting the out-game reasons for them. The best thing to do is to reestablish normalcy and integrity be sending the gems, since otherwise out-of-game events are being given a permanent role in the game. Some might say that the first player never intended to send the item/gems, and only said they would, but then if they justify it with out-of-game reasons (oh sorry, I keep forgetting because I do turns in a hurry), then they are metagaming.

You can see now why I HATE metagaming and prefer to avoid players who metagame. It is nothing short of a form of cheating in games. But then, there is modern game theory that says if we ALL cheat, then there really is no cheating, and the game becomes about who can cheat the best. I don't buy into that though. Don't metagame, don't cheat.