metagame

A game about games.

Nomic is a metagame in which players can modify the rules as part of gameplay.

The textual chessboard at the beginning of Through the Looking-Glass (1871) makes this crystal clear, establishing the whole book as a game—or maybe a metagame—that unfolds through the act of reading, each chapter corresponding to a “move” by Alice’s profoundly overwhelmed pawn.

The exploitation of the rules etc. of some other game, at a higher level than simply playing the game normally; a game outside or peripheral to the actual gameplay.

But usually when people refer to the metagame, they mean things such as unlockables or customizable features. The problem with metagames is that they almost always damage the games they surround. […] Metagames also often create motivations that conflict with the inherent motivations of the core game.

The “real-life” activities of EVE community members are a striking example of when a game begins to evolve into another type of simulation. In this instance, the metagame becomes a kind of political simulation that starts to manifest itself more off the screen than it does within the virtual society.

Of a roleplayer, to make use of knowledge while roleplaying that they learned out of character, which their character does not know; often considered a form of cheating.