I made a reference in this post to 'meta-gaming' and described it as 'using information outside the game to play the game'. It's not a great definition and probably not very clear to someone inexperienced with video games.
One way to think of it is to make an analogy to a board game. Using information about the game itself (such as the rules, the turn order, and so on) to make decisions is all just part of the game. But using information about your opponents (like a Monopoly player saying "I know Joe likes the Green properties so I'll trade for them before he gets them") is playing a meta-game.
The rest of the post was broadly exploring creativity in the context of gaming. Again, the meta-game concept comes into play. I think those being creative within the game structure are limited by the imagination of the game designer. Someone who comes up with sensational adverbs in Mad-Libs is undoubtedly creative but the potential for creativity is still limited in some form by the game. On the other hand, I think those creative in the meta-game are expressing themselves in a truer sense of the word 'creative' because the associations and ingenuity required to do so are not bound by any limits imposed in the design of the game.
