Meta

Shorthand term for "Metagame". From Pen and Paper RPGs, "metagaming" is something that players do with their characters based on player knowledge, not character knowledge. For instance, you have your character search the far wall of a room endlessly because you "know that the GM ALWAYS puts secret doors in these rooms", even if it's not anything the character in the story would have knowledge of nor have reason to search for.

With respect to the game of Mafia, a player's Meta is the way in which he/she plays the game as each faction. A player with a Town role will play differently than a player with a Mafia role because of the nature of each faction and their method of operation within the game. This difference allows one to review past games that a person in question has played in, with the intention being that you will compare their play in Game X (where they were Mafia/Town) to their play now in order to determine what role they have in the current game. The players that excel at Mafia are able to make their Mafia play mirror their Town play almost identically, therefore neutralizing the ability of others to read their "Meta".