What to do about splitting up

[Ulysses WkAmil]

Hello. I am a starting DM with a quick question. What do I do when the players split up. Do I send them into different rooms, or trust they wont Meta-Game? I have done both. The former causing a church to be burnt down (bad idea by the ranger who is usually guided by the party), and the latter has resulted in Meta-Gaming (the players come from the MMORPG world, so Meta-Gaming is like delicious cake to them). I am curious as to what you people do when your party splits or something of the like. Thank you in advance.

[DrBurr]

There was an article by Chris Perkins a while back on how he does it and I thought it was a good way to handle it

Typically I just go around the room as each of them what they do it give results I almost never though monsters at them when they're alone just because then I have to find ways to give XP to other party members

Ahh here it is (http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4dmxp/20120405)

[lotusblossom13]

My DM just trusts us not to metagame, and we all stay in the same room. However there are a couple of players in the group who will sometimes try to metagame. The way we deal with this is that the DM bluntly tells them that they are metagaming and asks why on earth (or whatever land/Plane we are on) their character would want to do that. If they can justify it in character than they are allowed to take the action. I feel like this is a good strategy because it forces the players to examine the psychology of their characters. Though I must say if your entire group metagames or they metagame frequently, this might slow down the game.

[Jimbob]

I have gone down the same route a few times, sending people out or keeping them in the room and I have found that keeping them in the same room works better for my group.
Whilst some times and I guess its only natural people will meta-game but most of the time they are very good - since the last time a certain person did and I had his very nice new magic weapon stollen with a note left behind saying "you know to much."