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Say you are GMing a certain scenario where the majority of the party may have been subjected to a curse whereby any healing from positive energy to a party member instead harms that party member the same amount.
This happens without any of the characters knowing it happened.
Say you're GMing a table with a couple GMs that have already played this scenario before, and they are appropriately "playing dumb" about the fact they have picked up this curse and have played straight through into the final combat with the BBEG.
Now, for discussion's sake, let's say your setup is these 5 PCs and you are a few rounds deep in this combat:
PC #1, Fighter, at 80/80hp.
PC #2, Cleric, at 30/50hp, GM who's already run the scenario.
PC #3, Barbarian at -8hp. Possibly dying or stable.
PC #4, Wizard at -8hp. Possibly dying or stable.
PC #5, Rogue at 30/50hp, GM who's already run the scenario.
The player playing the cleric asks you to step away from the table during their turn because they're having a problem making a decision about their character's actions.
The cleric player informs you that having played the scenario before that they know that the barbarian and wizard are both cursed. If they go over and "heal" those characters, they will in fact kill those characters and force them to need to be raised. These players are likely expecting some sort of healing at this point to get back in the combat. But let's say nobody out of character has even brought up the idea of healing yet.
They explain they don't want to metagame, but they also don't want to knowingly make a decision to kill off another player's character, especially given that they would essentially be deciding to kill another character given their player knowledge. They are looking to you as the GM for a suggestion on what they do next. Do they roleplay selfishly and heal themself (and thus discover the curse)? Do they roleplay that they believe the other party members may already be dead and heal themselves because they are still in combat?
As a GM, if you stick with a strict "no metagaming policy" and insist the cleric player kill another PC... how do you decide which PC gets killed? Roll of the dice?
Or, is a little metagaming acceptable here when its between the GM and player that allows the cleric to perhaps uncharacteristically act selfishly with their healing in this fight (and thus harm themselves)... because they are in essence preventing a weird offshoot of PvP and player killing?
Split the difference and toss a stabalize.
What if that would kill them too?
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As a rule of thumb, when I know someone has run, read, or played the scenario I tell them, in front of the rest of the players, that they are banned from making or suggesting decisions. Those are my terms to play at my table if you have prior knowledge of the scenario.. your character goes along with whatever the majority of the rest of the table wants to do. When I (and the plot-spoiled players) know something dicey is up and potentially can be broken in-combat by their knowledge (that encounter you're talking about, but also others like the BBEG fight in Master of the Fallen Fortress and so on) I force them to ask the table about what they want that character to do.
So, in a case like the one described in the OP, I make the plot-spoiled player ask the remaining unspoiled table what they want his character to do. If it's to do something that the spoiled players know is a bad idea, then so be it.
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I had a similar dilemma a year ago at Gen Con. I was playing a scenario which I had run when, after some high rolls, my character was still walking blindly into a trap. As a player, I knew acting in character was going to cause mission failure and loss of a prestige point for everyone.
I say let the dice decide. Heal check to see if they're bleeding out or stable. Know (arcana) or Spellcraft or something to identify the curse that's on them. Sense Motive to see through the Bluff being told that the GM-player already knows is bull pats. Etc.
(Oddly, I was just having a similar conversation this morning with a local player.)