Exchange of Realities

Inspired by yesterday’s observations.

Looking at it now, I don’t think there’s any situation in which there’s a clean divide between two groups, even when one is clearly demarcated as Not-[The Other], when the groups have different amounts of social power or when in any way you’d expect a clear boundary. You’ve got one, and you’ve got the other, and then there will be people from the second who hang around the first so long that they think like members of the first. (Or are just really good at assimilating.) This liminal (in-between, what have you) group is absolutely perfect for the kinds of people around whom stories center—particularly, in the case of a gaming group, PCs.

Why?

The most game-oriented reason is knowledge. In subcultures like this, there’s a lot that people need to know—a little bit of ritual, a little bit of history, all sorts of quirky details and protocols and ways to fit in. It’s hard enough to try to get all this across when you’re writing a story, but attempting to introduce a character who’s supposedly been steeped in this when the player is anything but, when being able to handle the group’s idiosyncracies matters? Probably not going to work too well. On the other hand, if the characters are in the middle group, they’re not as ‘expected’ to know all the little odds and ends, as those aren’t likely to be quite as relevant—but there are still things from the in-group they’ll need to be able to remember. Necessary knowledge, but not quite so much of it.

Another is position. Often, the in-groups we want to use are rather hierarchical; people have their roles and specialties, and it’s harder to deviate from that. Or there’s a situation where you just can’t use a member of the in-group, probably due to image concerns or other public relations issues. But you can’t use someone who’s fully out-group, either—there’s too much group-sensitive information and procedure for that to be feasible. Characters in the between-group, though, balance this out; they’re outside enough not to have the problems of being in-group, but they’re not out-group, either.

Third is an amusing fact about the division between the between-group and the out-group (because you know there’s going to be one; with that much division between in-group and out-group, something’s going to carry over). It’s already pretty much identical to the division most people make between PCs and NPCs. If they’re going to do it anyway, why not make an in-world distinction of it? They’re not in the in-group because they either didn’t qualify or chose not to be there, but they’re set apart from the out-group by thinking kind of like in-group members. They’re something else, something different, something interesting.

PCs have to interact with a large assortment of groups anyway; giving them a liminal group like this puts them in a position where they’re already doing so and getting used to it.