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Wiki Headlines 12th Feb: A new policy is being put in place for TRS threads: Make your case that the name/page is broken in the Opening Post, or the thread will be nuked immediately. See Everything You Wanted To Know About Changing Names for what "Make your case" means.
5th Feb: Echo Chamber Season 1 blooper reel on Youtube here 
Main Quotes main index Narrative
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"Welcome to Corneria!"
No, not a character who isn't "a player." Or a Player. This is a term referring to game characters other than the one you're playing as.
The term originated with paper-and-dice role playing games, specifically the Dungeons & Dragons ancestor Chainmail. It refers to characters that are operated by the game engine or game master. These characters are generally less "rounded" — they do not have much Character Development, unless the dev team or gamemaster is exceptionally skilled.
In the extreme case, an NPC's entire existence will consist of walking back and forth (typically right where you don't want them to be in 2D games) and saying the same line of dialogue over and over again. (That is if they have the honor of being able to move; sometimes they just stare in one direction until you talk to them.) Though, if necessary, they can move with such speed and access that the player can only dream about. A privileged few may be made into quest-givers, temporarily giving them some small worth in the eyes of passing protagonists. A sufficiently cool NPC may even be Promoted to Unlockable.
The term is sometimes, in tabletop-derived computer games, used to refer to any non-hostile character that the player did not create directly, even if the player has near-complete control of them for gameplay purposes.
Oddly, NPC's, despite being normally clueless, can find out about things that happened miles away and even know about all of your skills and past deeds like you're all connected...
The counterpart, of course, is the Player Character.
- An NPC, 8 Bit Theater
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alternative title(s): NPC
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