non-player character Concepts

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century

by W. David Marx · 18 Nov 2025 · 642pp · 142,332 words

of middle-class influencers producing palatable, marketable content. In the most extreme examples, they had become commodities themselves, what critic Alex Quicho labeled the “NPC [non-player character] influencer,” like Pinkydoll, who was “smiling and spiritually lobotomized, fine-tuned for an increasingly instinctive response to live cash stimulus.” Grassroots cultural activity ultimately posed

Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History

by Ben Mezrich · 6 Nov 2023 · 279pp · 85,453 words

, indistinguishable simulations, tended toward zero. Further, even if a simulation were built around a specific base character, each simulation contained a near-infinite number of “non-player characters” (NPC). So not only were the odds that you were, at this very moment, living in a simulation; the odds were also that you weren

Daemon

by Daniel Suarez · 1 Dec 2006 · 562pp · 146,544 words

how realistically the people moved—although only half of them had glowing names floating over their heads. “The characters moving around without names are NPCs, non-player characters—they are computer controlled. Only human players have names.” The perspective of the screen changed. It was a first-person view from Philips’s character

Critical Failures II (Caverns and Creatures Book 2)

by Bevan, Robert · 12 Oct 2013

, big guy.” Frank glanced over at the bar, and a very nervous looking elf nodded. “New kid,” said Frank. “NPC.” “What’s NPC?” asked Julian. “Non Player Character,” Frank explained. “One of the locals. Sometimes it can be fun to interact with them. They can never put their finger on what's different

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

by Kate Conger and Ryan Mac · 17 Sep 2024

strong, he had developed a new opinion and shared two memes to underscore his reversal. One featured a photo of a cartoon drawing of a non-player character, or NPC, a derogatory term for people who are incapable of forming their own independent thoughts. “I support the current thing,” read the text on

Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the Games People Play

by Morgan Ramsay and Peter Molyneux · 28 Jul 2011 · 500pp · 146,240 words

introduced new abilities for Spyro, including power-ups and the abilities to hover after a glide, swim underwater, and climb ladders. We also introduced new non-player characters, new enemies, and a new boss, Ripto. The story was a continuation of the first game's story, though a year had passed in Spyro

Meantime: The Brilliant 'Unputdownable Crime Novel' From Frankie Boyle

by Frankie Boyle · 20 Jul 2022 · 286pp · 86,480 words

, man.’ ‘I just need to do it, okay?’ He stared straight ahead, nodding along to the faint sound of music from upstairs like some glitched non-player character in a video game, which I took to be a kind of okay. I’d always wondered what it would take to clean Marina’s

Freedom

by Daniel Suarez · 17 Dec 2009 · 427pp · 112,549 words

last of the churro into his mouth and chewed furiously. "Factions have a slang term for the general public. They call them NPCs--as in 'non-player-characters'--scripted bots with limited responses." "That's just obnoxious." "Is it? These people have only limited decision-making ability." "And we're not Sobol's

…

. Then she heard someone speak in her headset. "I beg your pardon, my lady." Philips turned her avatar to face what looked to be a non-player-character--or NPC--a servant of some type in house livery. She knew it was a bot, a simple AI program that could respond in limited

Team Human

by Douglas Rushkoff · 22 Jan 2019 · 196pp · 54,339 words

algorithms and bots that seek to draw us into purchases, entertainment, and behaviors that benefit the companies that have programmed them. They outnumber us, like “non-player characters” in a video game. We are as likely, or more likely, to be engaging with a bot on the internet than we are to be

Small Men on the Wrong Side of History: The Decline, Fall and Unlikely Return of Conservatism

by Ed West · 19 Mar 2020 · 530pp · 147,851 words

normies, ‘normal people’ who just go along with the prevailing cultural winds. One of the most popular memes of the 2010s was that of the ‘Non-Player Character’ (NPC). The terms comes from Dungeons and Dragons, the online role-play game in which NPCs appear in the background and are designed to look

…

4–5 Niskanen Centre (think-tank) 295 Nixon, Richard 24, 148, 153, 154, 336 noble savage 130–1 non rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep 180 Non-Player Characters (NPCs) 344 non-whites 127 Nonconformism 65, 92 Norman, Jesse 54 norms Christian 79 cultural/moral 70 shifting 2–3 traditional gender 246 Norodom Sihanouk