Comment by ikesau
9 hours ago
To make the most facile counterpoint - the reason the Skyrim blacksmith doesn't care if the main character slays dragons is because they weren't programmed to. There aren't consequences either way.
To the extent that this post is meant to be inspiring, it only works if you're an NPC in a static world that has no real consequences - where you actually can live your life in a static loop because nothing will change.
When the metaphorical dragon comes to burn down your village, are you going to shrug and go back to looping your hammer_nail_03 animation?
I think when people use NPC as an insult (it is a dumb insult in my opinion), they are looking at it from the point of view of a player, someone outside the game who understands that the NPC is scripted (this is a silly and egotistical way of looking at the world). This post is looking from it from the point of view of the NPC instead, as if that was a living entity one could be.
IMO, people using NPC as an insult have it backwards. What they mean is that you receive tasks and ideas from them to carry out for cash. That's what players do.
The blacksmith tasks the protagonist to get a Dragon's Teeth or whatever and pay 100 Golds in return(never played TES, sorry if this isn't a good example). The player has no control over the blacksmith; the blacksmith is in full control of the situation. The blacksmith is an NPC. The protagonist is the player. But then some thinks the blacksmith must be the player, I suppose. The fact that this sometimes seem to happen almost puzzles me.
right, this comes close to rejecting the frame, which I think you could fairly do.
viewing npc as a category of person is inherently an ego driven, narcissistic way of looking at things. It is a viewpoint that lacks a theory of mind.
This essay implicitly supposes that the npc has a mind + motivations and that those motivations are more important to the npc than the player character. I'd extend it to say that if you are an npc you are a player character; you're just in a different game. Village Blacksmith Simulator, where you make horshoes, fend off pickpockets and sometimes a hero's dragon fight flattens your shop and you start over.
The flaw is assuming the player character is always the same.
Ironically the people who view others as NPC (and say so in a disparaging way) are likely more one dimensional themselves. I think you're spot on with the narcissism viewpoint.
Right, and there is very good reason you need to care about a lot of things. That Dragon will burn your village and kill you. You better be concerned about that - you will die.
Your life isn't scripted. If have the option to not ignore the dragon. You can work with your town to setup a watch and places to flee to when the dragon is coming (even if only 50% make it that is an improvement). You can as a town fund adventures to kill the dragon. You can move to a town where there are no dragons. There are probably other options that I haven't thought of.
You should not ignore politics. You need to understand the trade offs. You should plan for what is happening. Russia is at war with Ukraine - things like that can happen to you as well. You should understand enough to have an informed decision on how much to prepare... Maybe you need to build a bomb shelter, maybe not, but you should know in time to build one.
This sort of a anxious hyper-vigilance is exactly the sort of main character bs you should let go of though. Spend some time with your kids or whatever. You actually can't plan and prepare for a hypothetical war with russia.
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i'd thought an npc wud mov out of town to a town with no dragons.
> I think when people use NPC as an insult (it is a dumb insult in my opinion)
Probably not totally relevant, but a several years ago I was out for one of my best friend's very low-key bachelor party (just a few friends/family members bar-hopping, no strip clubs). We went to a bar that was recommended by one of us and the dude who greeted us was so insanely charismatic that I assumed he was someone my buddy knew and was this later joiner to the party or something. I asked my friend, "Do you know this guy?" and, you kinda have to know his humour, but he replied, "No, he's an NPC." He was not insulting the guy (in fact I think he may have even said "non-playable character" in full) just saying, "Nope, not with us," and ya... I laughed... like, really hard. Needed recovery time.
I don't know the point I'm trying to make.
> I don't know the point I'm trying to make.
That made chuckle! Not to the point of needing recovery time, but still. Thank you for sharing the story. I can’t help you get to the point you were looking for, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
"I think when people use NPC as an insult (it is a dumb insult in my opinion)"
It's a great insult, because it is usually used to describe someone whose viewpoint is basically a brainwashed and braindead pre-programmed one (either through upbringing or other things) and clearly demonstrating a lack of self-conscious critical thought.
It’s funny, because one might argue that a lack of awareness of, or empathy for the fact that other people also have thoughts and autonomy also demonstrates a lack of self-conscious critical thought.
Yet the NPC is the one who gives the player work. And meaning, in terms of the played character.
It's just "sheeple" for this decade. The hoi polloi. Same as it ever was.
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> To make the most facile counterpoint - the reason the Skyrim blacksmith doesn't care if the main character slays dragons is because they weren't programmed to. There aren't consequences either way.
In the actual game, NPCs do care, in fact they often won't shut up about it. They just don't let it affect their lives, which is the point the OP is making.
> When the metaphorical dragon comes to burn down your village, are you going to shrug and go back to looping your hammer_nail_03 animation?
When such a disaster strikes a village those are often scripted events that do change the loops of the NPCs previously inhabiting the village. They are programmed to adapt to a new cycle of rebuilding the village or even assisting the main character in dealing with the threat.
It's funny that the assumption is the NPCs don't care about anything that happens in the world when there are games with NPCs engaging in entire rebellions against their oppressors. It's just that NPCs don't care beyond their immediate objectives being fulfilled. Once the rebellion succeeds and the tyrant is overthrown most of them just settle back into their usual loop.
In Hades, yes. Vanishingly few of us actually control our fates or societies even to a small extent. The modern tendency to think like we do is a form of mania. By indulging it, we damage the only control we really have, our relative health and peace of mind.
Pretending that you don't have a part to play in the fate of society is escapism at best, and learned helplessness at worst. Democracy is explicitly a system that functions off of the sum of individual participation, and if the quality of that participation is poor it will produce bad outcomes even barring subversion by other powers. Pessimism like yours cedes control entirely to those who would take it through undemocratic means, and the result will be a markedly worse world.
You don’t have a part to play of any value to anyone outside of your direct orbit. Nothing you can do will impact history. You will be forgotten shortly after your death. There is no afterlife, you’re nothing more special than a bug other than being complex enough to think that you are.
Just live your life however you want, you only get one, and it’ll be brief.
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Political movements can certainly be an important factor of modern power given the right instigators, but transferring the importance to oneself is, again, damaging mania.
I think the OP means they're NPC in your game or everyone elses game. They don't care to participate in your meaningless rat race.
They're playing their own game, whatever has meaning to them.
The example is particularly bad because in Skyrim the blacksmith actually does react when a dragon arrives (in one of the villages where the blacksmith is on an exterior cell) and can actually be hurt by the dragon.
We're building AI so that it can take care of the dragon, as well as run the economy and do everything else for us. I think soon the only viable option will be to live the NPC life.
New Quest Added: slay dragon
That and the author hasn’t played Dwarf Fortress