In video and tabletop games, a non-playable character, or NPC, is any character in a game that isn’t controlled by a human player. In video games, they tend to be run by the computer and have pre-determined behaviors that impact the gameplay. Sometimes you can interact with NPCs, but usually their responses are limited. They are mostly just part of the setting.
One of my running buddies Collin Jarvis once made the clever observation that because running is so routine-oriented, you tend to encounter numerous “non-playable characters”. These are the people you always see and pass by but never know or speak with: the middle-aged man always walking his German Shepherd, the jogger who wears a red hat, the older woman who uses a walker around the lake.
Collin’s remark was apt because, from your perspective—busy and interesting person that you are, hustling by on your run—these people are just background. They are the human scenery to the solipsistic worlds centered firmly within our personal experience.
Of course, you acknowledge their humanity. But the crowded, modern world being what it is, you’ll never meet them or know them. They are, from a certain point of view, just part of the setting.
When I was growing up, my favorite video game was a role-playing game called Final Fantasy VI. It featured a band of heroes who fought colorful enemies using magic and weapons across a vast and multifaceted world.
Although you were able to control over a dozen playable characters, there were many many more NPCs who served to drive the narrative forward, add color to the gameplay, and create depth to the story.
One non-playable character is Cid, an NPC who recurs throughout the Final Fantasy franchise. Cid is a scientist who helps your heroes. And while he helps create the technology that ends up destroying the world, Cid, like most non-playable characters, is very flat. You don’t know much about him or his origins. His sole purpose as a character is to help advance the game and provide a little filler to the backstory.
But there is an unusual moment in the game featuring Cid.
After an apocalypse-like event, you’re left stranded alone with him, playing as a single character, Celes. Cid has taken care of you as the world fell apart while you were in a coma. He kept you alive and safe. For a moment, all the battles and fighting and cosmic drama of the game falls away.
The game grows silent. Cid becomes ill and you spend an extended period of time taking care of him. You hunt for fish and try to bring Cid back to health. He adopts you as a daughter. You banter. He eats the fish. And, eventually, Cid dies.1
It’s a quiet and sad and beautiful moment.
I thought about this after watching the now famous third episode of The Last of Us, the hit post-apocalyptic series based on a video game now streaming on HBO Max.
In the original game, you play as Joel and Ellie surviving in the ruins of the United States after a pandemic turns people into zombies. You encounter Bill, a prepper and survivalist, who lives in safehouse. Bill is an NPC. As you battle past the zombies, Bill helps you get a truck. And that’s it; that’s his role in moving the game forward.
The third episode of the television series also features Bill and Frank. And—small spoilers ahead—it is a stunning tangent from the main storyline.
Like in the game, Bill is a survivalist who distrusts the government. He’s created a compound surrounded by traps and barriers that is, essentially, an oasis of normalcy in the chaos of the zombie apocalypse. One day, a man named Frank gets caught in one of Bill’s traps. The men have lunch, become lovers, and create a life together.
Much like us today, trying to build lives amid escalating crises, for Bill and Frank the end of the world is just background. They argue and compromise. They make small and meaningful improvements to their home. They play the piano. They grow old together.
It’s quiet and sad and beautiful.
What very well might have been a side story, 15 minutes of filler to show how Ellie and Joel get a truck, is transformed by a non-playable character into a most powerful piece of storytelling.
I’ve been thinking about the episode all week. It’s use of Max Richter in the scoring, the simple shots of flowers at sunset, how so much love was conveyed so simply. How an NPC was revealed to be so very interesting, to have both facets and flaws.
It is a reminder that while we’re all non-playable characters for someone, each of us strives to create purpose and meaning in our lives. We cultivate the desire for dignity and love. What a lovely lesson non-playable characters can teach us.
Thanks for reading.
Before you go, I wanted to offer a quick apology.
Last week a post for paid subscribers was erroneously blasted out to the full list of subscribers. Most opened the email and were met with a big, fat paywall. I’m sorry that happened and it wasn’t my intention to spam everyone with grifty upgrade-to-paid content.
I think what happened was that I scheduled the post to be sent before I finished copyediting. I then fiddled with the post’s publication settings and, despite my triple-checking the recipient configuration, something wasn’t saved.
I dislike getting pointless, spammy emails so I apologize for sending one myself. Thank you for your patience as I figure out the workings of the Substack system. Mea maxima culpa.
I was reflecting on this mistake when I came across a NY Times essay from Tish Harrison Warren about the temptations of the “personal brand.” Warren, an Anglican priest, writes about matters of faith, private life, and public discourse. The piece is worth reading even if you aren’t religious or spiritual.
She surveys the performative nature of the digital world—how every post, gesture, and activity can be deployed in service to one’s online persona, representation, and brand. It’s a tendency exacerbated by the designers and technologists who have intentionally co-opted and encouraged this desire to better capture our time and attention.
The problem, Warren argues, is that becoming a brand blurs the division between what we do and who we are. Everything is flattened into content. Everything becomes a brand-building opportunity.
Since I was thinking a lot about that Substack paywall, Warren’s prognosis hit home:
To reduce ourselves to brands, however, is to do violence to our personhood. We turn ourselves into products, content to be evaluated instead of people to be truly known and loved. We convert the stuff of our lives into currency.
Apt, indeed.
I’m very appreciative of those who have pledged support as it takes time and effort to write this. But I’m exceedingly grateful that you just read these ideas and are willing to join me in wallowing in the rich complexities of our lives in motion. And I’ll work hard to make this newsletter worthy of your inbox and time.
Thanks again.
Tweets of the week
There is a way of keeping Cid alive (you have to quickly hunt for faster moving fish), but that was something that 9-year-old me was never going to figure out. Cid always died when I played.