NPC vs Player Character

The NPC meme has become ingrained into online culture and for good reason. It is an accurate portrayal of a common phenomenon. Since starting my writing, I have worked to promote the term “Player Character” as it aligns with the analogy and is another phenomenon worth capturing in language so that it might be more readily understood and discussed.

This is a much rougher article than I usually write, as I wanted to see if my readers resonate with a more raw prose (and I wanted to get it out quickly). This is a stream of consciousness on my thoughts of what separates and defines an NPC and a Player Character.

Death and Rebirth

To start, it is necessary to establish the common script of death and rebirth, an important aspect of Campbell’s Meta Myth. The common progression of a person starts with curiosity to learn. As a child, you seek to understand the world around you and will ask questions. Mostly it is your parents who will answer your questions, but in time you come to realize that they are just as human as everyone else and they have their own limitations. This is what often causes the first rebellion. You realize that your parents aren’t right about everything and might have even lied to you about some things. You must question your understanding of the world and seek to learn new things from other sources. This is a cycle of metaphorical death and rebirth; letting old understandings die so that new, more accurate understandings may be developed.

This cycle is necessary in learning. You will go through the cycle of death and rebirth continuously through your life, even after you think you have reached your final form. This is one of the first ways to tell the difference between a true player character and an NPC. An NPC thinks they are in their final form and to some degree this is true. They have stagnated and they will never go through another death and rebirth cycle in their lifetime barring some large, life shattering event.

Permanent Death In Safety

Not only is the NPC stuck in whatever form they are in, but often this form is safe. It is a form that is acceptable to the Herd as it conforms to the Herd morality. The NPC has evolved into a game state equilibrium that is effectively an evolutionary dead end. They are safe in their position, but their position will never change.

This is why it is so easy to pigeon hole an NPC. NPCs come in a few varieties, but all those varieties are basically the same. If you know a bit about an NPC, you can usually guess with surprising accuracy all of their other views. A society produces a few Herd moralities that are acceptable and most NPCs will evolve to align with one of those Herds. Once you understand the common Herd moralities, you understand all the NPCs who are a part of that Herd.

The common problem these NPCs have is that they value safety and they lack curiosity and intelligence. If you are smart, you understand that there is always more to learn and that other people hold different views for what they believe are good reasons. You might also have a low enough ego to be willing to question your own beliefs; to know that you are not in your final form and will always be evolving.

Life Through Death

The player character understands that his state is forever changing. He is forever learning and growing. There is always more to understand. He knows that he will always be learning, not only new knowledge, but how his old knowledge is wrong. The NPC craves order and will sacrifice their own evolution to feel safe, even in an order that is corrupt and poorly constructed. The Player Character seeks truth and will sacrifice their own order and safety to pursue it.

I want to be clear that while I am using the word safety, I think that a lack of truth in your life is anything but safe. It is certainly safe while the supposed order you have found holds, but when that order crumbles (as it inevitably will) the NPCs will be poorly equipped to handle it.

This is why when a narrative changes, an NPC cannot accept they were wrong. They have built their worldview to be safe and when truth threatens that safety, they would rather ignore the truth then accept it. In their attempts to avoid death, the NPC has already died, but in an embrace of death, the Player Character will live a thousand lives.

Intelligence

Intelligence does not make someone a player character. There are many intelligent people you will meet who are just as much an NPC as low intelligent people. And you will also meet low intelligence people who are anything but NPCs. In fact, one could argue that high intelligence people often seek safety even more so because they can sense the dangers of the world and would rather flee to safety. And there are low intelligence Player Characters who seek truth because they do not understand the dangers of speaking truth to those who do not want to hear it.

Ego

Key to understanding the NPC is understanding that an NPC equates their understanding of the world with themselves, their ego. They fear their own inadequacy and so protect their understanding of the world at all costs as they are effectively protecting their ego.

A player character has no such reservations. A player character can accept when they are wrong because they are happy to exist with one foot in the world of order and one foot in the world of chaos. They do not fear the chaos of change because they know it gives them the ability to discover new truths. They know they must die to be reborn and so they no longer fear death. The NPC has died, as the spark of creation and curiosity has gone out, and they will never be reborn.

If you wish to pursue the path of the player character, you must first come to detach yourself from the need to feel safe. This means you must also detach yourself from your ego and the need to be right. You must be willing to learn from everyone around you, even those who you think are wrong.

Once you open yourself up to the universe like this, the lessons she seeks to teach you will become more clear and easier to learn from. You will understand that adversity is not suffering, but a chance for growth. That you need danger and difficulty to not die the final death of stagnation.

Seek Risk

This also ties well into the idea of risk. Risk can be scary as failure can mean loss; loss of resources, time, and reputation. But it is only through risk that the most important things can be gained. You need to be willing to push yourself to your limits to know what you can truly accomplish. And we often find that our limits are well beyond what we once thought. The cycle of death and rebirth is also the death and rebirth of your limitations.

Even in failure, we learn from the risks we take. We know what risks we can take in the future. We also pioneer a path for others who are either brave or stupid enough to follow. Trust is built through risk and trust is necessary to build the foundation of success. Trust in ourselves and our own abilities, but also trust in others.

Looking for Group

If you are a player character, it is important you build a group of other player characters. You will only know the degree to which you can trust the other members of your party, but the risks you are willing to take together.

As I mentioned earlier, we are headed into difficult times. The corrupt order the Herd has built for itself is crumbling and when it comes undone, they will be lost in a world plunged into chaos. In that chaos, it is important that all Player Characters have built up the trust in themselves that they can navigate this chaos and the trust in each other to be there as we do it. You cannot have trust in yourself unless you put yourself into the chaos voluntarily, before it becomes mandatory.

Seek Challenge

The world today is optimized for safety and it is easy to get lulled to sleep by the comfort and empty pleasures this world offers. As modern men, we must seek difficulty of our own volition. We must venture outside of the longhouse into the wild to wrestle with demons of chaos, both in the world and inside ourselves. No one will make you do this and so it is you who must find the motivation, curiosity, and strength inside yourself.

The path of the player character is not easy, but those who understand the choice know it to be the necessary path. You can either accept a death by pleasure and comfort, as Huxley warned about, or you can seek hardship to strengthen yourself. It is through this struggle you will come to know yourself and the world better. You will find truth in struggle.

Player Characters are Creators

Finally, I will touch on the importance of creation for Player Characters. While writing, hobbies, and other art are important and necessary forms of creation, the most important creation we can undertake is the authoring of our own life story. You choose who you will become.

Words are easy to speak, but truth is found in action. What decisions you make are a true reflection of your soul and who you are. If you wish to prove yourself a player character, you cannot stand on the sidelines, pontification about truth. You must join the fray and wrestle with life and chaos. This is what will define you and show yourself and the world who you truly are.