non-player character
- noun
- /nɒnˈpleɪər ˈkɛrɪktər/
- Offensive
:
NPC
- During the simulation, she felt like a non-player character, doing what was expected of her without making any choices.
Examples
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The actors in the play were scripted to behave like non-player characters, repeating their lines without showing any emotion.
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In the multiplayer game, he acted like a non-player character, always following the same pattern without any variation.
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Looking to change this, 2K Games recently launched the BotPrize competition, a kind of Turing Test for nonplayer characters (NPCs).
Blog text (34) -
And remarkably, this year's co-winner, a team from the University of Texas at Austin, created a nonplayer character (NPC) that was so realistic that it appeared to be more human than the human players—which is kind of a problem when you think about it.
Blog text (34)
Antonyms
How Independent
984
2.3
5
7.1
- Offensive
295
1.6
- Offensive
10
8.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
non-player + character
The phrase is partly compositional: 'non-player' = not a player and 'character' = a role/person, so a learner can derive the literal idea of a character not controlled by a player. However, the common derogatory sense (a real person who behaves like a predictable, scripted video‑game NPC) depends on knowledge of gaming jargon and cultural metaphor, which a B1 learner who only knows the constituents may not infer, so it is only partially transparent.
Etymology
The term non-player character used as an insult comes from comparing a person to a game character who is not a player and only follows set lines. So, calling someone this means 'they behave in a predictable or unthinking way'.