The Lantern Hall
Painting: an ancient lexicon open on a carved lectern in a dark chapel of books, glowing runes and symbols lifting off its pages like fireflies.
TermTabletop term

Non-player character

Any character not controlled by a player: the innkeeper, the villain, the hireling and the king, all voiced by the Game Master. The term passed into video games for computer-controlled characters and, much later, into internet slang as an insult (see NPC (meme)).

Any character not controlled by a player: the innkeeper, the villain, the hireling and the king, all voiced by the Game Master. The term passed into video games for computer-controlled characters and, much later, into internet slang as an insult (see NPC (meme)).

Quick answers

What does "Non-player character" mean?
Any character not controlled by a player: the innkeeper, the villain, the hireling and the king, all voiced by the Game Master. The term passed into video games for computer-controlled characters and, much later, into internet slang as an insult (see NPC (meme)).

Nearby in the archive

Player character

Tabletop term1974

A character controlled by one of the players rather than by the Game Master. The shift from commanding armies to embodying a single persistent hero, who remembers, grows and can die, is what separated the roleplaying game from the wargame.

Game Master

Tabletop term

The player who runs the game: describing the world, voicing every Non-player character, adjudicating rules and deciding what the dice mean. Different games give the role different names, such as Dungeon Master in D&D, Storyteller in Vampire: The Masquerade and Keeper in Call of Cthulhu. The role descends from the neutral umpire of refereed wargames.

Mob

Digital term1978

A computer-controlled creature in an online game, especially a hostile one to be fought. Players talk of pulling, killing and farming mobs.

NPC (meme)

General term2016

Internet slang, drawn from the gaming term Non-player character, for people accused of not thinking for themselves and repeating stock phrases like a scripted game character. The gray-faced NPC Wojak image became a political insult and later a TikTok performance trend.

Mentioned in 8 other exhibits