nonplayer character

noun

1. a character in a tabletop role-playing game who is controlled by the Game Master.
2. a character in a video game who executes scripted roles and is not controlled by the player. : NPC

Word History and Origins

Origin of nonplayer character¹

First recorded in 1990–95

Example Sentences

He danced like a nonplayer character, or NPC, in a computer game for 39 minutes at a town hall meeting the other night after taking a handful of questions.

From Salon

Ryan Reynolds is a nonplayer character who realizes he lives inside a videogame in the convoluted corporate comedy “Free Guy.”

From Los Angeles Times

That shouldn’t be in Guy’s code, and when he starts stepping outside the expectations of a nonplayer character to pursue the mysterious Molotov Girl, it causes an uproar that turns him into a star known as “Blue Shirt Guy” to the “real world” outside the game.

From Los Angeles Times

Another nonplayer character tells our avatar about Amazon Alpha, “a secret level above Amazon Prime” that costs $400,000 a year and includes negative-two-day shipping and double voting power in elections.

From New York Times

He also has an action-comedy in production titled, “Free Guy,” where he plays a bank teller who discovers he’s a nonplayer character in an unforgiving open-world video game.

From Fox News