It's All Just A Game

My kids are convinced that I am completely clueless when it comes to online life. They aren’t exactly wrong. I don’t spend a large amount of time online, but I am not completely clueless.

They thought they got me the other day when they referred to someone at the store as an NPC. I didn’t nod my head and act like I knew what the heck they were talking about – their generation seems to be able to smell ignorance and, in a general sense, they tend to make fun of anyone who doesn’t know what they know. I don’t care, though, if they give me a hard time I remind them of who it was that taught them both to eat with a fork, use a toilet and drive a car.

Plus, I learned a long time ago that it isn’t difficult to just ask about something and any attitude they give me cannot compare to the remarks my father would give me when I was a kid if I didn’t know what a 3/8 socket was.

So, I asked just what an NPC is. Simple answer is that it’s a non-playing character. It refers to the computer controlled characters in video games that are essentially background, although they can be programmed to have an affect of the game. Hell, I knew about these characters because I wrote about them in one of my novels. I didn’t call them NPCs, though. Shows how much I keep up with the times. NPCs also have a political aspect to identify certain groups of willfully ignorant people who follow ideas and leaders with no thoughts of their own. I get the reference, but I think it violates the true nature of an NPC.

However, I understood their reference to someone in the grocery story and found it supremely appropriate. The target of their joke had to have been someone who, although seemingly random, had an annoying habit of being in the way when we wanted to get something off the shelf and into the shopping cart. Even though I suck at video games these days – I’m old and my reaction times are woefully inadequate – I do have experience with the NPCs in games that seemingly were created to get in the way of the character I’m playing. When they were younger, I found my kids would get annoyed when I would try to interact with the NPCs. In their minds it didn’t make sense to waste time on something that was counterproductive to completing the game.

After going online and finding that the concept of an NPC related to real life (IRL) and the mocking of said people has been around for at least six years. Like I said, I’m not really up to date on things, which, of course, will lead to a whole generation making fun of me. That’s okay, though, I make fun of them, too.

I also realized that the term “NPC” is a perfect way of how the younger generation sees not only me, but the rest of the world. To them, I’m just a random guy with gray hair that sometimes can help with the game, but, for the most part, is best just ignored. And honestly, I’m perfectly fine with that. It’s better than being called a Karen – or whatever the male equivalent might be. I have gotten an “OK Boomer” response from my spawn before, to which I correct them that I am not a Boomer.

For the most part, I find their terms amusing because the ideas they are describing are nothing new. I didn’t title these essays I write as Personal Mythology for nothing. The kids’ friends may see me as an NPC, I see them as background in my own personal narratives.

Still, the idea of a non-playing character has some legs in my mind. To expand on the metaphor, we are all, to some degree, a non-playing character. In video games, the NPC is designed to go through a routine. Occasionally, they are given some lines to deliver to the hero of the game, or, depending on the game, a joke to fire off to amuse the player. Then they go back to their predestined routine. Sound familiar? Like how we IRL go about our routines occasionally imparting a challenge or a joke to the real hero?

Many of us, though, aspire to be playing characters. We develop ambitions or an entrepreneurial spirit that guides us to want more than the routine of an NPC. We strive to make something of our lives, to make a difference.

Please don’t get the idea that I’m knocking this. I’d spent time being as a playing character and there was much about it that I enjoyed about it. Years ago, when I was just an intern newspaper reporter, I’d got tagged to attend a luncheon for the bar association. The paper had “bought” a table and the seats needed to be filled. It was the first of many luncheons that I would attend, so I really didn’t mind that much even though everyone at this luncheon treated me as an NPC.

However, from my seat next to the editor of the newspaper, I got to watch as bigwig lawyers, district attorneys, and state Supreme Court judges come over and kiss the ring of the editor. It was fascinating to watch as the playing characters came by to show respect for the editor. Not one to ever really keep my mouth shut, I leaned over to ask the editor, “How does it feel to have all these power brokers come over here and kiss your ass?”

He was a little surprised at my question, but he grinned. “Pretty good,” he said.

After that, I aspired to being a playing character myself, and, to an extent, I accomplished that.

What I didn’t remember from video games was that playing characters either won the game or are killed. In gaming, you can usually regenerate and keep playing. In the real life of climbing of the corporate ladder, there is not, fortunately, not a lot of death and destruction, but there is the equivalent – restructuring and layoffs. Fortunately, there are severance packages and usually an opportunity to “regenerate” with another company.

Sometimes, though, you get tired of playing the game, either online or IRL. That’s when it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing to be a non-playing character. In fact, there is a lot less stress in being an NPC. Sure, you can end up as an innocent bystander at times, but you just regenerate and carry on. People may not consider you that often, but you still get to mess with them from time to time.

Like standing in the way while someone is trying to get at a can of pinto beans in the grocery store.