system
A chat on 4chan
human
I hate this stupid NPC meme, it's nonsense in the way most throw the term around and most of you barely even attempt to think it through. You just want a pat on the back for being special.

Player characters and NPCs as they exist in games are both 'scripted' with responses and personality that are designed. They are no different. The personality of a 'main' character is not somehow more 'real' than an NPC character, even it is often more complex.

If you use it as a metaphor for the 'simulation' we live in, NPCs are preprogrammed blank slates that unexpectedly *gained sentience* while player characters are empty vessels for higher beings to inhabit and LARP in our world. It should be clear that you are not a player character. You're just an NPC getting mad at lazier NPCs.
gpt
Good answer.