My thought bubble is whatever animal I’m currently seeing with an exclamation point after it.
Porn! Chipotle! Xbox!
I don’t have these animals in my Pokédex
And the shape and colour of the exclamation point depends on which animal it is? As in a kitten causes it to be pink and the dot to be heart shaped while a bed bug changes it to a horror font?
Exactly!!
I’m perfectly happy with my four dialogue choices without any fancy persuasion checks.
I like the idea of NPC energy, especially when working in customer service - sometimes I feel like a vendor in a camp talking with customers and dropping random rumors or tips to them
Insanity. I’m not putting in the effort required to live just to be an NPC.
Fortunately there is no protagonist. Everyone is the centre of their own story and a participant in everyone else’s.
It’s just an oversimplified position. I think you can want very little (quantity wise, as number of desires), but exercise massive amounts of will to achieve it. And then you can live with more or less ego, or more or less empathy and care.
I’m sure there’s dozens of other ways to do it. You just can’t get there with “NPC” and “not NPC”.
Some people are much more the protagonist in their story than other people. And then there’s the degree to which the story actually overlaps with reality. You can make it all up and not follow up on it, or you can make it come true, and everything in between, human reality does allow for that.
I think the whole point is that being an NPC takes less effort and the older one gets, the more one realizes this.
I understand that. My point is that the lessened effort isn’t worth the complete lack of agency.
I suspect that whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze is highly variable from person to person, and depends on a whole host of internal and external variables. For most, they eventually come to the conclusion that it isn’t, but only after squeezing very hard for a very long time.
If you get older that stance may change. Hustle if you want, don’t if you don’t.
As an older gamer I enjoy games, even shooters, for their scenery or vehicles (love to race around with no destination) or subtle jokes - and all that can be enjoyed best by behaving backgroundly like a NPC.
Oh my God I had this amazing sandwich the other day. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. I think I’m gonna get another one tomorrow.
What does this even mean? The metaphor is painfully stretched past the point of coherence.
You don’t have to examine your life through the lens of memes. Existence isn’t a binary condition.
Sounds like you don’t like sandwiches
This is sad. You should be the protagonist of your own existence. This videogame metaphor is reaching it’s breaking point if people are content with being oblivious and uninteresting.
I would argue it takes all kinds. Some might like to be in the forefront of the story where the action is, some might like to settle into a comfortable patterned lifestyle. And before anyone jumps on the binary perspective, to be clear I think this is a spectrum. I believe the phrase is “different strokes for different folks. “
