Songs without Words

J.’s World

NPCs

Let us suppose that my life is like a game. I would say that specifically, it is like a Zelda game – that sort of hybrid between RPG and action. So, there have to be NPCs. NPCs are non-player characters – that is, everyone else except me.

As in any game, these NPCs have particular routines and personalities, and they have certain interests and hobbies, as well as items. Most other people tend to also be highly predictable – that is, you can anticipate how they will act in particular situations (eg., this person is going to try to leave this event early; this person is going to forget to do this; this person is going to ask about this; this person is going to discuss this, etc.). Unlike in games, however, they also have comparably vast bodies of knowledge that are oftentimes non-overlapping with my own.

This last point is very interesting, because knowledge is accumulated in all people. People experience events at roughly the same rate, so each person has a roughly comparable amount of experiences.

An application of this can be stated in what I think are two very interesting stories concerning NPCs:

1. The guy who was lost.

I met a guy who was lost outside my dorm. He wanted to know where the apartment building at 100 Memorial Drive was. Unfortunately, I could not reconcile the facts that McCormick is in the 300s and near the end of Amherst Alley, and that his building was supposedly on Amherst. (In case you are curious, there is actually another portion of Amherst Alley that is not contiguous with Dorm Row’s stretch, and that’s where 100 is.)

I did give the man one recommendation, and it was this:

“If there is one person who knows where this is, it’s the Domino’s delivery guy.” Even though us MIT students are supposed to be smart, I have found that we are largely ignorant of our immediate surroundings. It is not until we must find a place that we feel the need to know of its location.

Conveniently, right down the street was the perennial Domino’s delivery guy, and the man took my advice and ran straight for the car. Although I do not know the outcome of this story, I can assure you that he got perfect directions to his boss’s party at 100 Mem Drive.

2. I get lost, too.

One day, I was at Downtown Crossing, and I was very lost because it was one of my first times being there. I didn’t know how to get to some street from where I was, and I looked around helplessly. “Who should I ask?” I thought to myself.

Some of these people would only be here for Macy’s; others might be new, like me; others would be very familiar with the area but not pay attention to any of the street signs. But there had to be a person with a very good knowledge of the streets. Someone who has traversed the streets over and over again, who intimately knows the area, who practically lives here, despite it being a commercial district.

I dropped the coin into the street bum’s cup and received the most straightforward directions I’ve ever received in my life.

The moral of the story is: the common knowledge is much greater than you might think, and it’s easy to be fooled into thinking that only MIT students are of equal knowledge, but it’s not true at all. Each person has a passion, and in that passion, that person is unmatched in knowledge.

Okay, next time, I’ll talk about threads, quests, and side-quests.