In role-playing games, an NPC–non-player character–is a graphic character who is not under the direct control of the player, but is instead managed by the game master or other players. With the advent of Artificial Intelligence, NPCs are developing autonomous behaviors, generated in real time by AI. Thus, it is not just a matter of possible combinatorial logic between different game options, but synthetic behaviors that are in many ways unpredictable. The game designer must also become a “conversational designer,” capable of designing synthetic characters with varying degrees of autonomy in creating game situations.
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