Non-player character

"People" redirects here. For players in general, see account. For ethnic groups among NPCs, see list of races.

A non-player character, or NPC, is a character not controlled by a player. Players can usually talk to NPCs, but they are not attackable. (If they are attackable, they are considered monsters.) They include store owners, quest contacts, bankers and civilians. NPCs can give out quests, sell items, restrict access to certain areas and perform other vital duties. Many have no useful function, but provide atmosphere or interesting conversation. Some can talk in public, but this will not appear in the chat list. NPCs names have a yellow colour.

NPCs form the foundations for quests: beginning them, continuing the story, giving information and handing out rewards and items.

History

RuneScape Classic NPCs could only talk to one player at a time. Some players took advantage of this and talked to NPCs and did not respond, thereby preventing access to certain shops. In RuneScape Classic, players who stood in the same spot for five minutes would automatically be logged out, but this rule didn't apply when players were talking to NPCs. Some players also did this with new quests too. Jagex added a conversation timeout in a March 2001 update to prevent players from griefing others this way.

To further alleviate the issue, Jagex also added duplicates of certain NPCs for newly released quests.

Gallery

• 

  Hans, the first NPC created

• 

  Talking to an NPC in RuneScape Classic

Update history

This information has been compiled as part of the update history project. Some updates may not be included – see here for how to help out!

• patch 9 December 2019 (Update):
  • Invasion NPCs the player has engaged with in The Heart of Gielinor no longer award XP & loot etc after the player has disengaged, preventing situations like closing bank interfaces long after leaving the dungeon.

• patch 2 December 2019 (Update):
  • NPCs that have the default option as attack now display the NPC name in the mouseover tooltip.

• patch 14 October 2019 (Update):
  • Made some invisible spawn controller NPCs in The Heart dungeon even more invisible.

• patch 21 November 2016 (Update):
  • Scalable npcs will now grant the correct amount of combat experience upon death.

• patch 10 October 2016 (Update):
  • NPCs that scale to your level will now award combat and item experience.

• patch 29 June 2015 (Update):
  • The maximum size of tooltips on NPCs has been altered, to allow the display of multiple icons after their name.

• ninja 5 January 2015 (Update):
  • Numerous NPCs have had stretching issues fixed.

• patch 10 November 2014 (Update):
  • Players will no longer see NPCs as 'npc name' in the target interface.

• patch 1 November 2014 (Update):
  • The skin tone of several NPCs across the game has been fixed.

• ninja 1 November 2014 (Update):
  • NPCs that use ranged attacks throughout the game will now use their bow in the correct hand.

• patch 4 August 2014 (Update):
  • NPCs attacking players will no longer make them unable to be attacked in single way PvP.

• patch 13 August 2013 (Update):
  • Leaving a conversation with an NPC mid-dialogue no longer causes keybinds to remain disabled.
  • The Y, N and Esc keys will now work as expected on confirm destroy and NPC chat interfaces.
  • NPCs that use overhead Prayer / Curse icons have now been reworked.
  • The target icon will now disappear if a player tries to attack an NPC when they do not have the right amount of ammo or runes.

• patch 4 June 2013 (Update):
  • Several NPC skin tone issues have been fixed.

• patch 6 October 2010 (Update):
  • Removed some unnecessary attack options from NPCs on Miscellania.

• patch 1 September 2010 (Update):
  • Various hair and other issues have been resolved.

• patch 10 August 2010 (Update):
  • Optimised some of the more combat intensive NPCs to reduce overall server load. This affects the God Wars Dungeon NPCs, creatures in the Dagannoth area and various other NPCs.

• patch 25 May 2010 (Update):
  • Stopped 2x2 NPCs preventing players entering a dungeon room if they stood in the doorway.

• patch 17 November 2009 (Update):
  • Improved the held position for an NPC with a staff.

• patch 7 October 2009 (Update):
  • Stopped NPCs dancing with each other.

Trivia

• If a player blocks the path of an NPC for too long, the NPC will reset to its "respawn" location. This is especially noticeable with penguin spies in the Penguin Hide and Seek distraction and diversion or Hans near the Lumbridge Castle.
• In RuneScape Classic, all NPCs had a "talk-to" option. However, trying to talk to an NPC without a dialogue programmed would give the message "The <NPC> does not appear interested in talking".
• Most non-player characters have a small shadow, while player characters have a bigger one.
• Technically, anything with a yellow name is an NPC. However, usually only those that represent actual characters rather than things like fishing spots are referred to as such.
• If a space is occupied by a player or an NPC, another player may walk through them without their path being blocked. But an NPC cannot walk onto or over a space occupied by a player or another NPC.
• The first NPC Jagex created was Hans.
• With lag, NPCs have the ability to run for a short time.
• There was a glitch where you could kill every NPC with the mindspike's special attack. This was fixed on 10 February 2012.
• Most NPCs have 1 life point and are weak to crush, despite being unattackable.
• Unlike players, NPCs and monsters that speak with overhead dialogue can have words that are entirely capitalised.