Originally Posted by Elwyn
Here is my crazy dream:

No generic NPC's like "a citizen" or a "skeleton" or "a guard". Every (I mean really every!) NPC should have a personality and unique dialogue lines. Depending on your charma you can then talk and take up quests from zombies/ghouls etc.

One of the things I liked about Oblivion was the almost total absence of generic NPCs (well, other than the random mobs of marauders etc that would pop up) and it seems that nearly all had something unique going on with them.

I tried to do the same in a rather overly ambitious mod I never finished and probably had the most fun of all creating unique NPCs with their own schedules, living spaces and so on; and since voice work was out of the question I'd leave odd letters and other randomness around to indicate some sort of life and personality.

That wasn't what eventually killed my mod, though: well, it was the mission creep really ("add a few NPCs to the castles!" someone suggested, but it wasn't so long before the cities were starting to have entire new districts added to them). It was the cluttering. Clutter fatigue really is a thing.

J'aime le fromage.