Revamp NPC need anythings
Just a few cents.

I haven't really cooked this idea thoroughly yet, but I'm posting it anyway. I've personally never been a fan of automated systems for income that have no player involvement in them at all. I'm not against automated income, but I believe there should be a PC involved in there for a PC-to-PC interaction even if it's mostly an automated system if possible.

My thought was this: much like MacGuffins, there should be a system in which populated factions (empty factions can still use the old NPC ask systems) get weekly requests, automated, chosen from a pool of items/things that the faction would require thematically. This could be for example a specimen from some creature out in the Badlands or in the sewers for VS, an illegally modded quickterm for NLM, it could be a hatchet for the Snakes, whatever - really this part isn't difficult to figure out.

However I'd like these 'finds' to be done through the PCs who populate that faction, much like MacGuffins in which those PCs turn them in to the faction head NPC or the faction HQ. In return, they get an additional pool of reimbursement chy to pay people for these jobs every week.

For those concerned about the ones playing in graveyard hours: those PCs can simply use the Grid to make a post announcing what they're looking for and set up dead drops accordingly via mail and all that stuff.

TLDR: make the PC the middleman for the NPC ask jobs in factions which have populated members similar to how MacGuffins were.

(Edited by Cowbell at 7:08 am on 9/29/2025)

Candy is almost entirely supplied by PCs. Even if these players run a vending machine or a shop. It's hardly without interaction.

It doesn't have to drop price of anything, especially since prices are already established as it is. You're a junior NSEC agent and your senior NSEC agent orders a crate of v-202 every week because they're addicted and because they can and they use company funds for it: you serve their coffee, you serve their v-202, so it's up to you to feed their addiction. I think that's an amusing thought and would be a fun IC RP hook.

This can also just be an additional aspect of NPC asks rather than outright replace it entirely - maybe if we're introducing time limits to need anythings now, something like this could encourage people to seek out those PCs to supplement their income instead.

No, the boss IS the NPC. It's like how MacGuffins worked. I don't know how to explain it for people who weren't around for MacGuffins, but automatically one would spawn every week where it had certain tasks it required you to do, and then you'd drop it back in your office once finished where it'd be automatically completed.

This'd be like walking into your office on Monday and finding a requisitions order there which says shit like:
5x vials of v-202
2x quickterms
4x hatchets

And then you fulfill it the best you can. The explanation for the v-202 being there is that, well, somewhere up the chain there's an NPC boss who needs drugs for their addiction and you're fulfilling it.