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SPOILER INFO
This article discusses the mod Interesting NPCs thoroughly and reveals a lot about what it does in the game. No spoilers outside of that mod.
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I am really at loss as to whether or not to recommend Interesting NPCs (INPC for short). On the one hand, it contained some things I wouldn't want to have missed. On the other hand it's a fact that one of the main reasons why I decided to abandon my game after 300+ real-time hours was because I couldn't stand INPC anymore. (The more important reason was that I had found great many interesting mods which I wanted to add to my game, but I didn't want to do it mid-game.)
One can clearly see that INPC intends to be shocking. Shocking as in a boy running into his sister's room, farting, and running out laughing hysterically.
Think about the difference between
a) holding a speech insisting that it is morally right to steal, and
b) bursting in with guns and taking the money.
Interesting NPCs is the former, not the latter.
I mean, this mod adds many NPCs to your game who are like "I know I'm bad but I like it. It's all right to be bad." One can see how the author of INPC is impregnated with political correctness to his core, so that it doesn't even occur to him that a person who is really "bad" from the point of view of the official Yanker morality doesn't actually think of himself as bad, and doesn't walk around justifying his “badness” to the others. I mean, this is so elementary that I'm even at loss how to explain it.
Or look at another example – there is an INPC woman who first tells you how she was captured by the bandits, locked up in a cage and sexually abused. After she has made it thoroughly clear to you, she reveals that it has happened to her repeatedly. And when that has been made clear, she says she likes it. That woman is a textbook Yanker wimp's wet dream. The man who wrote that character has obviously no idea how submissive women talk in the real world.
I was amazed to read the author of INPC referring to his characters as "three-dimensional". In fact, many of them are barely one-dimensional. Apparently "three-dimensional" in his language means "shocking to the average American who has been trained to political correctness to the point that he will wet his pants upon hearing someone as much as suggest that it may be acceptable to torture animals or to enslave people".
Things like a Nord speaking the elven dialect is really the smallest of INPC's flaws. The real problem is the ueberboring sameness of those supposedly interesting NPCs. You will meet one person after another who speaks with a deepish breathyish zombyish voice and makes you listen to a really really really really long succession of words which is apparently meant to be profound and deep, but has in fact no meaningful content. After you've spoken to 5 or 10 of those pseudophilosophers talking with the same intonation and expressing the same attitude, you'll be able to recognize most INPC characters in seconds. After 15 or 20 such "interesting" encounters, you'll be hearing yourself moan "No, not another one!"
I admit, 250 NPC's: that is impressive. But it's also impressive how little variety there is. And they so stick out with their weirdness. I mean, at one point I began looking up the NPCs who were remarkably loony, and I was rather astonished to see how they one after another turned out to be added by INPC. In other words, while not every INPC character is a weirdo creep, virtually every weirdo creep in Skyrim is created by INPC.
But...
Even a blind hen sometimes finds a grain of corn.
There was Amalee who was really cute and nice. While the followers' gabbing is usually unbearable, she somehow said things that were (mostly) amusing even after the tenth repetition. A really well-written, credible woman. Eventually, though, I got fed up with her blabber preventing me from listening to the NPCs' conversations. So I sent her away. That was after I'd had her for 120 real-time hours, and that is Impressive with a capital "I". A long time later I took her back, but realized quickly that I could stand her no longer. I really appreciate the pleasure she gave me, but I wouldn't take her again.
Then there was Sylphiron whom I have written about in another article. She is the sole reason why I am seriously considering using INPC in my next game after all. I mean, there were about 12 characters in INPC whom I would like to keep, but Sylphiron is the only one the loss of whom breaks my heart.
There is a suggestion on the INPC home page that you can use the console command disable to get rid of the NPCs you don't like. But in my case it would mean deleting 230+ of those 250+ INPC-created characters, as well as listening to seconds of utterly retarded word vomit a couple hundred times. I'm not sure I can endure that. So I'm going to have a very hard decision to make before my next game.
And finally, there was Jadro'Ra.
It is a staggering paradox that in a mod as consistently nonsensical as INPC, there was a character who touched my soul more deeply than everything else in Skyrim combined. For a considerable time, I actually began to cry almost every time when remembering him. That said, Jadro'Ra is not the reason to include INPC in my next game. On the contrary, I most definitely don't want to go through talking to him again. Jadro'Ra is dead, avenged, and can now rest in peace.
And avenge Jadro'Ra I did, with vengeance. I exterminated everyone who had the slightest guilt in his death. I even condemned Olivia Meronin to death for being such a cruel, heartless bitch to the very end. I mean, in the final part of the quest it became clear to me that her blatant racist insults on Jadro'Ra in the past had not been jokes between close friends. She actually was a mean and inconsiderate person. So I dropped her permanently tied in a location frequently visited by bandits. After a while she was no longer there and the Hall of the Radiant was still empty. Case closed.
The bottom line: a very small part of Interesting NPCs is actually interesting. But that very small part may merit including it in your game. Or not. Would you consent to having a hundred men piss into your mouth if you got a Maserati as a prize?
[originally published 2016-12-21]
Added two years later:
During my next game of 500+ hours, I didn't miss INPC for one second. In fact, I've practically forgotten all about it and am convinced more than ever that it's a silly and pointless mod.
