Both.

Basically NPCs will have wants/needs and they will also have skills available to them. If a town has an open farm and a NPC has farming skills there is a chance the farmer would approach the owner of the farm and ask to buy it/rent or work it.

As the entire world is procedurally generated before players even arrive all positions will be held by NPCs and these npcs will continue to hold those jobs until a player takes them over or they get angry and lose favor with their boss and move on.

Just keep in mind for a npc to sign a contract they have to initiate it. The AI won't be smart enough to weigh custom contract clauses so rather than allow players to scam/exploit the AI, contracts between players and NPCs have to be NPC initiated.

Just keep in mind unless those guards are your direct children at anytime they could be "inhabited" by a new player.

As new players join the game they pick a family and then an NPC to take over from that family. So it is possible your personal guard could end up being PC controlled.

I thought a new player would start with a young character, not just any random (or selected) NPC somewhere.

Posted By Kurko at 09:45 AM - Fri Dec 02 2016

I thought a new player would start with a young character, not just any random (or selected) NPC somewhere.

If that character is in the family line of their player character they will be available to take over for a story point price. You can take over any NPC regardless of age so long as you have the story points and they show up on your list.

All based on the Down the rabbit hole journal

As for exposition everyone with a title will likely start as a NTC or non traditional character that is older. Has been mentioned wouldn't make sense for everyone to all be 14 and be kings, Dukes ect.

I do understand why you can take over any NPC with story point, but I do hope some NPC's can be blocked or that they account for everything in the ammount of SP needed as It could make for exploits bunch of random dudes who all decide to take over guards in the royal ducal or count's guards let an assassin do his job and a vasal working with them could take over the title.

and before someone says it, I'm not against loosing my title I even expect it, but I expect them to outsmart me, outdo me, gain my trust, but please do not let them use the SP mechanics to get their way around all of that nice roleplay.