[quote=Blackbeard]
My basic point is I want to make an RP, set in a universe with a very very large cast. However I want the group of actual players to be small. How can I make this work without limiting the interaction the players can have? [...]

How do I control a massive cast of characters with only a few Roleplayers?
[/quote]

Whoa, when I first looked at this post, I immediately turned away because I know nothing about Bleach and don't really care to and therefore didn't think I could be of any help. But I skimmed through again and found the real question, which I extracted above, which I think I might be able to throw some ideas at! Hopefully you're still watching this topic and see this.

It might not cover all of the more complex concepts and plotlines, etc. in Bleach, but here's at least a place to start:

What you can do is keep a massive document (or if you're experienced enough to make/already have a resource that can do a billion tabs of info or something) with details about every other character. For your sanity's sake, I'd say to only include important details, like Name, Appearance, Job, specific skills, and then condense every other facet of their lives into bullet points. For example:

[b]Name:[/b] Billy Flyhead
[b]Appearance:[/b] Stereotypical mechanic, slightly overweight, always wears overalls and has smudges of oil on his face.
[b]Job:[/b] Airship Mechanic
[b]Special Skills:[/b][list][*] Can fly
[*] Can speak [i]ALL[/i] European languages[/list]
[b]Personality Details:[/b][list][*] Determined
[*] Will never compromise his dignity, no matter the cost
[*] OCD
[*] Flaky
[*] get the idea?[/list]

That's just a thought. I think the most important detail is to condense as much as you can and improvise based on "hot button" words/topics/ideas that speak to how the character would act in a given situation. Just be orderly so you can get the information quickly and easily.

From there, you'd still have the difficult task of being the sole conduit through which these NPCs speak. [s]If you allow your RP's players to view the document and link to a particular person every time they are mentioned, then maybe you can trust your players to speak for the NPCs and interact fairly with them as their own characters. A bit meta, but I feel like it would go smoothly if everyone understood that they need to be true to the characters if they speak for them.[/s] [b]EDIT:[/b] Just re-read your post and realized this is more or less what you already said would be a problem. In that case, I would say to either just allow that [i]OR[/i] split the RP into smaller tasks/scenes/sub-stories. You can have a huge, overarching story and world, but no character in the moment knows all of that. You can move from task to task, having a huge series of smaller stories that you go through one by one, or at the same time if you think you can juggle it... I'm not sure at that point, though. It sounds extremely complicated and potentially unnecessary to have this massive repository of fully fleshed-out NPCs if you're not going to be encountering all of them all the time... maybe just a few NPCs that [i]you[/i] control per "scene" or sub-story?

What do you think?