Re: managing NPCs en masse

'Magister' asks about "handling non-combat interaction with a number
of NPCs simultaneously."

I'd suggest that you consider working on your ability to play multiple
characters at one.  Perhaps you could start with scenes where there
are only two gamesmaster characters present - say, the dying king and
the rescued heir only - and once you feel comfortable with those,
gradually start adding more characters into the scenes.

Warren J. Dew