Pfff, Milliways is not a time sink unless you really want it to be. I put a character into play like once every few months. And I haven't written actual fanfiction in something like a year. :P

But yeah, if you don't want monsters it's basically going to have to be a pure role-playing game, and I'm not sure what you'd do that would be very interesting. I feel like it would end up the equivalent of Princess Maker, in RPG form.