[sad_genius]

There are several sidequests in FFXII that are nice examples of this - all the civilians around the city have a line or so of dialogue that pops up as you walk near them; most of this is scene setting - "I hate how the Empire bosses us around" or somesuch, but occassionally they reference otherparts of the gameworld - a character sitting in a notable place, a guard far away from his colleagues etc ... you can then go and speak to that character, who will often point you to another character or place in the gameworld - none of this is formalised in game, and all the mechanics of who you've talked to and what happens to them is "under the hood" but eventually, for following the whole, often long, strand, you get a nice little in-game reward of an item or whatever. Yakuza does something similar with its sidequests too.