[Radek]

I think, it's a part of a more general - and very desirable - concept. We can call it "do something that makes the things less serious". In MM games, we have Acromage. Another implementation of this idea can be found in Realms of Arkania. For example, you can buy cheeseburgers. They are cheap and they restore your fatigue effectively or - they make you sick [img]graemlins/hehe.gif[/img] Or, you can meet an "old woman", which tries to sell you an amulet. The amulet is usually a useless trinklet but, sometimes, it is a powerful amulet. You can meet a girl, which gives you a silver coin. And so on.

In the other words, allow the player to do something different from killing monsters, getting quests and reporting their completion or failure. He can play cards in inns, search cheeseburgers or old womans with amulets or do something else.
The concept makes the game much more attractive than the "plain" games without the "not so serious" events.