A comprimise for in-depth versus background characters

[Dar]

The idea is that the NPC's all have secrets and life stories and whatnot, but finding them out is difficult, and can't be simply done with dialogue. This will let the pro-commoner people play without finding the personalities, but the pro-depth players can seek it out and find it
EDIT: I should really have given a potential example, so here goes:

An Imperial named Albanus Annius comes off as a firmly uptight and traditional guy until you notice a lute in his chest upstairs. The chest should be under his bed and decently hard to reach. Opening the chest would spout a journal entry, and on talking to Albanus, an addTopic would give the player to (without prompt from the NPC) ask about the lute. He'll deny having had it until you come to his wife and she reminisces about the man she fell in love with being a travelling bard until some tragedy happened and he decided to be a no-fun-allowed type of guy. It could either end there, or PC could try to return him to his former self and help to rekindle their marriage

BUT

unless you dig around his room and find the loot, none of this at all is mentioned, so they're still just common NPCs to those who don't deliberately search their house

[Wel-Gordhaur]

I really like this idea. I think it would be great if NPCs on Vvardenfell had this kind of subtle detail, too. Some do, of course, but not all.

[Why]

While I like this idea, implementing things like this takes quite a lot more work than making NPCs in a more traditional way. I wouldn't be opposed to having a few of these instances, but this digging for depth shouldn't become a gimmick attached to every single NPC. It can certainly be done for the more important NPCs though, and to add some flavor here and there.

Given that we're a hobby project and manpower is limited, adding content is always a careful balancing act. Having hidden little details is fun, I know, but in the end the more visible things need to be fleshed out before the details.