I'm just going to say it, Dark Souls and the other From Software souls games (including Bloodborne) feature character questlines that usually involve you finding or freeing them from obscure areas, or going through an esoteric series of actions (kill this thing, but only before this boss, but make sure to go back to this area and talk to them, etc) in order to further their stories.

Very rarely do you have to actually get something for a character (and almost no fetch quests, since nobody will tell you what you need to fetch, outside of vague mysterious hints), and usually it's because they're a merchant who needs a better item to power up the wares they sell to you.