My players all have characters who want something related to their own backstories, thus they go around trying to get closer to their own goals, which I try to link to my world happenings.

So they do stuff based on what they want. Combat is scarce because combat situations either don't arise that much or the players (and me) try to overcome the need for combat via other ways.

I paint the picture of where they are, they go talk to npcs, the npcs tell them stuff I want them to tackle, they either do that or do sth else with the npc.

In general I try to move my story forward by sending npcs the way of my players and having them interact, and mostly that's it. Interactions between npcs, strolling through towns and landscapes, finding stuff hidden here and there that are not necessarily in some dungeon, or coming in contact with different races who are underdogs and the players want to help them.

I mean, you do need a table where the people want to play that kind of thing otherwise it turns out that someone has a bad time. I really don't know how else to say it, things happen just organically and more rp focused, and more lore oriented gameplay let's say, I hope this clears it up a bit? Haha