I had some problems with this too, most notably on my first playthrough when I never got into the inner grove because you basically have to threaten to force your way in before someone remembers, "Oh yeah, Kagha wants to talk to this one." And most of my characters would never do that. Now I just have to ignore the actual line and pretend my character said something else (like, I dunno, "Can I talk to Kagha please?").
Yes. Sometimes It feels like I'm stuck making choices I or my roleplay character doesn't believe in because you have to progress the dialogue/story.