I like NRP because most of the times if a storyline isn't working and provided it's self-contained enough I can drop it and move to any of the other half-dozen I'm operating at the same time within my "nation". And then when so much time has passed where I feel I can reboot the dropped story I can go back to that on the drop of a hat.

There's something liberating about playing NRP as a multi-character RP and not a stat-based, text-based version of Civ 5.