This is very interesting, because a similar thing happened to me. A new player approached me looking for some mushrooms, and I ended up selling him some swords and leading him to the leather dealer. After that, we buddied each other. From what I gather, he's not much of a RPer, but I can understand. I think I'll try to look out for him, and try to pass on some RPing in exchange.
Perhaps we could get a large group of RPers to do this, with a petition or something. Or even pitch this idea to the Game masters...

(P.S. Am I being hypocritical if I use smileys?

I guess I'd be pretty embarrassed.

I might even look stupid.

)