So I’m playing Dragon Age and loving every minute of it. It’s a fantastic story and world that you can really get into if you let yourself. However, I’ve run into a problem, not with the game, but rather an issue that I’ve faced in every party-based RPG that I’ve ever played.

You see, I get attached to my initial party members. Whoever they are, the first people to join my party (in this case, my dog, Alistair and Morrigan) are the ones I grow attached to, and by the time I have the option to add more people to my party, I’ve adventured alongside them enough that the idea of swapping them out with some stranger is nigh unthinkable.

On the one hand, I know I’m doing myself a bit of disservice, because I’m not experiencing these additional characters’ stories. But at the same time, I’m used to the people I’ve got at this point. I know their abilities, I’ve even helped customize them a bit. It’s not entirely out of the question that I will start and finish the game with the same four characters.

So while I know there are people that play through swapping characters every hour like some sort of flavor of the moment, how many party loyalists are there out there? Is this common? If you do it, why?

Color me curious.