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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 5189922" data-attributes="member: 29398">There are many ways a DM can cause a bunch of characters to form a party simply by using story elements.In real life if you were out in the field and down a man or two, and came across someone who had some skills that could help you out, you'd most likely take him in and worry about questions later if at all.Not all new characters join up in controlled situations. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Depends on the game.  At game start, you're right: pretty much anything goes.  However I've seen numerous occasions where a PC trying to join an established party has been rejected, or even mistakenly assumed to be enemy and killed outright.You're making a whole bunch of assumptions about what your players want based on what you want.It's clear you want a game where it's the unified party vs. the world/game/bad guys/whatever.  But your players might be quite happy with a game where inter-party disputes are every bit as vicious; where you're never quite sure who has your back or who's about to put a knife in it.It's a "group game" only inasmuch as there's a group of people playing it at the same time.  Nothing says they have to be playing as a unified group.Lanefan</blockquote>