Why have a party? Why align with a faction?

[Solonik]

Something I don't really notice in RPGs that often is *the* real reason to have a party / join a faction / have powerful friends. This real reason is that people generally stay away from you if they "know who you are," not because they are scared of you personally, but because they know that SOMEONE will come if something should happen to you. On the contrary, factions often have enemies and are viewed in a certain way. Yet you rarely see this executed. At best it's something like "If you join x faction, you get a discount at their store / faction y hates you (if that)." Yet, these could have far more significant implications.

 

On another, related note, there is often a strong incentive not to walk around alone at night in real life. If you are alone, you are much easier to manage for muggers / rapists / etc. In a third world country, you might get hit over the back of the head with a brick for your wallet, and that's that. Yet "ambushing" 2-3 people is exponentially harder than doing it to one person, and raises the chance of having to fight at all. In other words, taking out one person is FAR safer than taking on a group. Yet this fact is almost never accounted for in games.

 

Just wanted to throw that out there.