Post Script

Received wisdom - or, at least, prevailing narrative fashion-proposes that maintaining a consistent band of fellow adventurers is the best I way to create a sense of team-based camaraderie and closeness in fiction. After all, where would Frodo be without Sam and Aragorn? Or Cloud without Barrett and Tifa? Or Shadowheart without Astarion and Gale? The fellowship of any band of adventurers would, tradition suggests, be undercut if the hero had to work with a rotating cast of party members. It's one of many conventions overturned by Dragon's Dogma 2, in which the protagonist is supported by one loyal but dispensable pawn, who levels up alongside you, and up to two additional pawns, who are borrowed from other players across the network.
To fill out your team you must enter a kind of mystical waiting room where the game presents you with a small crowd of options from which you choose your two additional compatriots. Pick a pawn of a similar level to your character and you won't be charged any resources to recruit them. Alternatively, you can spend Rift Crystals to substitute in a more powerful supporting candidate. Naturally, the higher their level, the greater the cost involved. Crucially, however, once you hit the road, this pawn will remain at a fixed level, also retaining the fixed abilities their creator gave them. Like buying a new car, then, a high-value pawn's value quickly diminishes as you close the distance between your level and theirs.
These two supplemental pawns are, by design, only supposed to journey alongside you for a few days until the point at which you outgrow them, when you will swap in new recruits to take their place. A duplicate of your own primary pawn, meanwhile, assists other players in their worlds, returning, sometimes with gifts, whenever you rest at an inn. Rather than undermine your sense of attachment to the gameworld and your allies within it, this revolving cast of friendly interlopers brings delicious variety and interest to the story. Brilliantly, pawns come not only in different shapes, sizes, genders and races, but also with differing temperaments. This keeps the pawn chatter from becoming stale and familiar.
While you travel the world, your group of pawns bicker, scold and occasionally issue sassy commentary on your choices as a leader. Sometimes they clash with one another, and issue barbed comments; sometimes they bond and enjoy a high-five after a successful battle. If a pawn has already visited an area with, as they put it, their "own master", they offer to guide you to caves and treasure chests they discovered in their previous journey (and might provide a passive-aggressive comment if you ignore their suggestions).
Likewise, if you perform an impressive feat in combat, or find something they had not seen before, they express surprise and delight at it, promising to take this information back home with them. There are moments of genuine humour in these interactions. "I wonder whether my master found that chest," a pawn might quip. "But somehow I doubt it."
As well as providing support during combat, pawns provide a range of other benefits. For example, they will catch you when you fall from a great height, remind you to light your lamp when exploring in darkness, an...