Turns out I didn't quite understand - both about competing party members and about other things that either aren't working properly yet, or aren't implemented, in the Divinity: Original Sin 2 Early Access build. I find that out when I speak with the founder and creative director of Larian Studios, Swen Vincke, after my Early Access playthrough. He puts me straight in the hope I can put you straight, too.
"There is something that is missing in Early Access and that is why you're confused," he tells me. "It's party relations and it's scripting for the companions. Currently what you're doing is you're controlling your party members as if you were to control them all in multiplayer - and that will not be the case when you're playing single-player."
Instead, he says, think of them as companions in Dragon Age: Origins or Baldur's Gate; companions with minds of their own.
"Your companions will have their opinions and you will have to influence them," he says. "You will still be able to walk around in the world as [the character] Red Prince if you, for instance, started as Sebille; what you will not be able to do is affect Red Prince's origin's quest. You will also not be able to affect his relationships."
It's an important clarification because it means you won't give the order for conflict in your party, which was the bit I was struggling to understand. The conflict will happen around you in characters with motivations of their own, and it will be up to you to try and manage them. They are designed to clash, and if you handle them badly they may leave and even attack you. But without the party dialogues at the moment, or a relationship gauge affected by it, it's only really half there.
