Can our local gaming group join and stick together as a party?
Sure. That will probably be the easiest way to play. Like in a tabletop game, the basic adventuring group will consist of a small number of PCs with mutually supporting talents.. If you already have a group of buddies with various characters who are used to playing together, so much the better. However, due to the way the game is structured, a group of players will wind up operating under several different GMs in different sessions, so if your GM joins up too, they may only occasionally be running their normal players as a group.
