Instead of having a single main character who has friends and allies, have a small number of characters (Three to five) who are ALWAYS in the party (Unless people die) and who are ALL treated as of equal importance and stuff. And have them all friends from the start or something similar. I'm sick of games where the sidelined playable characters are so much cooler than the main character (Zell/Selphie v Squall, Cid/Nanaki v Cloud, Lulu/Wakka v Tidus/Yuna, and so forth.).

Also, if people were to die, don't replace them with identical characters.

And give players more choices. If they want to pay a hostage ransom, let them. And then let them hunt down everyone the hostage taker cares about. That sort of thing.