Exactly. "I want more tension, where party members might leave if we don't do their thing, but I don't want them to nag us about doing their thing" seems to sum that up pretty well.
I can't tell if you're trying to point out a contradiction. If the characters
leave that solves the nagging problem neatly.
I am. It's true though, if they leave, there's no more nagging. But when I see things like this, I'm reminded of Sten, from Dragon Age Origins, who will outright try to kill you if you're not doing what he thinks you should be doing. Leliana and Wynne from the same game, at the Urn of Sacred Ashes comes to mind as well. With the last two, however, there's a specific trigger that fires that off, and it can be avoided, if you built your Warden a specific way.
That said, I'm still not down with just removing them because they're not in the party at a specific point, unless there's something that can explain it besides "but we like to do this".
