LAST EDITED ON Dec-29-16 AT 02:44 AM (Pacific)Characters of differing alignment can't join at the tavern, however if you enter the dungeon with one group, leave the party while they're in the dungeon, and then send a second group into the dungeon, you can have the two groups join together regardless of alignment, so alignment should never pose a real issue that way.
Also, the DOS version is buggy with respect to stat gains - they will often trend downward, or be wildly variable even for young characters, compared to trending upwards towards 18s for young characters as they're supposed to. The DOS version was the first I played and I always wondered why my stats constantly sucked. Then I played other versions and had reliable stat gains on young characters and realized it's a bug specific to the DOS version.