Counterfactuals and the perception of game mechanics

[Darth Ultron]

I was referring to the times were the players will fondly recount "and then [my character name] died", although I didn't actually say that the first time. You have any of those?

Well, character death is not exactly a ''fond" type memory. It's more like a break up memory, like remember when you broke up with your high school sweetheart?

It took 3-5 five deaths for the player to learn that lesson? I can usually get that down to 0 character deaths and trips back to town. Sure it does not scare the lesson into them the same way (although considering they just seem to be remaking the same character, not a lot of emotional investment there) but it takes a lot less time.

I find everywhere that it often takes people 3-5 or more times to learn something....and some never learn. Sure in Edgars case he remade a wizard each time, but his group was one of the groups that falsely believed they must have one of each 'type' of character in the group.

What do you mean "don't make one-trick ponies"? As long as you acknowledge that they have one-trick and play appropriately it can work. Some of my best characters have had only one trick. Maybe it is harder to make work, but it is do-able.

Well, this is more on game style. My game is half combat and half role playing, and you can expect a lot of non combat encounters. And a lot of encounters that can be either. And I don't do the very special type of limited games where everything fits into a tiny box.

But one trick ponies, even more so, the all and only combat ones...can only fight. As half of the game will not be fighting, this has such a character at a huge disadvantage. And it's far more worse when the character is over specialized to do one thing.

Can a one trick pony character work....yes, but it all falls back on the players gaming.

This is the real issue with martial/caster disparity in my mind. There are plenty of awesome martial character concepts that I will never get to play in D&D because the game just can't handle it.

What do you mean?