Why I dislike arbitrary head-count limits in RPGs

Why do I dislike arbitrary head-count limits in RPGs? Because it doesn't FEEL like 'customize your party how you want' it feels like you're being EXCLUDED from part of the dialogue and character development making replays of the game feel MANDATORY rather than optional. 

Having one permanent character, and two selectable characters out of a party of 20 or 40 doesn't make me excited at all the possible party combinations, it makes me feel sad about all the possible dialogue and narrative I'll miss. 

There ARE games that play with the head limit WITHOUT having to resort to the rest of the PCs floating in limbo. 

In Lunar 2, you do indeed have a head-count limit of 5, but... when you start out as a party of 1, you have a smart talking familiar who acts as a little extra attacker for the weak monsters early in the game. Then you get temporally a party healer as the second party member who has debuff skills that don't appear anywhere later in the game (which is actually a game mechanic first the first real boss has a self-buff spell).

And then you get a incredibly overpowered character for your return trip through the first dungeon. She loses her power just before the first boss, spending a good chunk of the early bit of the game as a 1 HP place holder who can perform no action except move about on the fight scene. 

She is also NOT under your control and she just does what she wants (she stays consistent through the game, she is also not listed as having Mana limit nor a level, only a HP total, nor does she have any apparent EX level THAT YOU CAN SEE!). But once the curse is removed later in the game, she doesn't gain back her unlimited power instantly, but does slowly. Also, her AI starts out only interested in protecting herself, but after some character develop she focuses on defending and buffing the hero. 

And this is when the first party healer permanently leaves the party. So you're stuck with just yourself your familiar who grows less useful until near the end of the game where she gets a major power boast, and a useless 1 HP deathly ill teammate. 

You then get a new party healer with a different spell set.

This is followed by a distance attacker with some debuff spell. 

THEN you get your Black Mage.

So you have a party of 5. 

Then come a part of the quest where two party members (black mage and distance attacker) are forced to stay put as insurance while you, and the white knight whose been pursuing you most of the game team up to save the port town from destruction. Then your party goes back to its normal dynamics. 

But then your party splits up, and finds out just how deep the corruption goes (and this was actually a SHOCK back then opposed to a mandatory arbitrary twist that isn't even a surprise anymore), and it's just you, and your love interest and familiar as your explore the capital. 

Then it stuck with just you and your familiar after you're all locked up. And the white knight in a disguise that fools nobody arrives to break you out and then you can break out your three normal teammates in any order you wish, at which point the white knight leaves the party again, and you find and rescue your love interest. 

After escaping, the white knight challenges you to a duel, as it's the only honorable way he can bring himself to hand over the macguffin you need to empower the white dragon. He also gives you his landship.

When you face the nemesis of the distance fighter, she gains a completely new move set (and losing her old one) and becomes a melee fighter instead with several martial arts based tricks. 

Your ship is impounded when facing the black mage's nemesis (you get it back afterwards), AND your party gets split away from the martial artist and your healer and have to find them in the next dungeon to add them back to the party.

Finally, when facing the nemesis of your healer, he goes inside her soul to rescue the real her, while your party faces the monster she becomes, with the white knight helping fight her (who happens to be his SISTER!). This is also the ONLY TIME the white knight and your love interest fight side by side as party members. And you and the white knight party ways again. 

Then, during what looks to be the final, your love interest leaves the party once again. And your party loses all spell and spell-like abilities due to her absorbing all magic in the world. 

And due to hesitating the blow up the world to kill the god of evil, she ends up being swallowed up as a battery by said villain (just as the villain gambled would happen!).

Your white knight joins your party afterwards. And you have one battle with the nominal second in command of the villain, who really just wanted you to awaken a separate magic, which you do halfway through the fight, and is stripped of his un-life for his betray of the big bad. 

When you read the final battle, the heroine gives the entire party a HP and MP restoration after you survive a handful of round inspiring her, but she mostly just floats there otherwise. THEN when the villain is pretty much already beaten, it's down to just you and your love interest to take him out, this fight is MEANT to be amazingly easy compared to the brutal final boss from before, since the villain has already had it and you're just finishing him off. 

Your party splits up, and you and your love interest head back to where they met, after since the world is saved, she goes back to where she came from, but you vow to find a way to follow here. Then you can recruit your teammates in any order you choose, and they WON'T take no for an answer, and not in a 'but thou must' sort of way either for helping you, and the white knight becomes your fifth teammate for good. 

The final battle to reach your love interest is a one on one fight with the guardian of the way there, but it's indeed a formal test rather than a fight to the end (at least FOR HIM, not so much you). 

I brought this up, because this felt like the RIGHT WAY to handle a head-count limit WITH it being a NATURAL part of the story rather than "these characters just... sit on their butts doing... something because you didn't select them for the party."