History Main / ArbitraryHeadcountLimit

** Each nation also has a cap on the number of leaders that can be recruited, which is shared across scientists, governors, and admirals.

See also {{Cap}}, UniquenessRule and YouRequireMoreVespeneGas. Kind of related to ConservationOfNinjitsu, SerendipityWritesThePlot, and ConstructAdditionalPylons. Will often invoke LazyBackup when less than half your party at a time can actually fight. When applied to temporary things like active bullets, it's OneBulletAtATime.

***

** In [[VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicII the second game]], there is a sequence where the Exile is captured and sent to G0-T0's yacht in orbit above Nar Shaddaa. The team mounts a rescue mission (along with reformed bounty hunter Mira) to save them... and yet, you can only take two people ''total'' to the yacht, which is done so that the Exile will inevitably resume control of the party when they are rescued. There is no in-game explanation for this, despite there likely being several highly capable squadmates at this point.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Pikmin}}'' series of games caps the total number of Pikmin on the field at any one time at 100. If you try to spawn any more the main character notes that the Pikmin "refuse to come out." The characters theorize that it might be a [[HandWave survival tactic to make sure an entire colony doesn't get wiped out at once]].

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Homeworlds}}'', there can be no more than three [[note]] (more precisely N+1, where N is the number of players) [[/note]] pieces of a given size and color combination in play at once. The limit is shared between players, and is shared between spaceships and stars (which are represented using the same physical pieces). This means that, for example, building three large red spaceships prevents your opponent from building red spaceships of their own or discovering any large red stars. Restricting your opponent's access to pieces by building them first is a key part of the game's strategy.

* On maps with Command Terminals, deployment limit will be reduced initially until the player can activate the terminals.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' has two of these. The first is the party size limit, or how many operators you can bring with you per mission. In general, most missions will allow you to bring up to 13 operators at a time: 12 operators of your own, and 1 support operator that you can borrow from other players. The second one is the deployment slot limit, or how many operators you can actually bring out at a time in the map. Unlike the party size limit, deployment limits are dependent on the mission. Certain operators, however, can bypass this limit but with caveats.

** Certain maps and events have challenge missions that further reduces the limit of either of the two headcounts, but never both. In fact, selecting the challenges in the Contingency Contract even will always cross one out if the other is picked.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' has two of these. The first is the party size limit, or how many operators you can bring with you per mission. In general, most missions will allow you to bring up to 13 operators at a time: 12 operators of your own, and 1 support operator that you can borrow from other players. The second one is the deployment slot limit, or how many operators you can actually bring out at a time in the map. Unlike the party size limit, deployment limits are dependent on the mission. Certain operators, however, can bypass this limit with certain caveats.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' has two of these. The first is the party size limit, or how many operators you can bring with you per mission. In general, most missions will allow you to bring up to 13 operators at a time: 12 operators of your own, and 1 support operator that you can borrow from other players. The second one is the deployment slot limit, or how many operators can you actually bring out at a time in the actual map. Unlike the party size limit, deployment limits are dependent on the mission. Certain operators, however, can bypass this limit with certain caveats.

* ''VideoGame/{{Arknights}}'' has two of these. The first is the party size limit, or how many operators you can bring with out per mission. In general, most missions will allow you to bring up to 13 operators at a time: 12 operators of your own, and 1 support operator that you can borrow from other players. The second one is the deployment slot limit, or how many operators can you actually bring out at a time in the actual map. Unlike the party size limit, deployment limits are dependent on the mission. Certain operators, however, can bypass this limit with certain caveats.

* ''VideoGame/TheEndTimesVermintide'' and ''VideoGame/VermintideII'': Only four of the [[SpecificallyNumberedGroup Ubersreik Five]] can be played at a time, a fact that's {{lampshade|Hanging}} in banter about the absence.

*** In the TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, your whole team gets to participate. However, you can still only have two squadmates with you, which depending at the point is either {{justified}} or playing this ludicrously straight. In the "Long Walk" segment your Biotic specialist explicitly states that they cannot create a field big enough to cover everyone, so you take a small group with you while the rest lead a diversion. When you go to confront the final boss, you take two people with you while everyone else stays being to HoldTheLine, and it makes a certain amount of sense to leave as many people behind as possible. The weird part is the first section. The tech specialist is in a thermal vent, and as such cannot be used, and another squadmate is leading the second group. If you have recruited everyone, and no one is dead yet that means (for no clear reason) you are leading a group of 3 (yourself and two companions), while the other group is made up of ''nine'' people, instead of a more balanced division.

* This trope hits much harder for the {{Space Marine}}s inside ''[[VideoGame/DawnOfWar Dawn of War 2]]'''s multiplayer - you'll generally be able to have around 8 infantry squads for them, or more likely around 5 if they are upgraded with a sergeant. The standard squad size for the them is 3, potentially 4 if you get a sergeant. With a cap of 100 population with generally 5 for one SpaceMarine squad member, needless to say, you won't have many men out at one time. Other races may have around two or three times as many for their infantry squads at the same rough cost, however. The most infantry one may have at one time in the multiplayer is 98 Rippers for the Tyranids. But, Rippers are pretty much {{Redshirt}}s, so don't expect much from such an army.

** In-Universe, due to the the structure of the Aurbis (loosely, the universe or "totality"), the number of [[OurGodsAreDifferent Daedric Princes]] is limited. Any other powerful Daedra are considered "lords" but not true Princes. However, there have been instances of "new" Princes coming into being, though each instance to date seems to be a case of LoopholeAbuse, with a sphere being "split" or something similar. Examples including [[BeastOfTheApocalypse Alduin]] "cursing" [[OmnicidalManiac Mehrunes]] [[PersonOfMassDestruction Dagon]] to his role, [[ManipulativeBastard Boethiah]] [[HijackingCthulhu "eating" and corrupting]] [[WarGod Trinimac]] into [[OurOrcsAreDifferent Malacath]], and [[MadGod Sheogorath]] passing that mantle [[DeityOfHumanOrigin onto a mortal]] to become [[ControlFreak Jyggalag]] full-time.

** Moreover, the limit is on ships of a given size - 50 fighters of any kind, xx corvettes of any kind, 18 frigates of any kind, 4 destroyers, 4 carriers, and three cruisers) - which could lead to not being able to build more fighters but being quite capable of building a whole pile of corvettes that would all be turned to scrap metal in under three seconds.
*** Except one: Hiigaran Mothership/Vaygr Flagship. It is possible (as far as official 1.1 patch is concerned) to have a 6-player match and ending up with each player's flagship as your own. DidntSeeThatComing did you?

** Even with attempts to justify its final chapter unit limit, ''Radiant Dawn'' is hit pretty hard with this since, [[{{Permadeath}} provided you didn't allow anyone to die]], and recruited every possible character, you'll have '''over 70 different units''' by the endgame (the largest canon army of playable characters in the series at the time! [[note]] only beaten later by the remake of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemMysteryOfTheEmblem''![[/note]]), but can only bring '''17''' with you. Most likely, over half the spots will be taken by mandatory characters (Ike, Micaiah, Sothe, etc) and [[OneManArmy the]] [[GameBreaker Laguz]] [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking Royals]], with the rest being whatever characters you fancied enough to grind into total badasses.

-->-- '''[[VideoGame/PhantasyStarIV Chaz]]''', ''[[http://www.phantasy-star.net/cwe/conversations5.html Conversations Within Elsydeon]]''

* The ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' Trading Card Game is a rather... alternative version of this. There are several rules for constructing one's Deck, and they change quite often to fit the newest anime-rules. Currently, there must be ''at least'' 40 cards in a deck, 60 at most, and a player can only have 3 copies of each card in their deck, regardless of how many cards they have. Then there's the Extra Deck and Side Deck (the latter of which only serves as extra cards to switch with between matches), both of which are currently limited to 15 cards, though originally, the Extra deck could have 30 and the Side Deck was unlimited. And just to add to the arbitrarity of the rules, some cards are Semi-Limited, Limited or Forbidden, reducing the maximum number of copies you can use by 1, 2 and 3 respectively. Yes. That's right. The producers have made cards that are so powerful nobody is allowed to use them. And then there are some rather less potent cards on the Forbidden List as well. A few of those cards, however, only remain on the Forbidden List because their OCG-versions are still utterly broken.

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII''. Specifically coming to save a friend of yours, but not being able to lead her out of the dungeon of the BigBad because your party was full (There actually was a dialogue option that said this). At least Bioware added an optional NPC that would betray you at a very convenient time, opening a slot for the DistressedDamsel, if you had him with you.

'''Stone Dragon:''' [[PrecisionFStrike FUCK YOU.]]\\