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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"No no no, you don't understand. You see, I only had one ring left to protect my teammates from being in the Edge, so I had to leave the rest behind. I mean, [[Who Would Be Stupid Enough...?|what kind of idiot]] goes into battle with half his team behind? How stupid would you have to-... [[Phantasy Star II|R-Rolf]], why are you beating your head against the wall like that?"'' |'''[[Phantasy Star IV|Chaz]]''', ''[http://www.phantasy-star.net/cwe/conversations5.html Conversations Within Elsydeon]''}}
 
Trope common in [[Real Time Strategy]] games, in which the overall number of units or the count of a particular powerful, but not unique unit are limited by assigning a completely arbitrary [[Cap]] to them. This limit is often far lower than what the resources available or the technical limits of the game engine could allow. Particularly ridiculous when the rule can be broken through scenario design or using a perfectly legitimate game feature. Most often implemented as a way to enforce game balance. It can also be a matter of resources; each unit requires not just rendering power but AI, collision, and other intangibles. This can be partially justified by representing the High Command's reluctance to commit too many resources into one battle when you- in theory- have more than enough resources, though this justification [[Fridge Logic|does not work as well when you are fighting THE climatic battle and yet there are only so many units you can deploy.]]
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However, occasionally it may be hardware related, since processing and showing many units at once can slow a game down considerably to the point where it runs really choppy, particularly on high graphic settings, hence the need to limit how many units one can have at any given time. Since developers have to take console hardware limitations into account, or multiple PC configurations, they will usually try to balance between gameplay, and allowing the game to still run smoothly.
 
Many [[Role Playing Game|Role Playing Games]] have this as well, centered around the three-to-five-person size of the active party. In addition to the [[Hand Wave]] explanations common in [[Real Time Strategy]] games, [[Role Playing Game|Role Playing Games]] can use the plot to explain the size limit. For example, in ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]],'' every time it looks like the party will grow beyond five, one of your current members will discover pressing business elsewhere. Or ''[[The Plot Reaper|die]]''. Or reveal that they had been {{spoiler|a monster in disguise.}} This version has something of a real world justification: many groups would keep a reserve behind to prevent the entire unit from being wiped out in one fell swoop.
 
Recently, the trend of allowing the side characters to "switch out" with the main team is growing, at least in the aforementioned [[Role Playing Game|Role Playing Games]]. If the characters "on the bench" travel along with the main characters but refuse to switch out, or jump in if the active party gets defeated, they're [[Lazy Backup]]. (The [[Gameplay and Story Segregation]] may also explain that all of them are fighting, and the battle scene simply represents it.)
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== Platform Games ==
* The ''enemies'' in ''[[Yoshis Island (Video Game)|Yoshis Island]]'' are subject to this when spawned by pipes or other similar sources. Oddly, the limit depends on ''Yoshi'' - specifically, the number of eggs he has. If the pipe/whatever plus the number of eggs Yoshi has number six or more, it will stop spawning monsters. The real reason, of course, is because these spawn points really only exist to help Yoshi fill up on ammo.
* ''[[Lost Vikings]] 2'' has five playable characters. However, only 3 are present per level. It is [[Lampshaded]] throughout the game.
 
 
== RPG -- Eastern ==
* [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]] in ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'': When you gain a fourth party member (the maximum number of people allowed in your party are three), one of them has to stay behind to hold open a door, later on, when you're all together and travel through a time gate you end up at {{spoiler|the End of Time}}. There you learn that no more than three people can travel to an era without getting redirected, so the remaining party members have to stay while the others are adventuring. However, you can switch them at will, and anytime you go to the {{spoiler|End of Time}}, you can find them standing there.
* The ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' series is a repeated offender:
** The early ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games have very obvious caps on the enemies you can face at once. Nine in ''[[Final Fantasy I (Video Game)|Final Fantasy I]]'' (arranged into a square, even), eight in ''[[Final Fantasy II (Video Game)|Final Fantasy II]]'', and - in the DS remake - '''three''' in ''[[Final Fantasy III (Video Game)|Final Fantasy III]]'' (except for that one time with the frogs).
{{quote| '''Stone Dragon''': Blarg! I'm a dragon. <br />
'''Stone Dragons''': [[Actually Four Mooks|Or twelve!]]<br />
'''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Red Mage]]''': Impossible! Only a maximum of nine enemies may be onscreen! <br />
'''Stone Dragons''': Fuck you. }}
** ''[[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV]]'' as stated above is a prime example of RPGs that explain the party size limit with plot. However, the GBA remake brings just about anyone back to the party before the final dungeon (and the added bonus content), allowing the player to pick his favorites like in most of the later games. There is no real explaination as to why they can't just all go and bash the [[Big Bad]] in the head with superior numbers, though...
*** It does, however, have the most party members available in battle of he main series, with five. The other games have four, or only three.
*** ''[[Final Fantasy IV the After Years (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IV the After Years]]'' takes this one step further in chapter 10 (or the first part of the final chapter on the Wii): Assuming you played all the previous chapters and kept all characters susceptible to a [[Final Death]] alive, you will start the chapter with ten characters. As you complete mandatory quests, six more will join you on your airship (again, assuming you played all the previous chapters). However, the game will not let you swap characters (yet) ''at all'': your team is Rydia, Edge, Luca, and the Man in Black, which ''isn't even a full five characters'', with no explanation given as to why you can't at least pick someone on your airship to fill that empty fifth spot. Later on, you get to pick your team of five (out of twenty-two), which is more standard.
** In ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'', when the party is attempting to land on the Floating Continent from the airship, you are puzzlingly told that you can only take three people along, even though the party limit is four. You find out later that {{spoiler|Shadow is down there waiting for you, and his presence is required at the end of the Floating Continent sequence,}} but still. At the time you can't help wondering what part of this whole plan would be messed up if one extra person went with you.
*** Before that, on the haunted train, you may recruit ghosts to have up to four party members, but if you try for a fifth member, Sabin objects that too many members would slow you down. Frankly, in an area that dangerous, I'd take slow over weak.
*** Later on in [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], though you still have the same party limit, you need to form three parties in order to reach the [[Big Bad]]. The 3 parties merge upon reaching the [[Big Bad]] into a party of 12, while you still fight in groups of four, once the ones in battle are all KO'd, they would be switched with the next in the line up.
** Justified in ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]''. Near the beginning of the game, when the number of allies travelling with the main character exceeds the 'recommended' amount, they split into two groups and arrange to meet up at the next plot-relevant location because, technically, they are all wanted terrorists. It is essentially decided that, since the antagonists are searching for a group of 5 people, they wouldn't stop to question a group of 3 and a group of 2 moving separately.
*** Averted during the final [[Boss Battle]]. Normally, the player controls one group of 3 characters during a battle, but when fighting the [[Big Bad]] the player is allowed to equip ALL 8 characters and may cycle between them at any point in the battle, if it seems like one group is struggling to make progress alone. Not unique, but certainly unusual among RPGs to allow the entire cast to take part in a fight.
*** Then, you have the Fort Condor proto-RTS sequences. The gist of these, according to the inhabitants of the fort, is that they have to hire mercenaries in order to repel attacks by the Shinra. Naturally, they ask you for your monetary contribution. Eventually, you are forced to take an active role as commander, and this involves buying the services of various units and placing them around the battlefield. [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]] rears its ugly head here, because you are limited to placing a maximum of twenty. By the time you reach this sequence, it is entirely possible that you have enough money to fill every square foot of the battlefield with units.
** ''[[Final Fantasy IX (Video Game)|Final Fantasy IX]]'' deals with this trope in several different ways. At the very beginning, you only have three or four characters in the party at a time, with the [[Guest Star Party Member|guest character]] getting a [[Dropped a Bridge Onon Him|bridge dropped on him]] to make room for the fourth. Later on, when the fifth main character appears, the party [[Let's Split Up, Gang!|splits up into two groups]], each of which can accommodate the Abritrary Headcount Limit. When the two parties reunite, some of the characters are [[Put Onon a Bus]] for the rest of the disk to make room for the final party members. When the entire party unites at the start of Disk 3, they are frequently seen gathering in various dungeons, sometimes offering explanations as to why they split up again, but by the final few dungeons it's assumed that the entire party is travelling together, and the fact that whichever four characters the player isn't using don't seem to be doing anything is pretty much [[Hand Wave|Hand Waved]].
** ''[[Final Fantasy X (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X]]'' and ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'' limit you to three characters at a time. X uses a [[Lazy Backup]] tag system so if all three characters get KO'd, you're screwed, but XII allows the "sideline" characters to rotate in at any time.
*** [[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]] Revenant Wings however makes the arbitrary headcount 5 but that is because it is a real time strategy game. One does wonder however why the other 4 characters are not allowed in battle when your army size can be maximized to theoretically 45 members.
*** It should be noted though that you can also rotate in your sideline characters during the middle of a fight in FFX, you just can't rotate out a KO'd character unless you revive them first.
* Justified in ''[[Phantasy Star]] IV''. Until the end of the game there are only five characters in your group at any given time, and when everyone finally gets together to fight the [[Big Bad]], there are only [[Enough to Go Around|five artifacts]] of power that'll let their wearers go into the lair. Of course, this is somewhat moot, as the fifth of those artifacts (the Rykros ring) was not actually equippable by any of the characters; no matter who you picked, your fifth party member didn't get one anyway.
** The Quote at the top of the page referenced Phantasy Star 2 which did have an arbitrary limit on party size. Phantasy Star and Phantasy Star 3 both get around this by having the size reflect the maximum characters availble at any given point. Phantasy Star 2 however just randomly limits the size of the party.
*** Rolf's solo adventure spinoff states he dislikes working with others and would rather have a small team if he HAS to bring one along, since small teams mean less chances for others to mess up. Since he is basically team leader, that is very likely the reason why he only brings a handful of people along.
* The entirety of the ''[[Tales Series(series)]]'' has four as this number, with the actual party size ranging from <s>five</s> six (''[[Tales of Phantasia (Video Game)|Phantasia]]'') to nine (''[[Tales of Destiny (Video Game)|Destiny]]''). What, if anything, the extra members are doing while the others are fighting is never explained, barring a fight in ''[[Tales of the Abyss (Video Game)|Abyss]]'' where the two extra members have to secure an escape route.
** ''Tempest'', ''[[Tales of Innocence (Video Game)|Innocence]]'' and ''[[Tales of Hearts (Video Game)|Hearts]]'' have a limit of three. The GBA ''Narikiri Dungeon'' games also had four parties of three each, but since the actual party size was [[Massive Multiplayer Crossover|every character in the first five games]]...
** ''Hearts'' also averts it, like ''Mugen no Frontier'' above, by introducing the "Link Attack" system, by which characters in the back party can be summoned in to use attacks or spells. Since characters Linked in can't be damaged or interrupted, it's useful for calling out a Raise Dead or [[Last-Disc Magic]] with a charge time of "eternity".
** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'':
{{quote| '''[[Dishing Out Dirt|Gnome]]''': You guys [[Just for Pun|play dirty]]. [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit|Four against one?]] Well, {{spoiler|Mithos}} did it by [[Duel Boss|himself!]]<br />
So, uh... the other 4 were just sitting off to the sidelines, maybe eating some curry? Granted, we're talking about a trope here, but the Lampshade is hilarious. }}
** Similarly, if you go a long time without switching party members in ''[[Tales of Vesperia (Video Game)|Tales of Vesperia]]'', you may get a skit where the inactive members complain about being left out of the action. Yes, the others really are just sitting on the sidelines.
* In ''[[Golden Sun (Video Game)|Golden Sun]] The Lost Age'', you eventually acquire a party twice as large as the cap of 4 in battle, the result is the ability to switch a single character from the team in battle with one in the 'on hold' team per turn, and should all 4 of your party get knocked out they would instantly be swapped with the back team.
* ''[[Riviera the Promised Land]]'' [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this by stating that going into battle with more than 3 members would make things too crowded, but this does not explain why battling party members can't tag out.
* In ''[[Brave Story]]'': ''New Traveler'', you can not control more than three people in the party, one of them being your character.
* ''[[The Last Remnant (Video Game)|The Last Remnant]]'' has an extremely generous limit that increases over time.
* In ''[[Skies of Arcadia (Video Game)|Skies of Arcadia]]'', the four-person party is mostly explained by the plot -- the main trio are [[OT 3|bestest friends]] and stick together, while the fourth slot is occupied by whoever's present for the plot at the time. The game really runs into an Arbitrary Headcount Limit towards the end, however -- you can pick who to take with you into [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], but taking more than one of the fourth-slot characters is forbidden. The crew of your [[Cool Airship]] is also limited. You can recruit 2 crewmembers for each position but only one can be on duty, even if the job is in no way exclusive like "sailor" or "merchant".
* Parodied in ''[[Dragon Quest IV (Video Game)|Dragon Quest IV]]''. At the beginning of chapter five when the hero first enters Branca, a four-person team is leaving the town. If you talk to them, one will tell you that their party is full and that you'll need to find another one to join.
** Played ''painfully'' straight in ''[[Dragon Quest VII (Video Game)|Dragon Quest VII]]'', though, which sticks to the [[Dragon Quest (Video Game)|series]]' usual four-person party... when there's only five main heroes. Leading to a few [[Contrived Coincidence|Contrived Coincidences]] to keep that ''one extra hero'' distracted until it's time to rotate again...
* ''[[Last Scenario (Video Game)|Last Scenario]]'' only lets you use 4 of your {{spoiler|7}} characters. This is made even weirder because the cutscenes make it clear that the whole party is traveling with you.
** The spiritual sequel ''[[Exit Fate (Video Game)|Exit Fate]]'' had a party limit of eight out of... seventy-five. Also, two of those eight occupy the entourage, and cannot fight, but any of the other six may spend an action to trade places with them. Exactly why two people who are officially employed soldiers decide to cheer from the sidelines instead of aiding their teammates is not clearly explained.
* The main ''[[Pokémon (Franchise)|Pokémon]]'' games only allow you six Pokemon at a time, while the rest are kept to the PC; it's justified in the [[Pokémon Special]] manga as a rule imposed by the Pokemon League due to the fact it would be difficult for a single trainer to care for more Pokemon than that at a time. [[Pokémon Ranger]] gives you a limit of seven. [[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon (Video Game)|Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]] gives you a limit of four as well as an overall size limit; it can't exceed six stars, even if it's just two Pokemon.
* In ''[[Star Ocean the Second Story (Video Game)|Star Ocean the Second Story]]'' you can have 8 characters, but only 4 in combat. By default you'll get a choice of something like 6-7 (on top of the two mandatory) - but the entire game you can refuse members, or get hidden/secret ones, meaning the minimum is 2 party members, with 9 choices. That's out of a total pool of something like 10 choices, as choosing the male/female lead will make a different person impossible to get.
** This is also done in ''[[Star Ocean 1 (Video Game)|Star Ocean 1]]'', but one gets a little less choice over the characters, as four are required (Meaning you only get to pick the other four, compare six in the second game) and only one can be booted. (The [[Enhanced Remake]] also gives you the chance to not exactly ''boot'' her, but get a ''better'' character who is a hidden character)
*** In addition one is fairly difficult to find without an FAQ, while another will only become available fairly late in... at which point you've probably already filled up all seats.
* ''[[Valkyrie Profile]]'' always has quite a bit of playable characters but only three manifest at once. This is explained with how Valkyrie only manifests the einherjar that she wishes to train. Except that there is one game in the series that doesn't actually ''have'' a Valkyrie as the main character...
** ''[[Valkyrie Profile Covenant of the Plume]]'' stars a mortal named Wylfred who is required for just about every battle, but three people join him in battle. From a gameplay perspective, this makes total sense. (Because considering you can recruit up to 9 characters in the main story and ''way'' more in the Seraphic Gate...how on ''earth'' would you be able to pull that off on a ''handheld''?)
* Justified in ''[[The Reconstruction (Video Game)|The Reconstruction]]'' by Wadassian law restricting your guild to six armed combatants at a time.
** And then {{spoiler|Wadassia is reduced to ruins, and you're still using six characters to fight the final boss and save the world}}.
* ''[[Infinite Undiscovery]]'' allows 4 characters, or 3 if one of them is [[Everything Is Worse With Bears|Gustav]]. [[Loads and Loads of Characters|Out of 18]]. And some of them are arbitrarily forbidden from being in the same group as the [[Player Character]], restricting their use to [[Let's Split Up, Gang!]]-situations -- without the slightest explanation.
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** In ''[[Suikoden IV]]'', this was downsized to a four-person party, plus a 'support' [[NPC]]. After this proved unpopular with players, ''[[Suikoden V]]'' responded by upping the limit to ''ten'' -- while you could only have up to six actively fighting in your party at any given time, there were four extra slots you could use to bring along other characters, be they supporting NPCs or other fighters. This helped with [[Leaked Experience]] and provided an alternative whenever you had to bring certain characters along for plot-related purposes.
*** There's a bit of missable dialogue with your strategist that actually explains this: when going on land, you have to be careful not to attract undue attention, so a small party is better unless you want the whole Kooluk army (which vastly outnumbers you, to say the least) on your tail. As for the ship, you are restricted to 3 parties (12 people total), but they are freely switchable in battle, and that's because there's not enough space for more to fight on the ship, since the rest of the space is taken up by the currently-attacking monsters and overcrowding the ship's bridge can result in someone getting shoved overboard in the confusion.
* The ''[[Etrian Odyssey (Video Game)|Etrian Odyssey]]'' series allows you to have a decently sized Guild, but you can only have up to five members in your adventuring party at any given time. [[Word of God]] admitted that this was meant to make players feel their parties were always "incomplete" somehow; six-member parties were simply too well-balanced for a game striving to be [[Nintendo Hard]].
* In ''[[Endless Frontier]]'', your entire party can participate in battle, but only four are active and fit on the screen. The non-active characters can use support attacks during the fight, up to certain limits, with some characters only capable of participating through support attacks. The sequel shows off how arbitrary the limitation really is, with a lot more support-only characters, one character who has a partner, and still the same four-character headcount limit.
* ''[[Breath of Fire II (Video Game)|Breath of Fire II]]'' only allows four characters in the main party at once, while the rest remain in [[Player Headquarters]]. Mind you, this is the game with the largest number of Player Characters in the series, at nine. ''[[Breath of Fire III (Video Game)|III]]'' also had this problem, allowing only a party of three out of six. The rest of the games, however, avert both this trope and [[Lazy Backup]], or, in the case of ''[[Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (Video Game)|Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter]]'', all your party members participate (then again, ''Dragon Quarter's'' playable cast was reduced to only ''three'').
* Completely and totally averted in the case of ''[[Lunar]]: Silver Star Harmony''. When you enter battle, all party members participate and can be controlled.
* ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' only allows you to use three characters at a time... which seems more than a little pointless, given you never have access to more than ''four'' at a time anyway, and given that all experience is [[Leaked Experience|leaked]].
* ''[[Shin Megami Tensei (Franchise)|Shin Megami Tensei]]'' games typically have a limit of 4-6 party members, including the protagonist. This is somewhat [[Justified Trope|justified]] by the fact that the device you're using to summon your allies can only keep so many of your demonic allies manifested at a time. This doesn't explain why human party members take up one of those headcount limit slots, however...
** The ''[[Persona (Videovideo Gamegame)|Persona]]'' subseries of games justifies this in the first four games, and then plays it completely straight in the fifth. In ''[[Persona 1]]'', there were eight possible party members aside from the protagonist. Depending on which quest you were on, one to three of those slots was locked in. The remaining slots could be filled at key points in the story, but once your party was full, additional party members were immediately sent to safety. The ''Persona 2'' Duology also had a cap of five, but (with a single exception in Eternal Punishment) you don't get to select which party members will fill those slots.
** ''[[Persona 3 (Video Game)|Persona 3]]'' justifies this by having the party be an exploration team. That way, if the entire team bites it, SEES won't be wiped out. (...Well, {{spoiler|the world will end if the protagonist is killed, so they won't really get a chance to ''use'' the backup. But it's a nice thought.}})
*** During the [[Final Battle]], when all of SEES is present at the [[Boss Arena]], the limit is justified when [[Mission Control|Fuuka]] detects a large number of Shadows climbing up towards them. Mitsuru commands the rest of the party to [[Hold the Line]] against these Shadows and defend the main group while these fight the final enemy.
** ''[[Persona 4 (Video Game)|Persona 4]]'' looks like it has a similar set up as the prequel... but then the entire party inexplicably shows up in the final room of each dungeon. There is, admittedly, a portal leading there from the lobby. The only reason why the unused party members wouldn't be fighting is because [[Can't Catch Up|you've spent the entire game up to this point playing with Yosuke, Chie, and Yukiko, while Kanji, Teddie, and Naoto don't even have upgraded equipment, let alone levels.]]
*** It's at least partially explained when you revisit a dungeon. Occasionally, members of your party that aren't actually with you can randomly appear in an empty room of the dungeon. It's implied that they've formed an independent B-team and fight Shadows in other parts of the dungeon. Of course, you never see the products of this endeavor.
** In ''[[Devil Survivor (Video Game)|Devil Survivor]]'', you can never have more than four humans on the field (counting the main character).
* ''[[Sweet Home (Videovideo Gamegame)|Sweet Home]]'' has a limit of three members per party. If you try to have a fourth join, the other character will say that it would be best if the fourth character stays separate. If a character rescues the fourth from a pit, one of the original three will be disconnected from the party.
* ''[[Secret of Mana]]'' and ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' have this for the enemies, only allowing up to three on screen at once.
* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' has an amazing number of 100 members allowed at any one time, but given its [[Cast of Snowflakes]], arguably even that number isn't enough. As with soccer, during matches 11 members are on-field while optionally 5 are on bench.
* ''[[Wild Arms 4 (Video Game)|Wild Arms 4]]'' only allows you to have 3 characters in battle out of the 6 playable characters. This is down from 4 in the previous game.
* Subverted in ''[[Blue Dragon]]'', everyone joins the fight for huge battles.
* Played with in ''[[Shining the Holy Ark (Video Game)|Shining the Holy Ark]]'' where only four characters can appear at a single time in battle. However you could freely switch characters over, so if a character is killed you could replace them provided you had another character to take their place.
 
 
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* ''[[Guild Wars]]'' imposes an [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]] in every area of the game, including outposts, where players can't even fight. In the training area it's 2; in low-level areas it's 4-6; in the high-level areas it's 8; and in elite areas it's 8-12. Usually, this limit isn't a big deal, since low-level areas are balanced for small teams. But just see what happens when a team of 4 tries to kill things in the same newbie area in [[Nintendo Hard|hard mode]]...
** Originally, players could only have 3 heroes in their party at any given time, despite having access to almost 30. These days it's possible to bring 7.
* In ''[[Star WarstheWars: The Old Republic]]'', each character eventually accumulates six companions in their party. Only one companion may be active at a given time.
 
 
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*** The Sega Genesis version limited you to three, period.
* The ''[[Lord of the Rings The Third Age]]'' has a very strange one: Any person on the battlefield can switch out for any one not on the battlefield at any time, but only three can actually fight at one time. And if someone gets knocked out? Nobody will fill in for them. They just lie there, taking up a perfectly good slot. To make matters worse, there are occasionally guest characters who can't be switched out, even if they're very poorly suited to whatever enemy you're up against at the time.
* [[Bio WareBioWare]] is fond of this trope:
** ''[[BaldursBaldur's Gate]]'' deserves a special mention here because not only is your party restricted on size (6 maximum) but also on philosophical differences. If you get too popular with the rabble, the more <s>buttkicking</s> evil characters in the party will simply up and leave. On the other hand, the whole [[Dungeons and Dragons]] ''system'' is keyed to this, mostly because the calculation of what monsters constitute a challenge for a party depend on the said party being 4-6 strong.
** ''[[Baldurs Gate II]]''. Specifically coming to save a friend of yours, but not being able to lead her out of the dungeon of the [[Big Bad]] 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 [[Distressed Damsel]], if you had him with you.
** In the original ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', you could only have one henchman at any one time. Hordes of the Underdark expanded this to two, but still required you to leave three or four perfectly capable allies waiting around back at base in the first chapter. Fan-made modules occasionally remove this limit entirely, leading to annoying situations like the mines in the second chapter of ''[[A Dance With Rogues]]'', where you have to individually command six different party members to stay where they are while you set off an explosion to clear a tunnel and then command them all to follow you again.
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** ''[[Jade Empire]]'' is even worse given that only one other character can join you at a time.
*** Additionaly, one of these does not fight but only allows you to use the [[Drunken Master]] style. Another character is in your party pool but is only there to trade with you. With him being a disembodied spirit, this makes a little sense.
** ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]'' does it too, and there's no particular handwave for it. Four of the NPC's aren't even part of the ship's crew, so it's not like they are needed on board. The other two are ''marines'', so they wouldn't be much help in a starship battle. It's never explained why Shepard can't take the entire group of 6 with him/her. Especially when the entire universe is in the balance. In fact, the only person in the party who would have a logical reason to remain on the ship is the [[Player Character]] him/herself, as he/she is the ship's Commanding Officer.
** ''[[Mass Effect 2 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 2]]'' also plays it straight, except for [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] where the whole team gets to participate. Still only two can come with ''you'', but the others are blasting their way through another path or holding the line while you fight the [[Final Boss]].
*** The only other time the entire team goes away on a "mission", it is explained that Shepard would then choose who to take with him/her when they get to their destination. The "mission" is actually a {{spoiler|transparent plot device to get all the combat-capable people out of the ship so the Collectors can kidnap the crew}}.
*** Particularly jarring in the ''Lair of the Shadow Broker'' [[DLC]], as after meeting up with Liara, you are prompted to choose which one of your teammates to take with you, despite there being ''absolutely no point'' to leaving one of them behind. Sure, it makes some sense to leave part of the team behind on the Normandy ({{spoiler|that would've really helped in the Collector attack}}), but in this case, there is literally no reason for this other than the headcount limit. Made even more ridiculous by the fact that the group of three then enters a skycar - which explicitly has ''four'' seats.
** ''[[Sonic Chronicles]]'' limits you at four [[Can't Drop the Hero|with Sonic always in the lead]]. Counting [[Secret Character|Cream and Omega]], you can have eleven.
** True for ''[[Dragon Age]]: Origins'' as well. You'd think as one of the only two people able to stop a horde from destroying the world, you'd be able to take all your companions into battle, but you're limited to a party of four. Unlike the other games, though, during the final battle in {{spoiler|Denerim}}, all your companions join the initial assault. Then you make your party selections for the final boss battle, leaving the rest to defend the gates. Kudos to Bioware for actually letting the players control the remaining companions during the defense (the only time in the game where the party does not include the main player).
** In ''[[Dragon Age II (Video Game)|Dragon Age II]]'', the three-companion limit is justified for most of the game by the fact that most of Hawke's companions are established as having their own lives and things to do outside of running around with Hawke. Aveline has a day job with the city guard, Anders runs a clinic in Darktown, Varric is a writer and is implied to have other business going on as well, Merrill is working on restoring the Eluvian, Isabela is trying to track down her relic and Sebastian is working for the Chantry; only Fenris and (in the first act) Hawke's sibling seem to have nothing better to do. However, on the two separate occasions when all hell breaks loose all over Kirkwall and the survival of potentially everyone in the city hangs in the balance, it makes considerably less sense that half your friends see fit to sit this one out.
* ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' is actually a fair bit better with this. The party can have up to six people, counting the Nameless One. There are only ''eight'' recruitable characters, and one of them is almost universally considered [[The Load]], and another is a batshit insane [[Knight Templar]] who even a good aligned Nameless One probably wouldn't want.
* In ''[[Dungeon Siege]]'', your party is arbitrarily limited to 8 characters. Once full, you have to abandon existing characters when you want to recruit new ones. Your pack mules are included in this, so counter-intuitively your party can keep track of less animals as there are more of you.
** Frustratingly, to a mind-boggling degree, you don't start with the ability to have a maximum-size party in Dungeon Siege 2. You start with two and have to find an NPC and purchase the right to have progressively more active party members at one time. You can't reach the real limit until you've already beaten the game ''twice''.
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** VI, VII and IX had a party of four, with all created at start, and reasons for them not expanding<ref>In VI and IX the four are old friends that lived in the same village before Plot happened, while in VII the four becomes the Lords of Harmondale when the prologue is completed</ref>... but one could also recruit up to two 'followers' that gave some perks, with no explanation given for why three followers were one too many. VIII had parties of five, with one created at start and unable to be switched out, and others found as the game progresses, but no explanation for why, once you have that many adventurers, any excess over five has to stay at the inn.
* ''[[Ultima]]'' had this in many of the games. In ''[[Ultima IV]]'' you are limited to 8 party members and there are 8 recruitable, but the game dictates that you cannot recruit whichever NPC matches your class. V-VII play this totally straight.
* ''[[Mount and Blade (Video Game)|Mount and Blade]]'' has a limit to the amount of lieutenants and soldiers that can be added to the party at any one time. However, this limit can be increased by raising your charisma statistic when you level up, or by increasing your renown by winning battles, and there is no upper limit on how high you can raise your party cap.
* ''[[Skyrim]]'' only lets you have one companion at a time, just like [[Fallout 3]], and it doesn't even attempt to explain why. If you ask someone else to join you, they'll just say "Looks like you already have someone following you."
* In ''[[Evil Islands (Video Game)|Evil Islands]]'', you can't have more than two allies at a time, although [[Lazy Backup]] is avoided and you can just pick another one if one of them is killed.
 
 
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== Strategy -- 4X ==
* The older ''[[Civilization (Video Game)|Civilization]]'' games had an Arbitrary City Count Limit ([[Powers of Two Minus One|255]] for Civ2, to be specific). The table of cities only had room for 255 entries
** ''Civilization IV'' implements a more typical Cap, forbidding each civilization from having more than three missionaries of a given religion at any given time. However, since missionaries are self-consuming, the limit is not nearly as annoying.
** ''Civilization V'' revamps the resource system to work this way. In the previous two iterations,<ref>The first two games did not have strategic resources implemented as a feature yet.</ref> you just had to ''have'' the resource—eg. you needed Iron to create Swordsmen, because [[Useful Notes/Swords|Swords]] are [[Captain Obvious|made out of iron]]<ref>Well, technically, steel, but steel is an alloy of carbon and, get this, iron. Unless they're made out of bronze.</ref>—unless you were playing ''Civ3'', at which point the resources depleted at an unexplained rate. As of ''Civ5'', Resources are now an [[Cap|Abritrary Building Limit]] on how many of a thing you can create at once: if you want all six of your cities to spawn Swordsmen but you only have four units of Iron, then two of them will have to do something else.
*** This can get annoying, as conquering civilizations will tend to have a lot of puppet cities, whose government cannot be influenced for some reason ([[Non-Indicative Name|isn't that the whole point of a puppet government that they do what you want?]]), so they continue to build nuclear power plants when you're desperately need your few uranium deposits to build nukes/submarines/HumongousMecha. There should at least be an option to restrict any construction that requires strategic resources. As the ruler of that civilization, you should have the final say on resource allocation.
* Averted in ''[[Master of Orion (Video Game)|Master of Orion]] II''. Each of your star bases would generate a certain number of "Command Points" for your empire, representing the capacity of your logistics to manage, maintain and command ships. All the military ships in your empire counted against the number of Command Points you had, with larger ships costing more. If you happened to exceed your Command Points through overbuilding or loss of facilities, you had to pay for the difference in cash, every turn, until you either replaced/recaptured facilities or reduced the size of your fleet.
** But not pay all that much. A gaming magazine's retrospective featured an image of a fleet of death stars, with the caption "This is what they were trying to avoid."
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' doesn't limit the size of the fleets, but it does limit how many ships that can participate in a battle at each moment. Each side gets command points based on on the size of the command ship (if any), some technology upgrades, and if they outnumber their opponent; when a ship gets destroyed (freeing up associated command points), new ship(s) will arrive as a reinforcements from the reserve.
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== Strategy -- Real Time ==
* [[Averted Trope|Averted]] by [[Harpoon]]. You can recreate a scenario like 3 or 4 US Carrier Groups escorting a massive amphibious assault convoy vs the entire Soviet Navy. Or you can recreate an attack by North Korea, China and Eastern Russian forces vs South Korea, Japan and the USA if you like. The only limit is your computer processing power.
* In ''[[Homeworld (Video Game)|Homeworld]]'', there is a limit as to how many ships can be built by your own ship construction facilities. This could be justified with Fleet Command being unable to direct more at one time, or not having enough crews to man more vessels, if it weren't for the fact that one can go far beyond this limit by capturing enemy ships and adding them to one's own fleet.
** However, in the sequels, breaking the headcount limit is stopped: all ships, captured or built, are counted under the fleet cap (and a capture that failed because of this didn't even have the decency to scuttle the ship).
** 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. [[Didn't See That Coming]] did you?
* In the ''[[War CraftWarcraft]]'' games, one must build farms in order to have units, with the limit increasing with the number of farms built. The rationale for this is that the units need food. Yet sometimes one starts a scenario without any farms at all, or an inadequate number to feed one's troops, or your farms in a normal level get destroyed. Said units suffer no ill effects for this.
** In ''Warcraft II'' there is a hidden limit of 600 units (and buildings) divided by the number of players. (Meaning only 75 per player in an eight player game.) Extraneous units simply disappear when their construction completes, wasting resources.
** In ''Warcraft III'', there is also a global supply limit of 90 (raised to 100 in the expansion) on the total number of units a player can train (although it is possible to go over this limit if the extra units are acquired via means other than training, like resurrection spells or a scenario script). Unlike ''[[Starcraft]]'', there is only one supply pool (as opposed to a separate one for each race), and the limit thus cannot be circumvented by building units of different races.
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** ''Starcraft II'' has the Protoss Mothership, a unit which uses no ''normal'' supplies, but of which there can only be one at a time (per player), or which can be built like any other unit (i.e. as many as you can afford) but costs a metric fuckton of resources - Blizzard is still working on that.
* Both averted and played straight with the [[Total War]] games. You can build as many units as you want, provided you can maintain their upkeep. However, in battle, you are limited to twenty units per army stack. On the maximum scale settings, this can give you a maximum of 4800 soldiers to command in a single battle. In Rome, this is a bit of [[Fridge Brilliance]], since that number isn't far off from the total number of fighting men in a Roman Legion. (Not counting the thousands of support soldiers)
* Every ''[[Age of Empires (Video Game)|Age of Empires]]...'' game had a headcount limit. This is particularly ridiculous, since the ''Age of...'' games are supposed to portray great battles of times long gone, which were normally conducted with hundreds and hundreds of men. The first ''[[Age of Empires I (Video Game)|Age of Empires I]]'' had a unit limit of ''fifty''! However, it is possible to convert enemy units using priests to go indefinitely beyond this cap. Additionally, all units built before the population limit is reached will be completed regardless. Employees of Ensemble, the company that developed ''Age of Empires'', were famous for building, for example, 20 barracks at 49/50 population and queuing each building to produce one soldier, which gave them 19 units over the limit.
** In the original game's expansion set "Rise of Rome", the technology "logistics" allow infantry to count as 1/2 a unit, thus allowing a larger army. The basic head count is also raised to 75.
** This can be extended to 200 per player in the multiplayer mode (since each unit counts as 1, this limit is almost never reached), and the amount of units placed in the campaign editor is limited only by the power of the computer running the game.
** ''[[Age of Empires III (Video Game)|Age of Empires III]]'' also includes headcount limits for certain unit types, most notably ships. Most Civs have a generous cap of 99 Settlers (half of your population cap), although the Ottomans, who produce Settlers automatically and for free, have a more substantial cap of ''25'' until you raise the limit via certain techs.
** Certain special units have a Limit of One. Most notable is ''Age of Mythology'', which has several of these units, including the Titans, the Hippocampus, and a few others. In one case, the clever combination of an Egyptian technological upgrade (allowing two Pharaohs) and a cheat code (allowing reuse of a god power that transforms a pharaoh into a lightning-wielding Son of Osiris) actually allows the player to create an infinite number of Sons of Osiris, provided he has enough houses for them all.
** ''Age Of Mythology'' added a new feature to screw the headcount even further: some units take more space from the population slots than others (i.e. a villager or a simple soldier takes one; a siege weapon or a mythological unit can take up to five).
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** Incidentally, in Dune II, a similar limit existed for buildings. This was actually rather exploitable, since the building limit was global: if you reached the building cap, then you could prevent the enemy from rebuilding by destroying one of their buildings and immediately replacing it with one of your own.
* ''[[Total Annihilation]]'' was released with a unit limit of 250 units per side. A patch was released that raised this limit to 500. The large modification community for that game had even found a way to increase the unit limit to 5000 units per side. Given that the game allowed for easy adding of new unit types up to 256 different units, 512 with a community made fix, that means you couldnt build one of unit avaible.
* ''[[Supreme Commander (Video Game)|Supreme Commander]]'', TA's spiritual sequel, has a default limit of 500 in multiplayer/skirmish games. It can be increased up to 1000, and also decreased to 250 (for the unlucky ones whose computers can't handle the amount of units in a capped-to-500 game. This tends to be particularly annoying in the last campaign missions, some of which '''start you off''' with 300 or more units and a maximum cap of 500. Editing the game files can theoretically increase the unit limit to arbitrary numbers, but the frame rate really starts suffering (even on high-end systems) after 800 or so, and going much above 1000 is guaranteed to cause a crash.
** It's worth noting that in ''Supreme Commander'' everything you build (except walls) counts as a unit- not only tanks and aircraft, but power generators, point defence and radar systems.
** It's also worth noting that for both TA and SC, these are purely technical, not balance, constraints---you could pump out hundreds of gigantic superunits (Krogoths, Monkeylords, etc.) rather than little tanks if you had the insane economic prowess required.
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== Strategy -- Turn Based ==
* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics (Video Game)|Final Fantasy Tactics]]'', though listed partially as a [[Role Playing Game]], does give the player the ability to hire new recruits, in addition to the plethora of warriors who are constantly joining your party. The game allows space only for a limited number of troops in one's party. On one hand, this makes sense, as it would be impractical for game space as well as time spent on training a large army of troops 4 or 5 at a time in battles (the allowed number per skirmishes). On the other hand, sending a dozen or so warriors against the ultimate evil does seem a little low on firepower, and makes one wonder if anyone truly cares about the state of the world. (See [[Apathetic Citizens]].)
** In ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' in that respect: the player can form parties of ten soldiers, the only limitation being that only two L-class soldiers (such as Golems and Octopi) are permitted.
* The ''[[Advance Wars]]'' series of turn based strategy games has an arbitrary cap on the number of units you can build (50), but it's high enough that it's very rare for anyone to actually reach it.
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** ''[[Tactics Ogre]]'' has perhaps one of the largest player parties outside of real time strategy games, at ''ten'' party members during battles. And when one includes any potential [[Guest Star Party Member|Guests]] adding to the roster, it can be even ''more''. This leads to one battle early in the game where you just disgustingly outmatch the enemy, since you not only have your ten party members, but Kachua, Vice, and Leonard...against just little old Nybbas, two [[Mook|Mooks]], and a couple undead that die easily.
** Its [[Gaiden Game]] ''Knight Of Lodis'' also has a cap that exceeds the maximum battle limit, but this is likely because not only is it a strategy RPG, but there are two parts in the game in which you have to split up and attack from two sides at once.
* In ''[[Cross Edge (Video Game)|Cross Edge]]'' you get a rather '''large''' cast of playable characters from different games, but only four can be in battle at any time. Granted you can swap out characters (even dead ones) for other members of the in-active party, except for some plot battles that require certain party members to be in at all times, you are still only allowed four in the battle party.
* ''[[Hogs of War]]'' never lets you control more than five pigs at once, with some missions in single-player and most multi-player battles limiting you to less than that. Multi-player deathmatches are interesting, as thanks to respawning you'll always have the maximum number of pigs - no more, no less.
* ''[[Wild Arms XF (Video Game)|Wild Arms XF]]'' allows a maximum of 8 units on any map, sometimes less. You can create as many [[Player Mooks]] as you want, though.
 
 
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== Web Comics ==
* The inversion of this trope is parodied in [http://www.nuklearpower.com/2008/06/10/episode-1003-not-up-to-code/ this] ''[[8-Bit Theater (Webcomic)|Eight Bit Theater]]'' strip.
* Like every other RPG trope, the webcomic ''[[Adventurers (Webcomic)|Adventurers]]'' makes fun of this.
 
 
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