I've been told the thread caps exist to halt not writing, but power-gaming. So I'd like to point out a few flaws in that thinking from my view, and bring in a few examples of why they aren't really necessary here. In fact, it feels more like a punishment than a rule with a job to me, and a few others I've talked with. I'll ask them if they're comfortable chiming in here or not.

So, when it comes to a writing board the point is to... write, roleplay. The idea of an RPG-based system on a board is to add a sense of gratification to your writing with a sense of power growth for your characters. As such it, at the very end of the day, rewards "activity". You're trying to encourage people to write actively and stay on the board to increase the population and create a community.

With that in mind, I'd like to list the boons that I was told this offered and why I think it's incorrect.

"Thread caps limit power-gaming."
First off, that term, "Power Gaming" is a term that I find unattractive. I've been accused of it countless times when instead I just enjoy writing. I write large amounts, at high speeds, with alot of people. It's my job, it's my passion, it's my therapy. That will always cause any character to get strong quickly. Because, again, any RPG board rewards "Activity". No matter how much you slow it down, someone that writes alot and is active on your board is going to grow quickly.

Accusing them of power gaming is rude, and punishing them for giving your board activity and finding it enjoyable to write in, is wrong and defeats the entire point of this stuff. A safe place to write, enjoy the growth of your character, and sink into a fantasy world without worrying about how crappy the real world can be.

Now, putting aside that fact. Let's assume the board wishes, as a whole, to slow the progression of characters. Alrighty, that's fine. I don't agree with that outlook, but I can understand wanting a slower burn.

Limiting the amount people can roleplay and write isn't the solution.

I've had many times where I've had to tell people, new and old, that I couldn't thread because my slots were full. I've had other people tell me the same thing when we were trying to set up cool plot. That isn't punishing "power-gaming" it's punishing people just... trying to write.

People that want to legitimately rush this system right now, can't be stopped because all they're going to do is just go do what I already do, but worse. Write posts back and forth on google docs and then spam them out the moment they have an open thread slot. Or better yet always have open thread slots so they can just keep spam-Transfering posts. Spam solos as quickly as the rules allow. The cap rule isn't stopping anyone.

It just makes life more difficult for those of us that just want to write with more people on the board.

If you want to slow people down, the 8-month wait to become an archmage is already more than enough in my opinon. Yeah, people can "rush" to Grand if they want. Alright, if you insist on that, split the wait time up then if it's really that much of a problem. Make Grand require 2-3 months of activity, too.

Put cooldowns on the number of times people can turn in threads like we have for Dungeons with the 3-day rule. Limit Dungeon's to only being allowed to run once. Put a limit on Dungeons and Missions turn-in rates if you insist on it. Bottleneck where the major gains come from. Something along those lines. I find all of those ideas abhorrent, personally. It punishes people for being active on your board and writing. It shouldn't be a problem to reward that behavior unless the player is a problem. In which case the player should be dealt with. Not the system. But at least they'd actually perform what the rule is vaguely trying to aim for: Slowing character power progression. But limiting the number of threads you can be in at any time doesn't do anything.

You can say that it's perhaps a good way to encourage players to not bite off more threads then they can chew, which can lead to some players feeling dissatisfied with how slow things are going or how they have a dozen threads making no progress.

That's not the job of staff. That is a player's responsibility.

Players need to know how many threads they can handle at a time. If someone gets fed up waiting, the glory of having no thread caps means that they can just make another thread no worries. No limit to writing, no limit to the roleplay.

That was all a very long-winded explanation so...

tl;dr

- Thread caps don't actually cap anything.
- Limiting "power-gamers" isn't as healthy as some people make it out to be, and the term can be pretty rude to some.
- Bottleneck turn-ins if you insist on slowing down power progression.
- Thread caps limit the amount normal people that want to write, can write. Harming instead of doing good.