Paul (Hat) brought up some good points.
val Holryn wrote:
Unfortunately I do not think that there has ever been a solution discovered in a shared world campaign that has proven to be popular across the player base.
In a perfect world, module production would magically triple or quadruple. You wouldn't care as much if you didn't play a mod with the right character because you'd have a new mod coming out next week. Pretty much every week. IMHO limited mods is the biggest problem in the campaign.
As I have gotten older, judged more and written more mods, I increasingly think that the primary reward of 4 hours playing a mod...is the four hours of entertainment with friends. [...]
I agree with all of the points from Eric (val Holryn). First, there's no perfect solution that makes everyone happy.
Living Arcanis eventually had so many mods that level-ranges forced active players to have multiple characters, and it didn't feel like it was an issue to pick appropriate characters for each adventure. Legends of Arcanis has many fewer adventures, which may lead to a chicken-and-egg problem with new players where a lack of players leads to a lack of modules and vice versa.
Hard level caps on mods has potential for these problems, but again we really need more mods.
In the end, though, I'd rather play a useless character with friends than play with strangers or not play at all. When my character can potentially outshine the rest at the table, I try to back off so that everyone can contribute. I've played & GMed several mods recently that involved mystery solving and ethical dilemmas where a character's tier didn't matter very much for the player's involvement; whereas I admit that in a Battle Interactive the tier/rank issue is much bigger.