Also, if we can suddenly reserve a spot on things that aren't even there yet, I'm calling dibs on the firstborn of the people who preemptively signed up. Also their livers. And primae noctis.
Joke's on you. Both of those already exist, and I've been doing a fine job of destroying them. All you'll get from me are responsibilities and sadness. Sucker.
Not unless we go full meat grinder and 60 players get to play because the average lifespan of a player is 10 turns out in the real world or something.
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You could do something akin to what is happening in m27. make an officer class, an NCO class, and a "meat grinder" class.
Everyone starts at the bottom. Everyone's first character has the life expectancy of a sandwich.
Play a given number of these, or be actually successful with one through luck and skill, rather than through AFK Syndrome, and you get the option of playing an NCO. these guys could 'lead' either npc meatbags, or newbie teams, and would be responsible for actiually making objectives (not full missions, but the a part of a mission - take that hill, defend that husk, bring me a beer). Play enough of these, and you have the option to become an officer class, these guys have the possibility of actually directing missions and determining strategy and the like, whereas the tiers below do what they are told.
Edit to taste.
Also, this makes missions scaleable in another way as well. Meatbag tier episodes can be nasty, brutish, simple, and short. NCO tier could be along the lines of your card game thingy, and Officers (make sure this tier is a rarity, a treasure to be won [perhaps even not unlocked until a given number of players have each played a given number of ncos or such]) could be a tad more freeform. But with officer level, give hard limits, so that , while free form, the players remain under pressure. certain real life time limits, like "you have three rl days to get through this section, or your faith meters will be decaying at twice the rate. five days in, and most of you will become monstrous."
Time limits for action, would keep the pace going, though you would have to establish a method to handle "away for actual liefe" situations. additionally, quick paced games benefit certain types of players more than others - like the 'play by phone' set and the 'on summer break and have zero responsibilities' set.