One would think that there being ten Dragoons isn't the Holy Knight's "new protocol". Ten is the directory listing at the Dragoon Office building, with a bunch of names scratched off. Those empty rooms can be refilled. Given that one levequest's text about Dragoon trainees, it's absolutely possible the spots can refilled.
Now when it comes to the issue of there still only being 21 "unnamed spots" left open, I don't see any issue whatsoever in players continuing to play Dragoons. The spots can easily be treated as ambiguously as IC time. When it comes to those organizations that don't actually have any sort of effect on the activity, behavior, protocol, etc of other players (even those within the same organization), I don't think numbers even should be treated with absolutes. Does a player portraying one of the 21 unnamed Dragoons really affect anything?
This issue, for the Dragoons, could easily be solved by shifting their backstory such that they only recently passed Little Dragoon School and became a fully-fledged Dragoon, taking one of the 21 unnamed spots.
A Dragoon in one of these spots doesn't even affect another Dragoon in another spot. What does it affect? Who does it affect? Is there really going to be an instance in which a Dragoon meets 20 other Dragoons and then comes across yet another? The narrative here isn't defined, and so any interactions between two Dragoons is easily warped during other interactions with unrelated parties.
Dragoon 1 and 2 interacting with player A has no effect on Dragoon 3 and 4 interacting with player B. They could meet, but even in such a case their personal narrative simply gets shifted. Even if twenty one Dragoons were tied into a single character's narrative, the multiple degrees of separation are so flimsy and unimportant meeting several more Dragoons wouldn't affect jack squat.
This being said, so long as the Dragoons are only recently titled through their backstory, I have no problem whatsoever with interacting with Dragoons. I would honestly be surprised if any of my characters met -personally met- 22 different Dragoons. Even if they did, interactions with some would undoubtedly be of the sort they don't remember or care about them, and their "spot" is now just as nameless as before, free to be filled by another Dragoon.
Now when it comes to the issue of there still only being 21 "unnamed spots" left open, I don't see any issue whatsoever in players continuing to play Dragoons. The spots can easily be treated as ambiguously as IC time. When it comes to those organizations that don't actually have any sort of effect on the activity, behavior, protocol, etc of other players (even those within the same organization), I don't think numbers even should be treated with absolutes. Does a player portraying one of the 21 unnamed Dragoons really affect anything?
This issue, for the Dragoons, could easily be solved by shifting their backstory such that they only recently passed Little Dragoon School and became a fully-fledged Dragoon, taking one of the 21 unnamed spots.
A Dragoon in one of these spots doesn't even affect another Dragoon in another spot. What does it affect? Who does it affect? Is there really going to be an instance in which a Dragoon meets 20 other Dragoons and then comes across yet another? The narrative here isn't defined, and so any interactions between two Dragoons is easily warped during other interactions with unrelated parties.
Dragoon 1 and 2 interacting with player A has no effect on Dragoon 3 and 4 interacting with player B. They could meet, but even in such a case their personal narrative simply gets shifted. Even if twenty one Dragoons were tied into a single character's narrative, the multiple degrees of separation are so flimsy and unimportant meeting several more Dragoons wouldn't affect jack squat.
This being said, so long as the Dragoons are only recently titled through their backstory, I have no problem whatsoever with interacting with Dragoons. I would honestly be surprised if any of my characters met -personally met- 22 different Dragoons. Even if they did, interactions with some would undoubtedly be of the sort they don't remember or care about them, and their "spot" is now just as nameless as before, free to be filled by another Dragoon.