Disclosed herein are embodiments for adjusting playback volume in a media playback system that utilizes a maximum volume feature. In one embodiment, when a playback device receives an instruction to change its playback volume to a requested volume level, the playback device will not necessarily set its playback volume state variable to the requested volume level, but rather will calculate a new (typically lower) alternate volume level based on the maximum volume state variable and instead set its playback volume state variable to that alternate volume level. Moreover, when a playback device shares certain of its state variables among the other devices of the media playback system, the playback device will not necessarily share its actual playback volume state variable, but rather will calculate a new (typically higher) representative volume level and instead share that representative volume level.