@tragedyjones I don't think twinking is a problem per se. I mean, I say that as a self-admitting twink. 🙂 As long as you're willing to play up your character's shortcomings as well as their strengths and don't act like a jerk because you can beat up/mindfuck everyone you meet, it all comes down to the same basic question - is your PC interesting and fun to play with?

What I dislike is players who through mechanical inexperience or just plain carelessless screw up their build by spending significantly more for the same sheet than they could have. Yes, the system ought to prevent that from happening but for instance what we're discussing here is a case where that wasn't true.

Otherwise twinks like yours truly who plan their spends in advance will quite likely still have a slight advantage due to the increased efficiency, but products like GMC ensure that edge is kept reasonably small.

@Sunny said:

Brilliant. Thank you. I wish I had some big long reply, but just thank you. I'm going to chew on it for a while. If you have any other brilliant ideas, I am all ears. 🙂

Well, the bitch of the matter here is making it in a way that scales up so you don't either burn out to a crisp trying to keep up with the requirement of all those people wanting those background tidbits to mean something or making them be some inert piece of trivia in their +bg somewhere that barely does anything for them. After all if it doesn't generate RP what good is it?

You probably want to crowdsource this shit. Like, let people pick their poison from a list ("this is what's available for you guys"). Some of them will pick individual tidbits ("sure, my PC spent two years in that ultra conservative catholic school") waiting to be paired up with others pretty much at random and others might create as a unit ("we got really drunk that one night and broke into Native American museum"). Then try to organize - but not run yourself - that unicorn of all PrP arrangements; plot trading.

Plot trading is ... hah. It's not easy. I very often see people offering but it very rarely happens. So you'd need to be on top of people, motivating them any way you can at all - XP, recognition, extra access to staff plot, anything - to run stories for each other. Basically the idea (in this context, pending further refinement) would be to give players control over another unit's metaplot; that'd include a write-up of just what it entails (what did those drunken idiots steal? what did it do to them?), some loosely defined NPCs they can use (the now-retired teacher with a worm inside their skull, the former school janitor now working for an asylum) and let them go to town. Hopefully.

Basically you can't do too much to encourage plot on this level. Player-ran plot is the only thing here that scales up, where almost everything else does not.

Running plot is a lot of work. It just takes so long and there are so many bored players around. If they take care of each other that's great, but if you need to do it for them... well, you might as well book a spot for that asylum, too. 🙂

@spasticgoat said:

@BetterJudgment said:

By my memory, several bottles should have been finished by now.

Considering how much you've been drinking, I'm questioning your judgment.

I don't (can't) drink at all. Of course, that I'm here and perfectly sober is good reason to question my judgment.