- Everyone gets to write a brief profile and paragraph or so about their character; nobody is allowed to shoot it down but it is subject to lining up with everyone else's writeups. Thinking like 300 words for the final version?
- Probably let every player introduce a location to the setting, where they get final say on the matter but everyone is allowed some input if they want?
What this basically means is that the additional tie-ins way of introducing facts means every single person gets to, once per season, introduce another piece of media which is an excuse for everyone to tag in one relevant piece of information from it to the setting.
Or rather, when I say not relevant I mean it's something that obviously matters but doesn't make sense to show up in the main plot of the game running. So like, the usual major twists and characterization changes and whatnot, that's fine, it happens "on camera."
I guess that you would use this to tag off of like, other developments? Player A introduces a faction during world-building. I the GM go "hey so these guys are involved in this, NPCs incoming." Player A (or B or Q or Zeta-3) goes "oh cool, there's a prequel cellphone game about my character's time as part of that faction, here's an NPC from it."
also I'd divide them between reveals and bonus materials; bonus materials being the kind of stuff that gets revealed in interviews/artbooks/profiles/extras that doesn't have a large bearing on the plot but is obviously something that matters to that specific character.
Give everyone a reveal (so a major plot detail or whatever about the media piece introduced) and a bonus (here's another fact revealed about my character).
I'm realizing this effectively means two sheets per character; the mechanical one and then you have like a fandom wikia summary of your character made from these little blurbs and further reveals.
Bonuses are also a good idea because it doesn't matter if your character actually shows up in the tie-ins enough to have a reveal; clearly there was an interview with the creators where it came up.
And I feel like letting people introduce locations/factions and everyone gets some input but they get final word will help with that because it will accurately model some of the weirdness of big media projects.
"Yes, this is for the creative team... I couldn't help but notice there was a catgirl empire for seemingly no reason?" [Leans into the microphone so hard lips scrape against it] "The project went through a lot of drafts."
I guess the second soft rule here is as GM if something comes up that needs explaining I have the right to go "here I invented a media tie-in" as many times as I want?
So I can also introduce big shifts if need be to fill in backstory stuff and as a mea culpa everyone else gets a new opportunity to introduce facts about things.
They could straight up just go "oh I notice the plot's at a lull; let me tell you about the light novel series they did about my character where they hunted for an ancient lost city, hint hint" or something.
It could straight be "right so this comic tie-in is about an entirely new and different cast and nobody from the game even shows up until the last ten pages, but it fleshes out this location/faction/major NPC/brings in this thing"
[Leans into the microphone so hard lips scrape against it] "The project went through a lot of drafts."