Build points for a variable-sized group

Question

Bubblegumshoe assigns character build points according to the number of Sleuths in the game, but my RPG group varies in size from two to six players (excluding GM) from week to week. I understand the purpose behind BGS's ratio is to ensure every investigative ability is covered without significant overlap: Too few build points and there's a competence problem, too many and there's spotlight competition.

How many build points should our Sleuths have, and are there any gameplay techniques or mechanical conceits we can use to make our varying group size less of a competence-vs-spotlight liability?

Answer 1

On page 12 of Mutant City Blues, another gumshoe game, if found this: "Players who can only attend every now and then get the same number of investigative build points as everyone else, but are not counted toward the total when deciding how many points to allocate."

the way I interpret this, you should base the number of points of the lowest number of players you have regularly. As an example: if it usually varies between 3 and 5 and it is 2 or 6 once in a blue moon, you should build the charracters as if you had a group of 3 players.

You really need to ask yourself "How often will there be only 2 players?" "How often will there be three or fewer players" etc.