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So for the last few years, the design philosophy behind APs seems to be a straightforward and successful one - choose a theme, build AP around it.
It works for a few reasons - firstly, as long as the theme is resonant enough (which so far they have been), people get what the AP is about right away which helps their decision to play it. "Oh, cool, this is the pirate/horror/demons AP!". Secondly, the themes that Paizo went for so far are such that there are many associated story tropes that go with them, as well as a built in aesthetic that allows APs to feel distinguishable. Thirdly, as campaigns, it's good that APs have themes. In some of the campaigns there wasn't much linking the adventures together, and a unifying theme still made all six adventures into part of a cohesive whole.
There are many other advantages to this style of designs but I'd say these three are the main ones.
Now here's what I feel - while things are working very well right now, I think APs could be more interesting (and play out better) with a slightly different design philosophy. My pitch could be surmised as followed: "For each adventure path, choose two themes - a main theme, and a support theme."
You choose one of your themes to be the main theme of the AP - this will influence the overall story and location for the AP. The secondary theme, or support theme, will shift some of the focus away from the main theme, but not enough as to make the story about something other than the main theme.
1) The main reason is that limitations breed creativity. Basically what this means is that if the designers of a story challenge themselves with finding a way to mash both themes of an AP together and create a story that makes sense, they send their minds racing in directions they otherwise wouldn't. I suspect we would get better stories overall.
2) There are far more options of choosing two themes than there are of choosing a single theme. In fact, the growth is literally exponential in the number of options. Some day in the not all that distance future, Paizo would be at a point where many of the most popular AP concepts have already been covered by an AP of their own. At that point they either repeat themselves or turn to less popular themes. Sometimes they could make it work - see Reign of Winter for an example of a resounding success - but sometimes it might just mean a decrease in popularity for some APs. However, by doing the main-secondary theme thing, they ensure they just about never run into that kind of problem.
3) The interplay between main theme and secondary theme gives even further options. For example: let's say our two themes are pirates and darklands.
* Option one: main theme is pirates, secondary theme is darklands. PCs are pirates. The story is about competing against other factions in a race to retrieve some treasure. But the treasure itself is in the darklands, and perhaps one of the competing factions is darklands related as well. There is a lot of darklands lore and maybe an entire adventure in the darklands.
* option two: main theme is darklands, secondary theme is pirates. PCs are pirates... in the darklands. Just choose a layer that has lots of water in it.
4) The way things are going now, a player might be forced to wait years until he or she gets an AP that's about some theme that they love - with only two themes per year, that's inevitable. But, by touching on twice as many themes, you double the chance of getting to see significant elements of a theme the player loves each year, which would in some cases half the waiting time. And, as I hope my above example showed, there is little reason to worry that seeing the same theme appear multiple times would feel like doing the same things again and again - because each combination, and each assignment of the main/secondary roles - creates a very different feel.
Does anybody else think this is a good idea, or has an even better idea? I don't think I've ever seen a discussion about this before, and I'm curious about the way others in this forum think of this subject.
I think it's already happening more than you are giving is credit for. Hells Rebels is Chelaxian themed, AND is going to be focused on rebellion, which plays out very differently than Chelaxian and pretty much anything else...
The other thing to consider is the settings in which the APs take place in, very few locations in Golarion are one trick ponies when it comes to their shtick, they are already trying to blend themes even as the backdrop.
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I think it's already happening more than you are giving is credit for. Hells Rebels is Chelaxian themed, AND is going to be focused on rebellion, which plays out very differently than Chelaxian and pretty much anything else...
The other thing to consider is the settings in which the APs take place in, very few locations in Golarion are one trick ponies when it comes to their shtick, they are already trying to blend themes even as the backdrop.
I was thinking more of using themes that aren't as obviously connected as Cheliax + rebellion (the reason they are doing that AP is they found out that that's what people want to do in Cheliax anyway). Something more along the lines of
Or
Or you know what? Even the original AP set in Cheliax, Council of Thieves, they kind of did what I'm thinking about - they took the main theme (Saving city from itself) with the secondary theme (Cheliax) to make a more unique story. The outcome is debatable but the intention is there.
By the way, I wanted to make it known that I don't really think anything is broken with the current way APs are being designed - on the contrary, I like it quite a bit. Specifically when I read the outline of Hell's Rebels it sounded simply great. But I think the method I propose here should be another useful tool to evaluate ideas when creating campaigns.
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So wait which one is the Pirates/Horror/Demons AP! My god man! If it hasnt been made yet, it must! (Or is that Savage Tides?)
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You need a "The" in there:) but good enough:) either way sign me up!
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Wrath of the Skull and The Carrion Shackle Crown of Righteousness, is what I was picturing:)
now thats an AP i'd buy!
but to get on topic I agree with both the above posters actually:)