I want to say that I do not plan to actually go through with this. It is way too much time and money for my present situation. This is pretty much a thought experiment.
So, with that in mind, here is the proposition: All the adventure paths run in chronological order, with the events of previous paths interacting with the latter, in essence creating a new Pathfinder universe based around the choices of the characters in each previous installment.
My first question: Has anybody actually managed it? Or even half, or close? It sounds like a nigh-insane undertaking that would easily take a decade if not more of time. Anyone who could get even close to halfway would deserve all the respect, especially as the consequences from the former become increasingly large.
my second: If you where to hypothetically undertake it, how would you do it? My thoughts below:
we'd start with rise of the runelords on 1 abadius, 4707. I would not play kind, allowing PC's to die just as often as they get into deadly situations (after all, they'll have more chances). Once done with this, I would ask each PC what they wish to do post-campaign, and keep note.
The second campaign would start either 6 months (1 sarenith 4707) after the start of the first, or about a month after it's end, whichever is later. Each player would get 1 "Interrupt" for this second campaign, to be spent either immediately or later. IE, they could choose one point in the campaign to insert a character, concept, etc. from the previous one, with all other crossovers of my choosing.
I would allow the players to fail whole adventure paths if they get a TPK or just get flatout beat. This would not only throw the world into a new way, but may give a reason to assemble some old favorite PC's to go deal with the issue (assuming it's world ending)
another thing I was thinking of would be to only allow certain books as they came out. IE during rise of the runelords, only allowing core rulebook (kind of cheating but oh well) and then drip-feeding other sourcebooks as they come, perhaps adding a few extra's to the first few paths since they didn't have much support.
Step two of this plan (one that would only work assuming an excess of time and money) would be to also link in pathfinder society scenarios and modules into the mix. While these wouldn't be played by players necessarily (they could be on request), I'd be either running them (unlikely) with an NPC party, Or else creating an NPC party and then narratively determining how they do against the threat, if it works out, ETC. This would provide a war for the world outside of the players to evolve even further, and for NPC's to spawn naturally (Want to meet a pathfinder? Why not one with a history of adventures in (insert region here)!?)
As you can see, this is pretty clearly a pipe-dream with probably far too many moving parts and bookkeeping for it's own good. So a question to you fair forum: Assuming you had limitless resources and this particular project, how would YOU handle it? Less emphasis on interconnectedness? More emphasis? More or less mercy on PC's? Starting with heavy modification of the adventure paths? Some other neat idea I havne't thought of? Would love to hear!