A Newb Asks, Do Pathfinder Adventure Paths Progress in Some Order?

[eelsnevil]

Hi. I'm a newb to Pathfinder, and I'm here to ask a very newb question: Do the Pathfinder Adventure Paths Progress in some order? That is, does the second adventure path follow from the first one and so on? I understand that they can be run separately, but do they tell a big story together? I really like the Golarion setting, and I want to explore it as fully as possible. I'm sorry in advance for asking this. I haven't been able to determine the answer from the product descriptions, nor have I found a similar posting on the message boards, though I could be simply missing the info on either one of these spaces.

All the best,
Eels

[Crimson Jester]

There is not at this time an apparent meta-plot. In fact the current word is that at least the first 3 adventure paths run concurrent. That is they take place pretty much at the same time. I used information in Curse of the Crimson Throne as well as Second Darkness and the modules Conquest of Blood Sworn Vale and Seven Swords of Sin as background rumors talking about the greater goings on in the world in my Rise of the Runelords Game.

[Mothman]

No, James Jacobs of Paizo has mentioned several times that the APs have no assumed order in the Golarion time line. They can really be played in any order, and for the most part events of one AP have no impact on events on other APs.

There are a few ‘Easter Eggs’ scattered throughout the APs that relate to things in one of the other APs. I think there is also a bit of a spoiler for AP2 (Curse of the Crimson Throne) in AP5 (Council of Thieves), but it is not that major.

[Karui Kage]

The 'semi-official' starting date of each AP coincides with the real world day it was released, but you can really run them all at any time. I think the first one that might have some meta-plot to it is the one that returns the PCs to Sandpoint (not out yet). There might be some stuff about Runelords being finished in it, but I have no clue.