Adventure Paths and Personal Stories

[Aunders]

So I'm running Hell's Rebels for a group of my friends and they've all made awesome backgrounds and they tie into the story very well. I've created a couple of custom NPCs and events I'd like to happen that run with the story already being told, the locations they're already going to go to, and the enemies that they're already going to fight, but I'm kind of nervous about putting them in. I was thinking of spreading one PC's story arc per book, and given that there are 5 PCs, that leaves the final book unchanged and keeps the PCs focus on ending the story. How have you handled adding your own stories to existing adventures? Do you think handling one PC's story at a time in an AP is a good idea?

[Reverse]

I tend to take the players' ideas and adapt them to existing NPCs and locations in the AP, combining them wherever possible. Your father was killed by a necromancer? Great, we'll take the existing necromancer in Book 2 and change his name to match.

A corrupt judge took Player 1's family house away and a nobleman framed Player 2's family? Ask the players if they're OK to combine their backstories into one antagonist NPC.

[Dave Justus]

In my opinion less is more with this sort of thing.

Ideally, a backstory should get a character to the point where they are interested in and invested in the story of the campaign, the story of the group as a whole. It is their 'back' story, not their now story.

Having callouts, and references to players backstory here and there is a good thing. Having a single players backstory take over and replace the story of the group as a whole, even for a portion of the campaign is usually not so good.

One thing to consider on all this, is if I have the PC whose story is the focus for the first book, and it is resolved, then why am I hanging around for the next five? My story is done. My motivations have all been dealt with.

[Matthew Downie]

The chances of a PC making it to book five aren't that high. I wouldn't do too much work too far in advance.

[Moonclanger]

The other Pathfinder GM in my group does it as Reverse has suggested. When we played Kingmaker the BBEG turned out to be the party paladin's mysterious parent.

But as a GM I'm with Dave. Less is more. Back stories should not take over the campaign. If each of the first five books is to be devoted to a different back story then each player will spend four books playing second fiddle to one of his buddies. And if, like my group, you only play for three hours a week and take up to two years to play out an adventure path, then each player will spend a year or more playing second fiddle. Player #5 may get very fed up before it's his turn to bat.