Again, call me crazy, but it's not actually illegal for your players to sit down and collectively work out the sort of things they'd like to do, and make their characters accordingly.
However, the sort of thing I was talking about is more PC-driven than that. For instance, in my first Third Edition game: the DM was the one who came up with a wizard's guild called the Circle of Kwalish, and he introduced it into the game because one of the PC wizards was interested in learning rare spells and lore - but it was that PC who decided to enlist his fellow PCs in mounting an internal takeover of the Circle, and it was that same PC who turned the Circle of Kwalish into a cultlike group whose ultimate purpose was to provide him with the souls of loyal followers he could consume for the ritual which made him a lich.
The DM responded to these goals by figuring out all of the challenges that we would have to overcome to make it happen, and introducing all sorts of crazy complications tied in with the plotlines being pursued by the other PCs.
So, the point in relation to this thread? Maybe there isn't one!
