Sorry to interject, but I'm in a bit of a rut myself.
Okay, so I'm a newb DM. I've run about 4 sessions now, and I'm pretty sure I'm getting everything under control. Roleplaying (both for myself and the group) is a lot easier and smoother. In that aspect, everything is smooth sailing.
My "campaign" so far is pretty loose. The only running theme so far is that all the adventures are circumstancial (Such as traveling through a village being attacked by an ettin). I guess to describe my problem, I need to lay out the story so far.
Okay, so the group spent level 0 (yes, we played it) 1 and 2 doing the usual nooblah intro type things. The group (level 3) get requisitioned to find out why vital merchant ships have stopped arriving in the merchant sea town to the east. The mayor (the person laying out the dilemma to the party) tells them they have two options: Overland via a swamp, which is rife with dangerous creatures (cr1 and 2 encounters, not that the PC's know, of course), or a much longer round trip, going to the floating docks to the north (three days overland travel) and sailing around the penisula to figure out what has been going on.
The PC's took the longer route, and ended up having to deal with a maurding ettin attacking a town. (He was actually a cleric who had been polymorphed, and became trapped in the ettins body).
Anyway, the PC's sailed around the peninsula, and became wrecked on coral, hen attacked by pirates. They rowed ashore, and were attacked by the rest of the band of pirates. This is where I ended the session. Basically the characters have to explore the camp enough to find clues that the pirates have been using a fake lighthouseto lure ships into the reef, before attacking them and yada yada yada
What I'm looking for now is some kind of continuity. Should I let this arc finish naturally, and introduce a BBEG that wil harass the characters, or try to expand on this story? I'm trying to move the story along, as out group does not get to meet as regularly as any of us would like, but I don't want to have to drop the serendipedous story right away either.
Whoah. If you read/followed that, you deserve a medal of some kind.