Interesting Dilemma

[thundershot]

The various groups of characters in my world all are connected in SOME way, whether by one character being part of another group a few years ago, or SOMEthing like that...


Chris

 

[D+1]

I have come up with a few ideas with the help of the players. They are:
1) I provide a railroad that keeps them together;
2) We start a 'character tree' and have different stories all over the
Dawnforge world; and
3) A couple of the PCs expressed some interest in changing characters to
better fit the group.

Had only a few very brief experiences with character trees. First was with the Amazing Engine game system. We didn't do much in any of the settings and we went back to D&D fairly quickly without seeing if their tree mechanics did much. I think Torg had character trees too, but I may be mistaken. We didn't play that one for long either, mostly because I recall one of the players finding a rather obnoxious flaw in the logic of some of the mechanics. I think by the time Dark Sun came around we'd just about had enough of trees even though we'd never really seen them work. I recall that we generated multiple characters each but wound up each selecting their favorite and forgetting about the rest. That campaign lasted a while.

While I wouldn't "railroad" them together, I think I'd personally prefer the option of devising a reason in-game for them all to reunite or stay together. But have you actually asked them what THEY want to do or are you simply assuming that this is your decision?

Maybe a compromise of all three? Have everyone roll up additional characters. Pick one of the original PC's at random and follow his "story arc" first. Let the other players choose to go along with either their older or a new PC. STEER the adventure back towards the possibility of working in the arcs for the other original PC's. Let the players decide at any point which of their PC's to include in the current adventure.