This prompt is truly ambiguous… thread. So what to do with this one?

There’s a lot of way to craft a story, be it a novel, a movie, TV show, or a game. You have a lot you can weave with. There are the characters: what about their personalities, their goal, their weaknesses, can be used to drive them and the story. How do you tie them to the story in a meaningful way that isn’t driven by “you meet in a tavern…” Why are they doing what they are doing? Is it just a job? Is it chance? Did their plane crash and they are forced together? Is it personal? How do their goal intersect, compete, antagonize, or complement?

How do the stories tie together? Are you going to do a series of stories that are discrete, like a pre-1990s television show? Are they tied together tightly, like a season of Babylon 5, or is there a combination, with discrete adventures that aren’t tied to the main narrative? (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex had an interesting way of doing these: there were “complex” — or “push” episode that moved the arc, and “stand alone” episode that were, at most, tangentially connected to the season arc.) Being able to tie the personal ambitions and flaws of the characters to what stories you pitch at the players, and how they unfold.

And interesting idea I’ve been using is threading an overarching historical line through our Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. The characters have changed from one game to the next, along with where in the collapsing then resurgent Roman empire they happen. The events of one campaign play into setting up the world for the next. Plot threads from the early campaigns play into new ones, or disappear only to reemerge a campaign down the line. It’s much more complex that i had anticipated, and seems to be paying off for the players.

So how do you “thread” in your games, in your characters?