tl;dr: Do you try to connect the modules of your campaigns or do you mostly stick with DH's "disconnected missions" scheme? And why?

From the original design of DH and most of the official and / or fan-made modules I've seen, it is generally assumed that at least pre-ascension level, basiccally the Acolytes get sent on a mission, return from that mission, may or may not get some downtime and get sent on the next - usually completely unrelated - one.

Now, I certainly recognize that fluff-wise, especially low-ranking acolytes would indeed just be assigned different tasks by their master whenever necessity arises and also to test them and their abilities. Also, from a metagaming standpoint, the "one mission after another" mechanic obviously makes it a lot easier to mix different types of stories and different locales.

But: I think that these "disconnected missions" can greatly hurt the feeling of scale that a connected campaign can evoke. Let me make an example: before I started GMing, I was a player in our regular group, and our then-GM ran the three modules from PtU. Now, these modules (at least RfYaT and BH) actually DO have a connection, if only a slight one that is all but forgotten in the middle part - but this connection completely evaded us for 99% of the time we were playing. Maybe this means we were not the most attentive of players (all but one of us were still very new to the setting at that point), but I think the main problem was that these modules did not "feel" in any way connected. There was no natural progression from Scintilla to Sepheris, and we didn't ever feel like we were solving something that might be connected but rather felt we were just solving three completely separate cases, so that even when the connection to RfYaT appeared in BH, initially, none of us even got it.

When I took over as GM for our group a while after, being somewhat of a storyteller at heart, I made a pact with myself to try and give events and missions a logical progression, giving the Acolytes a larger "case" they are working on. This doesn't have to mean that they are empowered to do whatever they want - but if they bring back the evidence and with it these hints to their Inquisitor, he'll probably go "Hey, that's interesting - go investigate that next!". And voilà, you've got yourself an ongoing narrative that actually leads from their current mission to what they'll be investigating next in a logical way. For me, both when I'm a player and when I'm GMing, this is a much more rewarding experience than the Inquisitor simply patting his acolytes on the back going "Alright, you did well. Now go investigate this completely unrelated case." Not just because there now is a narrative, but also because the acolytes get an additional confirmation that what they just did (any maybe almost died for) actually meant something in a larger context.

Don't get me wrong - I still run regular modules, and they still can be pretty much standalone if they were intended to be. But I make a point of always inserting one or two hints to events that will follow in the campaign - even if they are mostly unrelated to what is going on in the current module. If the acolytes put those together on their own, I might give them some bonus XP and their Inquisitor will agree with them and send them on their way. If they don't, he can still put them together for them, but the progression still remains.

So is guess my question is: what do you think - either as players or GMs? Do you prefer the disconnected, mission-like structure, or do you like connected campaigns more? And: why? :-)

I prefer there to at least be some connection or recurring theme when I run a campaign. So for example, I am running the Haarlock Heresy books for a group at the moment. However to avoid just running the three books one after another I'm mixing in other adventures/missions/investigations. But when I add a mission I'm trying to make sure it has a link. There comes a point when the Inquisitor has got to think - "This next thing I need investigating might have/seems to have a connection to X. This group here knows the most about X. It would be best to send them."

This also allows recurring badguys to be involved, rather then just a series of whack-a-mole end bosses (e.g. Heron Mask will appear more than once).

I prefer disconnected meta-structure with connected leads. So the boss might give them a general focus of investigation like "seek out tech heresy in Sibellus". The team takes on various missions relating to the topic at hand finding various clues with the boss only stepping in occasionally for emergency operations or breakthroughs in the evidence.

In this way I think even very disconnected missions can be ran. You can even start a session with a briefing "Evidence from the mission from Matador III has been analyzed. We're certain that the geno-pathogen strain could only have been produced by the Verran Corporation. An opportunity to have you enter the labs has just been made available…" This way even if the mission on Matador III was quite awhile back it synches it back up. All the better if the acolytes were already investigating a mysterious death of a VerranCo habworker.

I've run both "planet of the week" style of game, and a "grand investigation type." Of the two, the large scale investigation has resulted in the more memorable moments for my players. It was, however, a pain to prepare for, as I was trying to paint a broad picture and account for quite a few different player activities.

Now, techncially speaking, even both those campaigns were connected. They worked for the same inquisitor, and one player was allowed to take a modification of their old character (for XP reasons. The first game hit about 10k XP at the end, with quite a bit of gear, and the new game was starting nowhere near that. To account for this, we just said the character was mind wiped for unknown reasons between the present and that campaign, worked out pretty well).

I like to have connections through my adventures. The first few I did were unrelated, as I was just getting a feel for being a GM. After that, I started throwing things in. For example, since the Serrated Query was introduced through Purge the Unclean, I did something with that and tied it to all adventures after, even while running the Harlock Legacy.

My something, For those that want to know, was adding a splinter cult of the Query that believe in using the warp, that it is neither good or bad, it just is. As such they have special wierds in their ranks due to a pact with a demon. To make this even cooler, since the original Query dislikes deamons and these offshoots left the organization, I had my players caught between 2 pact holders and their Heretek Query executioner (who infiltrated their group to get closer to his marks)

I have not one but two major plot arcs. I have a Logicians cult and also a radical Inquisition cell that the party has gotten mixed up with. All of our campaigns thus far have touched on one or the other, and eventually I plan to somehow work out how to merge the two together. For the players, this basically works out to "you guys have some experience with this, so I'm sending you to investigate such and such which we believe is connected to your activities on such and such." Sometimes the connections are obvious and sometimes they're very subtle. The idea is to help them feel that their works from one investigation make it possible to go up the chain a step, or lend their support to another aspect of the same cult in another location.

How I bring those two threads together is something I'm currently working out. Right now, they usually go back and forth trading off each minor campaign. They are not even aware of all the aspects of the rival Inquis cell and what's going on, but they're about to. One thing that's cool about this is that when they finish a mission, they are usually debriefed about what has been learned from their previous outing, which has set up the next mission the last couple times, jumping to the other thread.

It's a little weird, but I think it really does help with that sense of scale and feeling like they're making a difference in some way. They are also becoming legit useful to their Inquisitor, who recognizes their value and expertise in these two matters. I think they're starting to feel like things are brewing to an extent.