RPG Talk: Writing for the PCs

Whether it's because a GM lacks time or expertise, or just wants to make the most of their published products collection, published adventures may play a large role in any given campaign. But of course, those ready-made scenarios aren't about your players' characters, which distances the players from the scenario, the setting and the stakes. So what can you do? Let's discuss some options (I mean, OTHER than ditching published scenarios entirely).

Subplots
A tried and true method is the subplot. This a side-story that thrumming along for one PC or another (ideally, for each, whether shared or individual) from one session to the next. These can be initiated by the GM or the player and usually fit into one of several categories like romance, family, rivalry, etc. This is a lesson one learns from superhero comics (especially in the Bronze Age), asking you to think of Electro's bank heist as the main adventure (in which you could have plugged any superhero) and Peter Parker having girl trouble as the subplot that's specific to him. A lot of subplots take off in the character generation process - which is why back story is important - and can be suggested by the player ("My brother went out adventuring before me, but we keep missing each other"), but the GM may feel inspired too ("Your former manager is sending you threatening texts and arranging fights with his new clients").

Subplots can peter out - especially if a player isn't interested in it - but ideally should blossom into a full adventure session that drags everyone into that player's story eventually. The group has to save the brother who has gotten into hot water, or they all get pressganged into the Manager's underground tournament (to use the examples above). In any case, find opportunities for scenes that advance at least a couple of PCs' subplots every session (at the start and end of adventures is easiest). This technique works best in campaigns with a single concentrated setting (the same city or starship, for example), where key NPCs are always around. It's much harder to do in picaresques or mission-based games.

It Was About the PC All Along (Centering/Re-Centering)
When reading through a published adventure, find opportunities to insert the characters or their associated NPCs into the backstory or action. That farmhouse that needs help? One of the PCs worked there as a youth and thinks of the farmer's family as their own. Give them mentors who send them on missions. Put their NPCs at risk. Make one of their old abandoned characters show up. Use their decisions against them to reveal that a mistake actually triggered the current scenario. It's entirely possible to enter into a pact with the players allowing you to reveal things about their pasts (like the farmhouse job) without them ever have thought of it (as long as it's consistent), but as a campaign goes on, this will become less and less necessary.

As you build your world and track the PCs' adventures, you'll find many more, built-in opportunities to "write for the PCs". NPCs are your main engine for this. By bringing back rivals and villains, allies and love interests, even sellers and comedy relief characters, you distance the world from the generic "on-sale" game and start building a setting that's specific to your table. Reading through a scenario you plan to use, you can easily see where you might replace NPC X with YOUR OWN ESTABLISHED NPC(TM). Draw links between the adventures, and if you've been planning ahead, make these retroactive. The key NPC from the adventure you want to play down the line? Introduce them in the adventure you're playing now. Create relationships early, pay them off later, and your players will think you're a role-playing magician.

And so then...
If you do away with published adventures and are either writing scenarios yourself or flying by the seat of your pants (which you should still do to pay off subplots and other opportunities, above), you should more directly address the adventures to the PC group. Lean into the characters' interests, personal missions, and group dynamics. What do THEY want to do? Go with the flow, and plan the big beats a bit ahead of time. And still, because you don't want to leave anyone in the dust because one player is more highly motivated, you may want to resort to subplots or re-centering to give others a piece of the action pie.

Either way, don't let your games become "run through generic paces" events like some kind of video game. Heck, even video games these days have a personal story attached to their PC.