An Adventure Path is a series of interlinked adventures (campaign) for tabletop role-playing games which can be played in succession and lead characters to advance from lower to higher levels, through a particular path of events.
While campaigns exist for many role-playing game systems, the specific term Adventure Path discussed here applies to published adventures for the Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinderfantasyroleplaying games. Adventure Paths in opposition to normal campaigns usually have an own setting and rule set apart from the basic rules and settings.
Origin and Dungeon magazine
Though the term was originally applied to the series of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition modules beginning with The Sunless Citadel, it later came to refer to several lengthy series, each consisting of 11 or 12 installments, published sequentially in Dungeon magazine.
With the transference of Dragon and Dungeon back to Wizards of the Coast, Paizo Publishing, which had been producing the magazines under contract to WotC, continued the Adventure Path concept in their new monthly publication, Pathfinder. Paizo began publishing Pathfinder Adventure Path as a monthly publication in 2007. Starting with Council of Thieves in 2009, Paizo's modules began supporting their Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in addition to D&D.[1][2]
Pathfinder Adventure Paths and the publication date of their first chapter: