Any examples of a good interactive AAR?

[Eurasia]

I am thinking, after the American HoI3 AAR dies a long, painful death, to try out a interactive HoI3. But how is that done properly? When you allow people to decide on something? A lot of what you have to do is kind of logical and requires no outside input. And there was voting on EVERY little thing the game would be slower than real time. So can anybody link me to a good one? Or different ones so I can see which would best fit my style?

 

[stnylan]

I can't think of any examples right now myself tbh. Generally speaking I prefer interactive AARs with a certain limited degree of interactivity, because lots of votes inevitably slowly stuff down, and also requires a lot of involvement of the crowd.

Whilst not being a formal interactive AAR, there have certainly been parts of course of @Bullfilter 's Talking Turkey and Blut und Schlact AARs where he has asked for wider opinions about what to do next. If you makes that formally interactive - ie you end up presenting a set of options (or maybe even canvassing for options, and then curating them to a manageable selection) and then commit to following through, I think that could work.

Perhaps @Bullfilter could link to it, but from my recent reading through of Talking Turkey the discussion of the defensive lines is something what I am thinking of.

There was a Stellaris AAR some time back that limited the interactivity to the ten-yearly elections. I will see if I can dredge up the link. That worked rather well as the player created a set of parties reflecting various viewpoints, and then teh audience voted for parties (and occasional referenda iirc) that informed his gameplay.

 

[Idhrendur]

I've seen a number of different options. Mine (at least in the Vic2 part) was down at the level of semi-interactive: I allowed people to discuss things in character, but didn't allow them to directly control the story. I did run with some of the things that came up, though.

@Avindian did some on the other end of the spectrum. One had us play CK2 characters and send us goals and plans every year for our character. The other (in Vic2) had a degree of voting with some people getting positions where they could control more.

Some allow the forums to vote on critical decisions, some to set a general kind of policy for the next time span, and many in between. It just depends on what you feel like.

Of course, make sure to talk to the moderators before actually starting one, they require explicit approval for interactive AARs.

 

[Wraith11B]

There was the DemoVicky2 game that I heard of that never actually got started, then there was a Vicky2 game that I was a member of that had participants vote for their particular party, in their particular region and whoever garnered enough votes got to control the game for a five year period and was supposed to run the realm according to those guidelines. There was an interactive HoI4 game that I was also a part of, but that just turned into a gigantic cluster and I begged off of that game after awhile.

Generally speaking, the games I've seen have either been a mix of Discord (for the in-character discussions as well as OOC stuff) or Reddit. They have almost never posted here, but I'd say that is probably the best place for the non-AAR portion of the game.

 

[Plank of Wood]

Really weird that nobody here has mentioned the most successful and long running IAAR on this entire forum.

 

[Wraith11B]

Really weird that nobody here has mentioned the most successful and long running IAAR on this entire forum.

Unfortunately, I'm rarely (strike that, virtually never) on the Vicky2 board. The last time was for the Echoes of a New Tomorrow, and apparently I've not been getting the update notifications for that one (probably visited, opened, forgot to read and then it never updated me again). That is a bit of the problem: only so many hours in a day that I can be staring at a screen while doing things I enjoy doing.

I actually might start downloading posts to PDFs and attaching them to the posts themselves so that people can read my AAR while not online, actually.

 

[Plank of Wood]

Uh, cool.

Ultimately a successful IAAR needs to have stakes. People generally have agendas they want to push and they need to feel like if they don't check in and post their "team" will lose. ABE was successful mostly because people felt the need to contribute to the game world every single day. Did being well written and consistently admined help? Sure. But it's not enough.

Length of turn time doesn't really matter. ABE lasted like 35 years on ingame time, but IRL lasted a year and had TONS of stuff happen.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

There's a few I can name. From England to America Vicky2 and HOI editions were very interactive and very fun to participate in. I would echo what others have said however and keep tight control of what people say and do, because otherwise on or two commentators will run away with the AAR from you.

 

[Plank of Wood]

Albion and Empire, Revolution and Reaction, Federation of Equals, and all the other successful and ultra-popular iAARS were almost entirely player lead so I don't really get what you mean.

 

[Narwhal]

Coming late to the party, but I have two examples of Interactive AAR that I did, in two different ways :


Hannibal, Rome and Carthage in the Second Punic War => In this AAR, the commenters were the Senate, giving the most wise or the most absurd instructions to Carthage
CAARnage for CAARthage ! => In this AAR, each "unit" is a commenter, which sometimes had to make decision at critical moment of the battle.

Maybe they are good example, plus theyr advertise my AARs

 

[rosaann]

The Black France Saga has to be my all time favorite HOI3 AAR, as it delves into the national psyche of a war-torn France so well, it's almost haunting at points.

 

[mertalas]

Seconded. Its a great story that has something for everyone: colonialism, civil war, a different Lincoln in the White House... 10/10 AAR.

Without spoiling anything, it should rightly be called "America or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Perpetual Revolution"

 

[J_Master]

then there was a Vicky2 game that I was a member of that had participants vote for their particular party, in their particular region and whoever garnered enough votes got to control the game for a five year period and was supposed to run the realm according to those guidelines

This honestly sounds like Lauyalte me Lie, a Dual Monarchy AAR for the Divergences mod for Victoria 2. That was honestly a blast, when the interactivity increased following the civil war we had a discord server where we, semi in role, tried to set up the new system by which the country was to be ran. A horrid monster of compromise and Plank of Wood, the author, kinda gave up on it afterwards due to personal reasons but also the sheer complexity of the 3 tier system we had created. He updated it last year, based on that system, but it's just a regular AAR for that one update

 

[Wraith11B]

I want to say it was Victoria2Republic, there was a subreddit and everything.

 

[Plank of Wood]

This honestly sounds like Lauyalte me Lie, a Dual Monarchy AAR for the Divergences mod for Victoria 2. That was honestly a blast, when the interactivity increased following the civil war we had a discord server where we, semi in role, tried to set up the new system by which the country was to be ran. A horrid monster of compromise and Plank of Wood, the author, kinda gave up on it afterwards due to personal reasons but also the sheer complexity of the 3 tier system we had created. He updated it last year, based on that system, but it's just a regular AAR for that one update

Though my ego appreciates the shoutout, LmL would have been nothing without Let the Ruling Classes Tremble, Federation of Equals, Edge of Europe, Albion and Empire, and the other Vic2 IAARs before it (to name a few).

It was also a good example of what happens when you get too ambitious with an IAAR, the first year of updates were very easygoing for players and the gamerunner, but once you bring RP into the mix things get out of hand very quickly and you end up doing x10 the amount of work to make the IAAR function. Fully interactive IAARs are more like politics themed DnD with 20 players (who will all probably get very angry at each other at some point) than anything else. The other IAARs I mentioned did much better jobs in that respect and ran for years.

As a side note, I've considered doing a wrap up but unfortunately, the PC with the save file died. Would be cool to see a reboot of a Divergences IAAR from someone else, though.