Do you guys prefer to write by the seat of your pants or finish the entire campaign before starting an AAR? Or do you do something in between?
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It depends on which game to be honest, though more seat of my pants-y. With Crusader Kings 2 I try and play for the duration of a monarch's reign and then write up until that point. With Victoria 2 or Stellaris I tended to play in decade long jumps if nothing particularly eventful was happening, and otherwise focus on that event (ie. play ahead to see how a particular war ends.)
Depends. Some genres do better with more played ahead.
History book for example. And narratives, which need proper set up and pay off.
History book for example. And narratives, which need proper set up and pay off.
Road of Queens I play a few hours (real time) so I know what is going to happen and write the story as best I can. IF I start a war or a murder plot or a scheme I play till it is completed so my chapters have a 'story arch' within the greater story.
The HoI3 AARs I play as far as I need to for the next chapter and next goal. Which means I can be somewhat surprised.
The HoI3 AARs I play as far as I need to for the next chapter and next goal. Which means I can be somewhat surprised.
The problem with playing to the end, aside from the time commitment and having to take all the notes/screenshots/etc, is you can end up locked on a certain path and at a specific ending. What you want to write at the start of a project may not be what you want to do halfway through, your ideas may change, there may be some excellent reader ideas and feedback that mean you see things from a different perspective or you may just want to focus on a different character / event / campaign that is nagging for your writing attention.
All this assumes you pay attention to what the game does and don't just use it for a vague outline, the odd screenshot and as a battle-result generator (offspring generator in CK2
), with all the details up for change to suit your purposes. It's certainly what I do and I believe it's a fairly common approach.
All this assumes you pay attention to what the game does and don't just use it for a vague outline, the odd screenshot and as a battle-result generator (offspring generator in CK2
), with all the details up for change to suit your purposes. It's certainly what I do and I believe it's a fairly common approach.
I've done things where I write almost immediately after the play session (my current Battletech AAR is such a one), and I've done some where the gameplay is effectively complete, and the whole range inbetween. Like with many such questions, there is no right or wrong answer.
For me, broadly speaking, the problem of playing too far ahead is having to remember stuff. In the past I have previously gotten around this by copious note taking (screenshots generally not cutting it imo), but that makes each game session a major investment of effort and therefore not always what I want to when I am knackered after work. However, in narrative and historybook AAR styles you then run into the problem, already mentioned, of trying to weave a coherent tale when you don't know what is coming next. It makes it far harder to "setup" plots or themes when you have no idea they will occur.
There are two solutions to that, both of which I have employed. For narratives one can adopt a first person present perspective. As this ties you directly into a viewpoint of the now it makes more in-story sense when things don't quite add up, as the perspective demands a sense of the unreliable (as in, your perspective character will only have incomplete information etc). The con of this technique is frankly it can be tricky to write, and some people find it very offputting to read.
For historybooks there is an easier method, and that is make your history contemporaneous. As in your "historybook" - be it in the style of a chronicle, newspaper articles, in-game reports, diaries, or what have you - is written either as or shortly after each play session. Therefore the fact that you don't know what is coming ceases to be an annoyance and instead becomes a feature allowing greater verisimillitude of perspective. The con is, obviously enough, that you can't write a more standard historybook fully from the "after-the-fact" perspective.
However, there is another option here. This requires making somewhat frequent saves as you go, but few (or no) notes. Play the game making these saves, and then after you have completed the game allow a stretch of time to pass. Several months at least. And then go back through the saves trying to reconstruct the history from what saves you have. In other words actually perform historical research, as it were, on the game you have played. I have seen @Bullfilter do this extra-ordinarily well.
For me, broadly speaking, the problem of playing too far ahead is having to remember stuff. In the past I have previously gotten around this by copious note taking (screenshots generally not cutting it imo), but that makes each game session a major investment of effort and therefore not always what I want to when I am knackered after work. However, in narrative and historybook AAR styles you then run into the problem, already mentioned, of trying to weave a coherent tale when you don't know what is coming next. It makes it far harder to "setup" plots or themes when you have no idea they will occur.
There are two solutions to that, both of which I have employed. For narratives one can adopt a first person present perspective. As this ties you directly into a viewpoint of the now it makes more in-story sense when things don't quite add up, as the perspective demands a sense of the unreliable (as in, your perspective character will only have incomplete information etc). The con of this technique is frankly it can be tricky to write, and some people find it very offputting to read.
For historybooks there is an easier method, and that is make your history contemporaneous. As in your "historybook" - be it in the style of a chronicle, newspaper articles, in-game reports, diaries, or what have you - is written either as or shortly after each play session. Therefore the fact that you don't know what is coming ceases to be an annoyance and instead becomes a feature allowing greater verisimillitude of perspective. The con is, obviously enough, that you can't write a more standard historybook fully from the "after-the-fact" perspective.
However, there is another option here. This requires making somewhat frequent saves as you go, but few (or no) notes. Play the game making these saves, and then after you have completed the game allow a stretch of time to pass. Several months at least. And then go back through the saves trying to reconstruct the history from what saves you have. In other words actually perform historical research, as it were, on the game you have played. I have seen @Bullfilter do this extra-ordinarily well.
I take a similar approach, as I write AARs that are first gameplay, though incorporating other elements. I try to play through to logical points, some one, often two, occasionally three chapters worth. Much more and it becomes difficult to remember what exactly you did or why. Especially if you’re writing 3-4 AARs simultaneously, which I do.
I’ve done one based purely a save game files that worked ok, a couple of years after I played the game, and there are advantages to knowing what will happen. Horses for courses, really.
Very nice of you to say so, my friend. It was a game I played before I even knew AARs were a thing! And had forgotten why I had done a lot of stuff.
Yep, I know that can be an issue for me and at times the game has tripped up my plans. When it comes to themes I often try to go quite broad (ie. 'Orléanist vs. Legitimists vs. Republicans' or 'Nestorians vs Pagans') rather than tie myself very much to one particular character arc - but if possible I try and weave the 'surprise' to those broader themes.
As I've said before I do love the idea of an epistolary AAR though. I've definitely considered it for Victoria II where newspapers are very much an authentic period thing.
I've tried a number of methods over the years. My first AAR was for CK2 and, like much of the work based off that game, heavily character focused. I played a few generations until I got the family where I wanted them, then I sort of constructed the history after the game session had ended as and when I needed it. (As it happened, I ended up doing a whole load of weird, ambitious experiments with form and the project collapsed under its own weight after about a year.) After that I switched to a sort of system where I'd play about a decade or two ahead, although by this point I'd also started writing history books so this strategy had it'd own drawbacks. One major drawback was that I played faster than I wrote, so even though I started with AAR and save pretty close together, a couple of months in and I'd finished the game but only got about a decade into the writing.
In the past I've done a hybrid thing of writing a history-book style AAR about a specific character or period in time. When I tried to write a DH AAR about Hugh Gaitskell, this meant playing up to the point of him reaching office and then for as long as he was in power. For details after this timespan, I used the game world as a springboard and constructed my own alt-historical world. This is pretty much the tactic I've used with Echoes of A New Tomorrow. The game itself only lasted from 1920-1934, but from that I've extrapolated an entire timeline up to about 1970. (And for once I'm pretty hopeful actually getting there.)
I've sort of learned over the years what sort of detail level I need as far as taking notes is concerned. Pretty much every play through I do nowadays I take at least rudimentary notes just so I can remember how the world panned out. I've got a handful of scenarios I could theoretically base AARs off of should I have the desire once Echoes is done with. The issue with this is that I don't really take screenshots, but then my AARs haven't really referenced the game as a game all that much of late. I suppose this echoes what @El Pip was saying above: it depends on whether you view the game as the story, or whether you view it as more like a writing prompt.
In the past I've done a hybrid thing of writing a history-book style AAR about a specific character or period in time. When I tried to write a DH AAR about Hugh Gaitskell, this meant playing up to the point of him reaching office and then for as long as he was in power. For details after this timespan, I used the game world as a springboard and constructed my own alt-historical world. This is pretty much the tactic I've used with Echoes of A New Tomorrow. The game itself only lasted from 1920-1934, but from that I've extrapolated an entire timeline up to about 1970. (And for once I'm pretty hopeful actually getting there.
)I've sort of learned over the years what sort of detail level I need as far as taking notes is concerned. Pretty much every play through I do nowadays I take at least rudimentary notes just so I can remember how the world panned out. I've got a handful of scenarios I could theoretically base AARs off of should I have the desire once Echoes is done with. The issue with this is that I don't really take screenshots, but then my AARs haven't really referenced the game as a game all that much of late. I suppose this echoes what @El Pip was saying above: it depends on whether you view the game as the story, or whether you view it as more like a writing prompt.
I have played far ahead of where I started (I began the playthrough in January 2017) but as others have mentioned, writing this way can cause plenty of consternation later on. El Pip has brought up more salient points than I can shake a stick at in my AAR as have others--history I didn't even know existed--that I would have loved to somehow work into my narrative from the start.
Now that I'm up to six computers and nations at once though, am I still really going to be a good source for guidance? I hope so!
Now that I'm up to six computers and nations at once though, am I still really going to be a good source for guidance? I hope so!
All good advice above. I've done it just about every way, but for me writing narrative I like to know what happens next to connect themes, characters, etc. As stated, the bonus of playing as you write is being able to connect with your readers and take advice, go in a different direction from such suggestions, et al. Yet I tend to play it all out (or at least the portion I am writing about) and then return to notes, screens, etc. to build the story. As others have said, there is no wrong way. It really is up to what you want to do with your own work.
My first two attempts at an AAR started because something interesting happened in an ongoing game that I thought would make an interesting story. So both of those I was already 100s of years into the play through. Then I tried an AAR where I had thought of an interesting premise and set the game up and started both game and AAR at about the same time. My current AAR, I started the game and found the initial character interesting and decided to write an AAR and see what happens to him and his descendants, I'm currently about 50 years ahead of the story with my gameplay in that AAR. I am writing up another AAR, my first one in more of a history book format rather than narrative/gameplay story, where I have already finished the game completely. I will probably have the whole thing written before I start posting any of it.
It depends, really. Normally I play with Word and the snipping tool open, taking snippets/images of the things I think I will need to show, and mostly more than I use. I also write notes of noteable things to write about.
A typical note for a short update in my current Imperator AAR is like this:
That is for my short updates kind of AAR I do nowadays. Back when I wrote the more involved history book about the kings of Norway (link in inkwell in sig), I used notepad and wrote like this:
That was all I needed for a pretty successful AAR. But things differ from person to person. Some, as advertised above, like to play one reign and then write. I like to have a few reigns/decades/chapters played out first.
A typical note for a short update in my current Imperator AAR is like this:
That is for my short updates kind of AAR I do nowadays. Back when I wrote the more involved history book about the kings of Norway (link in inkwell in sig), I used notepad and wrote like this:
That was all I needed for a pretty successful AAR.
But things differ from person to person. Some, as advertised above, like to play one reign and then write. I like to have a few reigns/decades/chapters played out first.
Yeah, I don’t take notes, but do lots of screenshots as de facto notes/ reminders. I might have 150-200 or sometimes more for a single chapter. Some for composite pics, most just to track little occurrences, unit moves etc. I use the saved file name for each shot to write sometimes quite long notes similar to @Nikolai’s notes above.
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Yes, I have played about 50 years past the point in the story that I just posted for "The People of Forest". I have a couple of additional chapters written, just need to prepare the images to go with them before I post, plus I am trying to pace my self, not dumping a whole lot of chapters all at once. I also have written some scattered scenes further in the time line based certain events that stood out and gave me ideas at the time in how to write them. These scenes will be incorporated into the story as it catches up, though they may end up significantly revised to fit the into the way the story has evolved to that point.
As I mentioned in another post, for this AAR, I take a ton of screenshots and save alot. I use the screenshots to create a spreadsheet with the timeline of events in the game to keep everything straight and guide my writing. I use the game saves to check or expand some side stories or refresh my memory on how everyone is related or grab additional screenshots of characters or maps I want use for a chapter.
I largely write chapter to chapter without playing too far ahead, when I first began I would play a single year and write a short chapter about what happened, but that proved to be unsustainable as my first ruler took 50 chapters to write. Now I play 1-4 years ahead at the max and write what happened in that timeline and try and come up with a plot for the chapter, not everything in the AAR happens at the exact same year it did in the game(many stuff a year or two off are included just to add more events) I have a google doc with the stuff/events that happened as well as a basic outline/idea on how to begin the chapter, but many times the chapter kind of writes its self after begining with the outline and fleshing it out with events from notes.
Conversely I have a list of things the game is going to do at certain dates and I then make sure those things happen, or just edit the save so the effect is the same as if they had happened. I think this approach works best in history book where you have a rough outline of what you want to happen and what events you want to write about.
I suppose it could also work if you have a narrative arc you want to write about, a classic redemption/revenge story with an interesting character, but don't want the game engine to ruin things by have the character die after being attacked by a rogue swan after 4 months. Don't get me wrong, a revenge epic ending being derailed in a pathetically ridiculous manner is something I would definitely read, but it may not be what you want to write.
I suppose it could also work if you have a narrative arc you want to write about, a classic redemption/revenge story with an interesting character, but don't want the game engine to ruin things by have the character die after being attacked by a rogue swan after 4 months. Don't get me wrong, a revenge epic ending being derailed in a pathetically ridiculous manner is something I would definitely read, but it may not be what you want to write.
Did any of you start writing some scenes at the beginning? Even if you weren't sure where to place them?