Any tips for writing AAR's?

[snwh]

A friend of mine has been bugging me to do one for him, I think he wants to convince himself into buying rtw2 :3

And well, I say bugging, but it does sound like fun.

Problem is, I havent read many(any), and I don't really know the best way to go about it

does anyone who's written one have any advice? especially from the recording perspective? I did try taking logs once, but well, it wasn't very efficient to say the least.

For people that read them, what kind do you like to read? what hooks you, what makes you stay?

Anyone have suggestions of a couple for reference?

Thank you for you time :3

[L0ckAndL0ad]

I've made quite a few lengthy AARs, AAR-structured articles and mini-stories, but I don't think any of them were popular enough. Eventually I realized that the only reader who I'd like to write AARs for was... me. I can often return to what I wrote years later and enjoy the nostalgia behind the events that occurred. Compare my way of thinking about things then and now. Analyze what strategies worked and what did not, share tips, techniques & application of strategic/tactical/logistic philosophies, and other things of such nature. But I, myself, must enjoy what I write about, otherwise it's gonna be impossible to justify spending time on it in the first place (and it can take quite a while).

When it comes to reading AARs, I often try to compare someone else's experience with mine and try to learn from it. "Lessons learned", a theme rather popular in actual, real world military AARs is what I really enjoy reading. I love reading something that might motivate me try/experience something similar myself. With the advantage of having the knowledge of others who'd done it before me.

Doesn't mean there's any harm in action-packed, pure fun texts. In fact, sharing your experience of having fun, whatever that might be, is the ultimate goal here IMO. If the person who's writing isn't having fun, then it shows.

Also, modern day YouTube gaming videos, even though I love them and watch them frequently, have downsides that text/image based AARs can avoid - lack of brevity. It can be often hard to justify spending 25-40 minutes of your time for just one video. So it is important to remember not to turn your text into a wall-of-text nobody would dare to read. So brevity is always nice.

I dunno what else to say. Practice, experiment? At times, I tried communicating with the readers through AARs, making them more involved, but that's not always applicable and highly situational. So uhm.. have fun and show others what floats your particular boat?

[snwh]

Thats actually pretty solid advice I think.

I think I need to particularly pay attention to the brevity one, because on forums I have a bad habit of being long winded. So I'll really try to take that to heart :3

But themes, 'lessons learned' actually works pretty well for me. It feels like I learn several things ever time I play a game of rtw. And I have a feeling that the game im planning for the AAR will be a particularly novel experience. So I think that'll work well.


I also hadn't thought about returning to it for nostalgias sake, but in a way, its sort of perfect for that, isn't it? Thanks for that. I think I feel a little more confident about pulling this off.

[director]

I've written seven or eight full stories, on the Paradox forum mostly but one Railroad Tycoon AAR, one Galactic Civilizations AAR and one Byzantium story for Rule the Waves. I'd encourage you to write, if you write because you want to or need to. If you write for the approval of others, I recommend the serial 'cliffhanger' approach... and steeling yourself for not getting very many comments. About ten people will read for every comment you get... unless it's twenty-to-one, or more.


First, play far enough into a game that you have some material to write about, by which I mean what your story is about, how it would develop and where it might be going.

Second, tell a story. It will need a beginning, some obstacles to overcome and a resolution. Do at least some general plotting in advance and have goals.

Third, all stories are about characters, not plot points. People may be interested in the details of a new dreadnought but they will care about what this means for your main characters.

Fourth, read other AARs. Read what you like and some of what you don't; know not just which is which, but why.

Fifth: all stories are ultimately the same story: a quest for a thing or ideal, with a hero and an antagonist, possibly a romantic interest and lots of obstacles which the hero can overcome - by growing and changing, and with the help of colorful friends. See? Easy LOL. That's War and Peace, Star Wars and the Odyssey, the Three Musketeers, Sherlock Holmes and Highlander and The Wizard of Oz too.

So don't be afraid to steal - it is unavoidable. Steal from the best, put a slightly different twist or perspective on it, and write. Write a lot if you ever want to improve.


I always write too much... re-reading and editing, or having someone else read it and make suggestions, is the only cure aside from rigid discipline. There is a story told about British composer Gustav Holst, that he would compose a work in pencil and then go back with an eraser and remove everything that was not absolutely necessary. Probably apocryphal, but still good advice. The good news is that you can write as much as you like about interesting people and things... so long as you remember that people are more interesting than events, and write about what makes them interesting.

Write lots. Set it aside for at least a day, read it, despair, edit it, read it again, weep, and post it. Good writing hurts as much as bad writing, it just feels better later on - but nobody gets better at it without writing.

Rob Burnett talks about 'plotting' and 'pantsing'; plotting out in advance or flying by the seat of one's pants. He recommends plotting the plot and pantsing the characters - ie, letting them speak in their own voices. I wish I'd heard that fifteen years ago.

[Gerack]

The best "ARR" I've seen was on an imageboard. An anon was playing the game as Italy and giving constant feedback to the rest of the people posting, deciding naval policies as if we were a committee. The ship names people suggested were all hilarious, my personal favourite was "Mussolini's Lamborghini", a BB built in the mid-game that had quite a successful career.

[mycophobia]

While I haven’t done an AAR for rtw I did do a fairly successful AAR for an ongoing warhammer fantasy battle campaign of my gaming group.

Lockandload and directors both offered some very solid advice above. I’d like to emphasize again tho the most important part of an AAR is you are having fun doing it. Ideally, AAR should not only be fun to write, but should make you look forward to playing each game so that you can add to the AAR.

I am personally a fan of story oriented AAR and I don’t usually write out the details from a gaming perspective( consider Your audience too tho, since I’m writing on a forum for warhammer total war, too much detail about tabletop gaming details will likely confuse readers who are interested in the story and lore, but haven’t touched the tabletop game). Nevertheless, story oriented AAR may not be for everyone so it’s up to you to decide what you like.


Many above raised the issue with length, my recommendation is to insert as many pictures as you can. I’d recommend you always do a screenshot of the after action map for large battles with movement lines so the readers can get a better idea as to what’s going on. I know RTW isn’t the greatest graphics-wise, but making use of the ship side-view image adds a lot of life to it. Furthermore, I’ve seen AARs further editing the side views to create battle scenes such as ship on fire, consider that as well.(granted it is a lot of work)

Furthermore, avoid mentioning all minor details, you can even omit entire battles if they are not very exciting, painting the big picture is enough to set he background sometime.

Also while many recommend play a while to have a lot under your belt to frame a story, I find it to be easier to write right after each time I play so that events are fresh in my head and it saves me from excessive note taking. Ofcourse that it’s not to say you don’t plan ahead, but I think the charm of an AAR is that a lot of times you yourself does not expect what is going to happen between now and the next update. I prefer to plan the direction my story will go, and play accordingly.

in rtw context , you can plan to write about the build up leading to a war between japan and Russia for example, and play accordinly to try make it happen. But always keep an open mind to adjust your story as event turn out differently from your expectation, I believe that actually makes writing aar even more fun.

Having a “roleplay” mindset is also helpful, it may make you play in a way that isn’t necessarily optimized for gameplay, but can be potentially fun and challenging. For example, with hindsight, most of us agree that having high speed but paper thin BC is generally not the best of ideas, but if you are playing as an admiral faithful to the Fisher doctrine, you can insist on building these ships and it could potentially lead to a very interesting game.

Bottom line I think is that AAR should both be fun to write, and makes the game fun to play. It is important to not worry about pumping them out either, as forcing yourself to update or write them can quickly wear yourself out. Find what works for you.

Looking forward to read your AAR!

[snwh]

Thank you very much ^^ This is a lot of good advice, both on writing, and on AAR's in specific. I spose I have to go try and find a couple to read now

[garrisonchisholm]

There is also this thread;

nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1177/aar-writing

- with thoughts fresh after I had written my long-form AAR. And also consider the AAR preservation thread, where you can find (until I started testing) every AAR ever written here. Sadly it is very behind now.

[snwh]

May 24, 2019 14:54:32 GMT -6 garrisonchisholm said:

There is also this thread;

nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1177/aar-writing

- with thoughts fresh after I had written my long-form AAR. And also consider the AAR preservation thread, where you can find (until I started testing) every AAR ever written here. Sadly it is very behind now.

Brilliant. I do remember seeing that thread, so it was going to be the first place I looked. I'll make sure to take a peek at a few of your AAR's as well. DO you have any in particular that you like? :3 This is an opportunity for guilt free self promotion here!

[oldpop2000]

a531509.pdf (468.58 KB)


Here is something to examine to learn about AAR's. I use the Memorandum method standard in the Navy. However, you might extract some ideas from this.

[snwh]

Thanks oldpop, I'll be sure to take a look :3

[AiryW]

I might not be the intended audience but I think AARs do well to focus on the events and not weave so much of a story. It's not a novel...

[oldpop2000]

Here is the AAR from Ray Spruance to Admiral Chester Nimitz about the Battle of Midway - It might help to understand how to write a simple accurate AAR with no maps. In the military and government it's KISS - keep it simple stupid.

www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Midway/Midway-Carriers.html

www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Midway/Midway-CinCPac.html - This one is from Nimitz to King

Enjoy

[snwh]

May 24, 2019 18:22:29 GMT -6 AiryW said:

I might not be the intended audience but I think AARs do well to focus on the events and not weave so much of a story. It's not a novel...

My current thought is to try and balance both tbh. While having an inense narrative with various characters sounds like fun, its also too much work for me right now. I'm considering having excerpts from fictitious interviews or journals, before or after various important events, perhaps. I think it might work ok.

May 24, 2019 18:32:27 GMT -6 oldpop2000 said:

Here is the AAR from Ray Spruance to Admiral Chester Nimitz about the Battle of Midway - It might help to understand how to write a simple accurate AAR with no maps. In the military and government it's KISS - keep it simple stupid.



www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Midway/Midway-Carriers.html



www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Midway/Midway-CinCPac.html - This one is from Nimitz to King



Enjoy

I intend to :3 thanks

[garrisonchisholm]

May 24, 2019 18:22:29 GMT -6 AiryW said:

I might not be the intended audience but I think AARs do well to focus on the events and not weave so much of a story. It's not a novel...

I'm actually going to agree with you Airy.  Mine was very much a "story", and if better executed could have been fine as that, but I find myself prefering aeson 's style, for instance his China AAR.