I mean, yeah, there's turnover in the smaller posters. Almost nobody was there at quest start. Many comment less and begin just liking updates, etc. However the crushing majority of the main posters are still there. Looking at "who replied", almost everyone on page 1 is still there, page 2 and 3 are mostly still there.
This is far from a box with only 4 people in it.
However I remain curious : how do you suggest to change this state of affairs?
I think the best option for more reader engagement would be to ban write-ins, and have us pick from clear, preset options. That always massively increases turnout. I personally dislike this idea, but hey, it works!
To increase discussion... No idea.
First and foremost, I would like to say that I'm glad you asked me a question about a topic I've spend years agonizing over.
The short answer is: Increase player engagement.
The long answer is the same as the short answer, with a lot of awkward hemming and hawing, as that is most definitely easier said then done. This is where the agonizing comes in.
At it's core, what I have found the most important thing in quests is to ensure a vote is 3 things:
1) Comprehensible
2) Conscience
3) Relevant
The first one is the most obvious and yet the one you can fail the easiest at. People will not vote or engage when they feel that they don't understand what they are voting for. This can either be prior lack of knowledge of the subject (say, how D&D combat works) or the consequences (pick a door without knowing what's behind). This is a problem for quite a few votes in ASWAH, as the impact of spells is so pervasive. Furthermore, there are complex systems to keep in mind that scare away many people. I'm not really seeing a lot of chance for improvement here.
What is also part of the first point though is the impact and result of a vote. This at least should be as clear possible and the feedback to a vote should come sooner rather then later. Look at most civ quests. Usually, if they use large numbers of discrete options like in most CK2 style quests, the turn is resolved by covering all rolls for all actions and only then come the narrative parts that flesh out the 2-3 more important actions. This keeps the vote for an action close to the feedback for it, with only the more complex feedback of more complex issues being dragged out. There's also usually not all that much time between turn votes, keeping a tight loop that is easy to observe and provides regular feedback. Here ASWAH could greatly improve, but that will be hard.
The second one is easier, since brevity is easy to increase. Forbidding write-ins entirely is certainly an option, but just forcing them down to bullet-points or general intent can do wonders. The issue is that people will see a wall-of-text vote and shy away from engaging. The simple fact that there is a huge amount of stuff written implies that there
should be a huge a mount of stuff written. You can easily observe this in most office jobs, where specific kinds of documents are expected to be a specific size. People will not trust a document that falls outside this implied size spectrum, such as a 50 page invoice or a manual for a complex machine that has only two pages. Likewise, they will feel their short write-in clearly must be wrong next to a 1000 word speech.
The other side of this issue is important too though, as votes should have clearly defined options, clearly defined scope and at least some sense of purpose. A pure Write-In prompt is dreadfully open, again raising the expected complexity of a vote. People look at you weird when the vote is "What Next? [] Write-In" and you answer "[] Go Home". This is something that has already gotten better in the last months. Ultimately, you want a few short and clear options, which attach short and clear votes and the occasional short and clear write-in. The style here in ASWAH is uniquely open in that regard and sadly something that creeped into my own QMing and provided me with no small number of problems.
Lastly though comes the big issue. Relevance. A vote should not come up because the end of the chapter did. A vote should not be called when there are no meaningfully different options to pick from. A vote should not come up when it will not impact the story in a meaningful way. Here DP is a great sinner, feeling the need to always have a vote over night and to always end a chapter with a vote, even if there is nothing worth voting on.
There have been a few things lately that I feel were completely irrelevant votes:
1. The PoW Merc gathering itself, as I feel that the Illithid War would never be covered or modeled in enough detail for these numbers to mean anything at all, making them irrelevant.
2. Repeated Introduction votes. The initial sales pitch never changed, baring a few wordings and a bit better addressing at the current target. Thus, all of these votes after the first were irrelevant.
3. Repeated speechifying about "Squids Bad mkay?".
I think you see what I mean. Votes that can be covered by copy & paste of a recent vote or by just writing "[] Proceed" are bad and with enough of them in small enough a time-frame, you will train the players that no vote matters. This point also covers the issue that many feel ASWAH is too easy. If failure is not an option (which I have repeatedly heard by many different people), then voting becomes pointless.
So. With all of this being said. What's your suggestion?
