When writing, it depends on the story I'm writing. If I have a story that focuses on their rich inner life of the protagonist(s), then first person is better. If I have more of a sprawling plot where the majority of plot events take place in the world rather than in the protagonist(s)'s head, third person is better. And when I'm writing a branching plot where I want to explicitly give the reader the illusion that they have power (even though I'm still the writer), second person it is. When reading, I don't really care? I've never filtered on POV on CHYOA, and never liked or disliked a story because of its POV.
I feel pretty similarly as you LowKing. Each story has different demands. I have done both of mine in third person so far. I think my next work will be in first though as I want to experiment with that. I will say that I hae enjoyed the 2nd person stuff for the branching stories and almost wish I had started Promises Kept in 2nd.
Out of those two, I think I prefer to write in 3rd person. But there is nothing wrong with 1st and 2nd person POV either. 1st allows for a POV that is not omnipotent and where the internal monologue and feelings of the character feel more personal. Especially in sex scenes.
I'm also in the camp that uses all three in different occasions and enjoys them equally! 1st person: good for telling a story that reads like a personal account, especially worth considering if it's a character's "tall tale" that might benefit from their embellishment or their reactions to unbelievable events. 2nd person: uniquely useful in chyoa for stories that involve a lot of player agency, where the reader might want to feel like it's really them making the decision. Also not bad just for ship fics a person might want to read with their favorite characters. 3rd person: this is the default and comfortable style for most writers and readers, I think. It gives a feeling like reading a traditional novel and is especially useful if you plan to show the perspectives and events of many characters.
I will say that first person allows for you to use unreliable narrators much easier. I think that could be something really interesting to explore with the branching structure, but not sure what story I would apply it to.
I love an unreliable narrator! Perhaps something like one of those classic TV episodes (like the X Files vampire episode) where there are real events but two different characters are recounting the events and it's obvious neither are quite right, like they both emphasize their own proficiencies while downplaying the other's? Like maybe they're telling the story to their close friends separately and one person recalls themselves topping and the other says they did? That's a situation where you can do first person but switch around narrators between chapters, too! It's good to be flexible.
Actually, I think that 2nd person fits CYOA stories really well because then the narrator is describing what YOU the main character are doing.
I think you're right, it does suit CHYOA very well. For reasons that escape me though, I just have this aversion to 2nd POV, not sure why but it just grates on me.
I just tried starting a 2nd person story yesterday, gave up on the POV about 2 chapters in. Might not have been the right story for it though. I'll have to give it a shot later. I swapped over to first and it feels much more natural.
I think first is going to work really well for this story, for my first story I needed 3rd person because I had 2 main characters that would share the scene a lot. For my second, i ended up just defaulting to third, of course now like 40 chapters in I think I would have been better off in first or 2nd. Hind sight is 20/20 of course.
I know how you feel, I've been there where I'm too far down the road to change POV but really wanted to. I did 3rd for my most recent story for similar reasons, I had two characters and wanted the reader to see inside both of their heads. But also because I've done a ton of 1st recently and needed to get back in the habit of writing 3rd.
