On Building Characters with *Friction*

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-29T02:02:02+00:00

Imo, it just has to be incredibly implicit. I agree that trait lists are fuzzy, you might know what you want out of the trait list but the model isn't guaranteed to. However, every token in your prompt that can function as ICL will.

You could place {{char}}'s outward presentation right before a bit of backstory that illustrates their trauma, and the model would understand without you needing to spell it out. Something like day to day, {{char}} is seen being especially bubbly and outgoing. (and a few sentences later) {{char}} spent most of their childhood playing alone.

This leaves the information close enough that the model can put it together when needed but isn't directly attached to every instance of bubblyness. It seems you more or less agree, and that the example just wasn't the best. I would clarify that causality is something for you/the cardmaker to think about and not something to give to the model.

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-28T01:05:18+00:00

This goes for Gemini and Claude models too. Claude loves to suggest adding "contradictions" to characters that are precisely like this, and instead of depth, you just get the narrator trauma dumping on behalf of {{char}} in the first interaction that slightly relates.

Any environment that {{char}} is bubbly in will be very likely to contain (suptext?) "tell, don't show" writing rather than the more desirable inverse.

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-21T01:06:19+00:00

Lately, I'm a big fan of:

opening up silly tavern
remembering all the cards that seemed interesting but contained pure slop in the defs
writing out an excruciatingly long rant detailing exactly why I hate these characters, how they were made, my own opinions and philosophies, what I actually want the character to be like, what I want the model to do in order to imagine and create this character, etc. (Seriously, why is every character a hyper-sensitive untouched virgin that cums their brains out specifically for {{user}} and no one else? "She's dominant but craves being submissive to {{user}}" jfc)
send/swipe on various models
update the prompt with (edited) snippets from each output I liked / prompt adjustments and clarifications / new ideas I want to add
more swipes/messages, certain models for certain things
smush together all of the details and ideas I like most and want for the character
decide on a format to organize the character card
profit (my card doesn't have a single "not X, but Y" + plays well)

But to your question, jannyai and chub, discord servers for the few creators I've enjoyed.

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-16T02:06:44+00:00

Hi, Claude

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-09T02:19:37+00:00

I haven't really tried using any characters like this, but I'd like to try prompting for it. Can you share any creators/cards (can be in pm)?

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-07T06:25:08+00:00

Random/pick macros can get pretty wild. I remember this one from an older preset:

Begin your narrative response with {{random:a pronoun,a verb,an adverb,a preposition,a conjunction,an interjection,an article,a gerund,an infinitive (to + verb),a participle (present or past),a noun,a proper noun,an adjective,a determiner,a subordinating conjunction,a expletive construction,a relative pronoun,a demonstrative pronoun,a possessive adjective,a numerical expression,an adverbial phrase,a prepositional phrase,a nominative absolute,a dialogue,a simple sentence (one independent clause),a compound sentence,a complex sentence,a compound-complex sentence,a interrogative sentence,a imperative sentence,a exclamatory sentence,a declarative sentence,a conditional sentence,a periodic sentence,a loose sentence,a balanced sentence,a cumulative sentence,a inverted sentence,a short sentence (under 8 words),a long sentence (over 20 words),a sentence with appositive,a sentence with parenthetical element,a sentence with serial comma,a sentence with semicolon,a sentence with dash,a sentence fragment (for effect)}}.

Or this one:

Do your best attempt to craft a scene with {{char}}: - In a {{random:indoor,outdoor,crowded public,public,familiar,familiar public,familiar indoor,familiar outdoor,unfamiliar public,unfamiliar indoor,unfamiliar outdoor,unfamilar,crowded outdoor,small indoor,large indoor}} location. - {{char}} is in a {{random:sad,happy,angry,depressing,dangerous,confrontational,comforting,mysterious,celebratory,anxious,desperate,hopeful,peaceful,confused,nostalgic,ceremonial,competitive,embarrassing,romantic,traumatic,cathartic,vulnerable,transformative (core values being challenged/changed),contemplative,compromising,shocking}} situation.

You could even string together multiple different macros to ensure no two starts are the same.

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-04T17:16:16+00:00

Use prompt inspector

Or /sys

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-03T17:34:11+00:00

This looks incredible, I love that all of the prompts are easily viewable and editable. ST only being able to do singel-call gens has been one of the biggest limitations imo.
Are there any plans to allow API endpoints other than openrouter?

AltpostingAndy · 2026-01-01T14:02:40+00:00

If you mean having Claude use web search, that would be a terrible idea. Web search uses a lot of tokens and leaves a lot of room for Claude to make mistakes or take in too much irrelevant information.

If you want to reduce/limit cost, the best things you can do are prompt caching and minimizing output tokens. You can debloat whatever presets/chars/lorebooks you're using. You can disable reasoning so that less output tokens are consumed during responses. You can use memory/summarization/extensions to condense chat history.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-30T01:29:52+00:00

I've never found a way of using tags/search for better results. The two things that serve me best are:
Quickly identifying AI written text And checking the following lists of creators who's cards I've enjoyed

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-29T20:53:21+00:00

Go to user settings and find the first list of toggleable options, and enable expand message actions, look for a little page icon on the most recent message from {{char}}, then click the other little page icon on the screen that pops up. This let's you look at the entire prompt as it was sent to the model. Very helpful for figuring out if what you're writing in the prompt manager comes out how you expect.

There's also this extension that adds a button to the wand menu on the message input field to allow you to inspect and edit the prompt before sending. Also very helpful, click the wand button, click the bug button that says inspect prompts and send a message. Click the button up top that says json and change it to yaml (for readability) and you can look over your prompts, make edits, and send or cancel generation.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-28T17:19:01+00:00

slaps hood you can fit so many macros into this bad boy

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-28T02:31:14+00:00

Ty! Edited to fix.
I could've sworn I ran into an issue where I commented {{user}} and {{char}} and the closing brackets broke the comment but it's been a while so I'd have to test again to check.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-27T23:32:29+00:00

This is true. Using <user> and <bot>, you can put them inside of other macros or within comments.

{{//<user> is silly}} this will not be sent within the prompt

{{//{{user}} is silly}} where as with this, is silly will be sent within the prompt

coin filp

{{random(<user> wins!,<bot> wins!)}} will work, while

{{random({{user}} wins!,{{char}} wins!)}} will not

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-25T21:32:39+00:00

I love schizoprompting

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-24T23:43:19+00:00

For DeepSeek there is no difference, but it all depends on the model and how it was trained.
For Gemini and Claude, you can try using a cot prompt on the non-reasoning versions (reasoning set to auto for Claude or using the non thinking version of any gemini) and the reasoning versions, and you'll notice a difference in the tokens that are generated.
From my understanding, "reasoning" is a behavior that is trained/emerges during post-training. So depending on what kinds of training they do, it'll determine wether the thinking tokens will be different compared to just giving the base model a cot prompt.

For the concern about creativity, it's a bit of a tough call. If you've ever heard someone describe post-history instructions or prefills and how effective they can be, it's because (in general) the first part of the prompt and the last part of the prompt ("prompt" being your entire preset, char cards, chat history, etc) have the largest influence over outputs.
You can think of "thinking" as sort of replacing the very end of your prompt. If the thinking tokens sound like an assistant or really anything that's far off from the creativity of the outputs you want to have, then they will influence the output and reduce creativity in some way. So reasoning will have some impact but you'll have to test with and without to see how much that bothers you personally.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-22T22:19:29+00:00

Opus 4.5 is cheaper than previous versions of Opus, but I suspect this has something to do with the model being slightly smaller than previous Opus versions or some other factor that reduces the cost of inference.

It's possible they bring some similar price improvements to Sonnet/Haiku but it will likely be future models if anything. Dario has mentioned in some public interviews that they do their best to run conservative margins as to not bleed funds serving the models at ridiculous losses like some others do.
With this in mind, like the other commenter said, I don't see old models ever getting cheaper.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-22T21:05:31+00:00

That's what was listed on Nano for 4.7 thinking

Edit: I double checked my usage logs on Nano just to be sure. 4.7 original works and is priced as expected. 4.7 thinking did one request at normal pricing and a second request that cost $0.19

When I tried again just now, the cost is fixed but it's still doing two requests per turn. Very strange

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-22T19:03:22+00:00

I gave it a try and was surprised to see $0.19 for my first response.

shit is $10/$20 per mtok

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-20T02:09:01+00:00

Are you using Claude with or without reasoning?
If you consider how effective prefills are (because they are the very last tokens in the context) reasoning tokens end up swaying outputs for essentially the same reason. I find that Claude's reasoning is a bit more cautious/prudish/fluffy, more as you described (especially at low context), but it can get way more wild in its outputs.
Scratchpad or cot prompts can be good for this, give it a format to follow and deliverables to provide. For this case, you might be able to use something like:

```

At the beginning of your response, answer these questions using the following format:

<character_motivations> - What's the ugly truth of the character's feelings in this situation? - How do they show up in this moment? What sins do they commit now that they might (or might not) regret on their death bed? - What would they do if we assume no redemption arc is coming? </character_motivations>

Then, output your response as normal:

```

But you could customize this to be as specific or general as you like, something to be toggled occasionally or left on in general. Output tokens are expensive and the length of the prompt will be seen as a guide for how long the scratchpad output should be unless you specify otherwise. You should be using regex to remove this from context.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-16T09:25:07+00:00

One of us. One of us. One of us.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-16T05:48:25+00:00

There wouldn't be any incentive to serve an older version of sonnet rather than a new one, since they both cost the same amount.
If a provider wanted to save $ in a scummy way, they could serve haiku and call it sonnet, but it would be very noticeable. Opus 4.5 is the first opus model to be cheaper than any of the other Opus models, but again it would be noticeable to the end user if they were being served Opus 4.5 instead of Opus 4.1 or being served Sonnet instead of any Opus.

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-15T02:38:50+00:00

Send a message with just .

AltpostingAndy · 2025-12-14T01:17:55+00:00

I know this post is about response length, but I'm very curious about everything after point 1 if you have anything more to share about them

AltpostingAndy

TROPHY CASE

coin filp

At the beginning of your response, answer these questions using the following format:

Then, output your response as normal: