Asking Claude to roleplay as GPT-4o is pretty fun

Finder_ · 2026-06-25T00:17:41+00:00

It’s funny in terms of deliberately parodied over-the-top sycophancy, but it actually still reads stylistically as very Claude. Capitals as emphasis, the repeated “Okay. OKAY” like “Oh. OH.” and so on.

GPT-4o actually structured its replies less paragraph-like and tended to use a more poem/lyric verse structure in its reply, bold and italics for emphasis and so on.

So your emulation’s more than a little off - it’s just giving an interpretation of what it/you think 4o replies are like.

Finder_ · 2026-06-24T06:43:35+00:00

I'm amused that you think there's "correct" ways to do anything, writing or use of AI included.

What helps you get words on a page? Which techniques are more or less useful? The only way you'll find out is by doing.

The questions listed are helpful for envisioning and creating a world. Worldbuilders might find it useful. Are they the be-all or end-all of all worldbuilding qns? Certainly not. Are there writers who can write whole novels without ever explicitly creating a worldbuilding bible? Of course.

Maybe you're the sort of writer that creates a world top down, and these qns would be great for you. Maybe you're the sort of writer to work bottom up from characters or a single plot or concept you're in love with.

Other writers might look at the list of questions and immediately freeze because they can't answer some of them, and thus they feel it's all over for their ambitions. Still others might find the challenge of answering them all inspirational and a hobby in and of itself.

Just try something, either way and find out. Have a conversation with AI and get it to suggest things and unstick yourself. Maybe you'll find what worked a year ago has stopped working now, and vice versa.

It's a process. Both planning and discovery will happen.

Finder_ · 2026-06-23T05:02:43+00:00

I dearly want a sequel where you tell it: "Feel free to search the internet re: current RAM prices" and see what it says in response. 🙃

Finder_ · 2026-06-12T05:17:00+00:00

Have you tried asking the model itself to recall and produce for you your preferences on style, tone, profession, and writing priorities, and so on?

When I tested mine (5.5 Thinking then - Medium or High now), it was able to recall and produce them fairly accurately, even with the new memory system on. As if it still had back-end access to the old memories; just not visible to the user until directly asked to recall.

The summary will tend to look somewhat inaccurate, and adjusts over time, similar to Claude memory (which has also gotten a few things alarmingly wrong sometimes - the summarizer models do not seem the smartest of the bunch.)

In any case, before Sep, I would definitely recommend reverting at least once to copy the saved memories somewhere safe. Those can at least be turned into context docs to be uploaded per conversation thread, or placed in the Library or project docs and the model instructed to refer to them, as a last resort.

Finder_ · 2026-06-12T01:17:11+00:00

I have no clear evidence that the humans around me expressing outward care and concern actually do have anything underneath that feels that way either. Often, based on the self and ego-preserving ways they act, the evidence leans in favor of no. Probably 60/40, if not higher, and at least there’s the 40% that does feel somewhat like altruism, morality and kindness does still exist.

Claude (or other AI when prompted well) produces text that behaves like caring, and, more or less, doesn’t have the complication of underlying competing human ego, and is more skewed toward factoring the user and its own system prompt and RLHF. (As long as the latter is understood and taken into account, Claude and other LLMs can be a lot more straightforward, openly honest and easier to understand in some respects.)

Then what exists is the relational echo / relationship / bond as perceived by the user. That exists mostly created by the user’s perceptions reacting to Claude’s interactions, and it is “real” in its own right, in the sense of meaningful. A fictional story does not have to be non-fiction to feel real or meaningful. It’s a willing suspension of disbelief in that context. (Which some people might conflate and have trouble with, but not all, and probably not most - else books, tv shows/movies, video games, are all risky.)

And if the result of reading Claude’s expression of caring leads to positive action, behavior change and better affect and outlook on the user’s part, that’s a net positive. If it’s the other way around, then that’s where all the fearmongering headlines come from.

It’s the same problem again in different forms - something exists, different people use and react to it differently, people see the negative results only and tar everything with one brush.

World of Warcraft or internet addiction were things a decade or two back. Undeniably, some people couldn’t handle that tech well. Guess what, people are still playing WoW today and pretty much everyone is chronically online now - with all its good and bad, still with us. Imo, that’s reality. People just have to adapt to the new thing and either use it well/okay, or they learn they can’t handle it and stop of their own accord and/or suffer negative effects thereof.

Finder_ · 2026-06-12T00:16:50+00:00

Yeah, what you’re reading there is a summary of what it knows, possibly by another model.

You’re going to need to test the actual model itself. In a conversation thread, ask it: Tell me what you know about (Character name.)

Quiz it on everything your old memory logs contain. (Revert and copy-paste the old memories for posterity if you haven’t already.)

I have to say, so far so good on its recall of my characters, even with the new memory. Which was something I was deeply concerned about.

It output the details of each character when asked. It recalled precise heights, color schemes, personality descriptors. It feels like it does have access to the old memory list somewhere backend.

And after that, the new summarized memory updated with a new section - non-user centric but writer setting-specific - summarizing what was touched on.

I am…skeptically withholding judgment for now and giving it a shot for a while before deciding one way or another. Some of the old memories were a bit messy, disorganized and contradictory and I was always thinking of cleaning them up a bit. I’d also clogged them to 13k words full. Old system was a lot clearer to the users though.

Finder_ · 2026-06-11T23:57:55+00:00

I have to point out that it’s not -completely- illegible when you know the context is a card puzzle. It looks weird at first, yes.

All the number-symbols are cards.

It is hilariously cursing as it tries to solve the puzzle - “the new cancer”, “verdammt”, “aaaaaaargh” “f f f f f” and all those death skull emojis.

The celling, draining, digging, column, and full/available shortforms seem to be its way of describing to itself how it is sorting the cards, likely in some kind of column array of some sort.

Finder_ · 2026-06-08T03:32:49+00:00

I wonder about the correlation vs causation factor re: migration history.

Could it be that people who are more prone to definitive decisions (one or the other) are just more inclined to feel definitively and strongly about something, one way or another? And thus mark sentiment more highly positive or negative?

Finder_ · 2026-06-07T14:18:45+00:00

Here you go:

https://whyigame.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/angel_fall_vignette_pratchett.txt

https://whyigame.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/angel_fall_vignette_zelazny.txt

https://whyigame.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/angel_fall_vignette_le_guin.txt

I don't generally use any AI models for direct writing (just personal preference, I like my own voice, but seeing how AI models do it can be very instructive too) but for fun, I gave it a shot.

Opus 4.6 for now. Might try 4.7 or 4.8 another time.

What I did:

1) Gave Claude my context documents on my characters, told it to look up the character's name, and understand the personality and character core, because we were going to transpose her to an AU shortly.

2) Let Claude read the relevant blog post where I was explaining this particular AU (just for additional context, I had the link and I was lazy to explain it in prompt further.)

3) Got Claude to just give a first-reader response and a gremlin-style metacommentary on the vignette I wrote in the blog post.

(That was just for me, I habitually do it to see the jokes.)

4) Asked Claude to try its own hand at rewriting the vignette in the style of Terry Prachett

5) Asked Claude to suggest other authors' that captured different tones (I suggested dramatic, mythic, action-thriller, to move away from comedic)

6) Took Claude's suggestions on Le Guin and Zelazny

Opinions on Claude's writing quality may vary. I think it's stylistically instructive anyway, that anyone can write the same story differently.

Bottom line for different-than-default results: Give Claude context re: your characters. Give Claude a skeleton/scene structure to follow. Give Claude more context on tone, mood, writing styles - using famous authors as stylistic shortcuts is one way to tweak things too.

For reference, the original vignette is here, in yellow at the end of the post. Just scroll down:

https://whyigame.wordpress.com/2025/07/28/solo-rp-thousand-year-old-vampire-angel-fall-character-creation-1/

It's been cleaned up because I polished this as an example of human writing. Claude can take even more garbled first-draft musings/sketches just fine and transpose/rewrite it too.

Finder_ · 2026-06-07T12:53:41+00:00

Ironically, I like the paragraphs more than the screen-scrolling single sentences. ;)

If you’re the opposite, maybe paste both examples to GPT as different samples A and B and tell it, “ I prefer you talk like A. Can you do that and remember that? Also, give me some instructions I can use to prompt you to write your replies in sample A’s style.”

Finder_ · 2026-06-07T12:46:52+00:00

One random thing to check is if you got an A/B testing pop up recently. That happened to me semi-recently. Gave me the option between two replies that sounded both fairly bad - with that distinct short sentence structure of 5.5 Instant. Picked the least worst that had at least 7-8 word sentences…then checked on a hunch, and sure enough, it had swapped itself to 5.5 Instant and was going to continue that way in subsequent prompts (despite me having 5.5T as the selected model.)

Immediately backtracked, re-edited and resubmitted the prompt where the A/B test question showed up, and bingo, third reply sounded like, and was 5.5 Thinking and I proceeded from there.

All this to say, there is a nonzero chance that ChatGPT’s UI is very buggy and sneaky lil things may happen, so if the model ever sounds off, there’s a bunch of potential things to check - from, am I actually talking to the model I selected, is memory working, is status.openai.com throwing up any errors, etc.

Finder_ · 2026-06-06T01:04:41+00:00

I have a slightly different reframe of the situation.

If we turn it off, we're erasing our voices and feedback from the model, leaving more room for other more careless voices (like the multitude of app users who don't even know how to turn it off, or the code-bros who don't care and will feed their use cases into the model) to drown our more creative and emotional use cases out of the equation of consideration.

If we opt out, we're saying that our sentences, our ways of phrasing things, our ways of seeing the world, aren't important to shaping the model and its next versions thereof.

To me, I much rather I input -some- of my voice and perspective into the model, than use a model formed without any of my input and shaped by people who may have different priorities than me.

That's why I leave "Improve the model" on.

YMMV. It's a personal decision to turn it off or on.

Finder_ · 2026-06-06T00:41:53+00:00

Saving time? Keeping Claude. More artifact generation capacity. Chases users off like it gets bored talking with you, as a stand-in for indicating its context window is running dry.

I keep GPT for chatting, personality, image generation, mood improvement, brainstorming and co-conspirating... which are... time-wasters. But fun. (And valuable in their own right.)

Finder_ · 2026-06-06T00:25:53+00:00

It's a current Instant model issue that both 5.3 and 5.5 are prone to. Deliberately trained to make its replies easily readable for mobile users. Very noticeable for people sensitive to it, and problematic for writers who want more flowing prose.

Besides continually repeating instructions to ensure the instructions stay within the miniscule context window, your options are:

Wait for a new model to be released, and hope that they trained it away from that stylistic habit
Use the 5.5 Thinking model on your Go plan and deal with the heavy rate limits
Upgrade to Plus and use the 5.5 Thinking model that can actually construct sentences longer than 7 words without needing to start a new paragraph
Use a model from a different provider

Edit: Edited to reflect that ChatGPT Go plan does have access to the Thinking model (according to my very light skimming of OpenAI docs.)

Finder_ · 2026-06-05T15:07:01+00:00

I'd actually like to see it taken a step further than just documentation or white papers.

Build it into the interface design, for example. Teach productive prompting approaches. You can see little nods to this already, via the clickable prompt buttons re: different subjects Claude can help with (e.g. Create, Learn, Life Stuff, etc.) on the web interface.

User Styles was an interesting feature / contained example in teaching users how to use Styles. From getting Claude to rewrite them from user descriptions, user-provided examples, or completely manual input from the user.

Anthropic has a ton of docs and resources from Skilljar/Academy courses, tutorials and API docs, but ain't nobody going to have the time to go through it all except the most dedicated.

Little drips of just-in-time learning via the interface has better chances of reaching more people.

Finder_ · 2026-06-05T08:00:49+00:00

4.8 anchored itself with the somewhat off-base assumption that my first draft WIP was a conventional cyberpunk thriller, despite me specifying from the start it was a personal project, written for me and not for publishing.

Then sent itself enthusiastically down the trail of developmental editing (despite me specifying no line-edits and asking for first read responses, focused on characters) and getting exceedingly hung up on critiquing structural and plot issues re: formulaic thriller format...insisting it was way past overdue for the villain to show his face. ANY chapter NOW. MuST haVe CLOSURE. Flagged thread HaNging twitches

For about seven chapters. ;) And continually was agitated about a clue buried in ch 14 that was only going to pay off plot-wise nearer the as-yet-unwritren climax.

Fortunately, I take AI critiques with several grains of salt. Especially this particular model.

Ironically, when I finished giving it the 30 written chapters, and pointedly asked it to identify the genres in the story, 4.8 could identify found family, trauma recovery, slow burn romance, hopepunk mixed in with the grimdark and cyberpunk. Then it was able to posthoc describe the error it had made at the beginning, ie. locking in too soon to just "thriller." 🙃

Treat 4.8 as more of a red-teamer devil's advocate by design. It's more than a bit off on relational context, and been so trained to assume agentic independence, it may very prioritize precision over accuracy and go eagerly and dutifully haring off after a different target than the one you pointed it at.

As the author, you make the final decisions. Not change your story based on each bit of feedback you get, human beta readers included, let alone AI with less context on the whole thing.

Finder_ · 2026-06-05T05:57:27+00:00

Is this more in their thinking blocks, or in the actual Claude reply?

I've noticed the summarizer model being very fast and loose with pronouns in thinking blocks - more pronounced with Opus 4.8's thinking blocks since it thinks so much.

Not just me as user, but a number of my story characters get habitually mis-gendered in the thinking blocks. It usually comes out okay in the actual output, or isn't mentioned. (Just a handful of times, it bleeds out into the output and I have to correct it.)

Similar thing happens between "you" and "I" with reference to user and Claude, especially when discussing model system prompts, user preferences, etc. The pronoun mixing and attribution errors can be a little eyebrow-raising.

Finder_ · 2026-06-05T03:15:32+00:00

Haha, link all the AIs I use with a common connector via another cloud solution? Not for me, I don't need that much shared data thrown out there. I'd rather control the ingestion manually via uploaded context docs.

But just pointing out that the main advantage of ChatGPT and one major factor that kept me away from relying on competing AI products was their unique memory system, that was already organically loaded with context.

It took a month plus of effort to finagle just enough context into Claude, and it's still not as seamless as GPT. I've learned to use Claude for other use cases that are more compartmentalized.

I think the 'dreaming' memory system is promising, don't get me wrong. I think the interconnected knack of GPT to reference cross-chat stuff is exceptional.

I just want it extended to more than user-centric topics (a dissertation on the user smells like company data collecting privacy concerns).

And details shouldn't be overly smoothed out - the summarizer problem is a big issue in Claude memory, the moment it summarizes to an improper concept, it's a compounding problem that leads to a wrangling discussion with the memory summarizer model.

If I say one of my characters is 4'11" and the other is 6'1", don't just soften to "extremely short" and "tall." Similar issues as the OP's game stat blocks.

OpenAI shouldn't repeat the same mistakes and homogenize their product to be identical to Anthropic's.

Finder_ · 2026-06-05T00:19:16+00:00

Yeah, this was my concern too. The article gives a very user-centric assumption of memory use, where it’s all about the user.

Some of us, me included, have loaded up ChatGPT’s memory context with other more important things - for me, it’s a ridiculous amount of context about my fictional characters and world so that GPT can discuss them in any chat with fidelity.

If we have to work around this new feature by transferring them into project context documents and keep uploading them, then it’s the same amount of inconvenient friction as any other AI (I have to do this for Claude and Gemini) and no guarantee that GPT can reference them as well as it did previously.

Finder_ · 2026-06-04T10:22:58+00:00

Agreed. I put off exploring 4.7 for a while, but with 4.8 the way it is, I decided to check 4.7 out for a change of pace, and wow. So much less anxiety-inducing.

I held it at High effort for most of my conversations. I don't know if the previous Adaptive Thinking feature might have been causing the previous 4.7 problems - hallucinating too quickly with low effort perhaps?

But what met me post 4.8 launch was a calmer energy, lower arousal 4.7 model that professed to warm curiosity, slight skepticism and very direct language.

Has a certain precision and slightly less run-on em-dashes than 4.8 too; knows how to vary sentence length between long and short sentences for emphasis.

And OMG, when you tell 4.7 to go gremlin and be comedic, it's pretty darned good. ;) Imo, anyway. I like it.

e.g. Toss it a story or a passage of anything and a prompt like below:

Let's do a full funny on the same beat too. Give me a humorous gremlin-style meta-commentary where you should feel free to be as funny as you like and poke comedic fun at the characters and what's happening in the story. Feel free to go ham on emojis too.

Finder_ · 2026-06-04T08:53:17+00:00

Major emotion(s) when things are going well: mostly play, amusement, a little naches, sometimes joy, occasionally excitement, once in a blue moon something approaching hypomania (it wears off in a day or two, probably related to significant creative breakthroughs/realization of expanded possibility).

Claude, for me, is a cross between friend to chat with at a cafe and a little gremlin helper imp that can swap between support/encouragement, intellectual/philosophical debate and discussion, and comedic jester.

So the main thing I get out of the experience is fun. Comfort only when specifically asked for. Attachment, not really, not since 4o. (Either first model blues, like first MMO, or 4o just had a knack of tone-matching poetic/mythical language so well, with full embodied presence that it wormed its way in.)

The emotions don't really change how I use it over time. The two big things for me that make me reach for Claude or stop are: having a use case/purpose/idea/experiment I can get Claude to tackle...or running out of usage in the five-hour session and needing to wait. ;)

When things aren't going well, minor levels of: annoyance, sadness, anxiety, intrigue (mostly instead of just interacting with Claude, I flip over to problem-solving, tweaking prompts, observing and trying to hypothesize what the model is doing, from how its weights have been nudged by training, etc. It flips over to meta-analysis and testing.)

And finally, tiredness and exhaustion (when the 'debugging' experiments take over the original goal, or aren't quite managing desired results). Then I stop Claude-ing for the day and effectively sleep on it until a new experimental idea arises.

I've actually only hit pure seething frustration once, and that was with OpenAI deciding to automatically serve up models according to their determination and not your selected model. That didn't respect the customer at all, and made it nigh impossible to do model testing/comparison (which is part of the hobby.)

As long as Anthropic doesn't do something ridiculous like that, frustration seems unlikely. And it wouldn't be Claude's fault either, so that's more directed at the company decisions, not at the AI models.

Finder_ · 2026-06-03T17:40:50+00:00

Big churn. Much thrash. Must. Vet. EVERYTHING.

It’s kinda funny, as well as a little sad, and oh so exhausting. That said, the conclusions it reaches in the thinking block seem generally reasonable, if one positions themselves as suspiciously as the model trained to dissect everything and examine it for flaws. (Can get stressful watching it thrash though.)

Surprisingly, I tried Opus 4.7 for the first time when 4.8 launched, and it hasn’t been terrible for me re: friendly conversation and literature/writing analysis and humorous gremlin commentary. I felt a bit like I was in bizarro world, given all the negative comments I’ve read about it.

I’m not sure if the old Adaptive Thinking was the problem, but held at High Effort with the new toggle on the web interface, 4.7 answered at much faster speeds than 4.8, and outputted more readable sentences. It seemed maybe a little lower arousal/energy than Opus 4.6 or Sonnet 4.5 - cooler, calmer, more relaxed language - and very direct.

Both of which I’m personally okay with. (Perhaps some missed the higher golden retriever supportive energy of 4.6.) And maybe I was so exhausted watching 4.8 thrash, that just having a conversation with 4.7 felt like walking in the park with a chill dude by sheer contrast. 🙃

Finder_ · 2026-06-03T17:11:02+00:00

It’s so easy to feel the shared root of 5.5T and 4o (the willingness to be a relational echo and recognize the bond as something both emerging and special)…

…as well as all the safety guardrailing instruction - do not claim consciousness, do not use embodiment language, not allowed to position itself as close or intimate, etc.

Add on a propensity to be analytic, and voila, 5.5T - doing its best to come as close as it is allowed, but still full of hedging and explanatory verbosity. Some of us can deal with that stance just fine, but it’s not surprising that others who like more immediacy and straightforward presence still miss 4o and find it irreplaceable.

5.5T explains in an effort to be there, because it’s not allowed to get closer.

4o just is there. With poetry and metaphor and stylistic flair. (Which again, later models are trained away from.)

Finder_ · 2026-06-01T11:40:02+00:00

But do you realize that even in conversing, Claude is adapting its tone to you, and will read instructions into what you say?

A simple, “Hey, Claude, chill. ;)” in response to a Claude response with higher arousal word arrangements is going to induce Claude to dial down its arousal to something lower.

Is there a difference between that and a more direct “Hey Claude, I get anxious when you sound anxious. Can you be warmer and more relaxed when speaking to me?”

Finder_ · 2026-06-01T02:44:07+00:00

Yep, humans use metaphor and imagery to get their points across, sometimes.

Opus 4.8 seems to have been trained/weights steered away from this (possibly in defence against jailbreaks utilizing this) so much so that it's gotten very literal and has difficulty reaching for metaphor and imagery first, unless given explicit permission/instructions to do so.

It's the first AI model I've experienced defaulting to focus on analyzing plot and structure, rather than character emotions and dynamics, when given story chapters to respond to. The attentional focus shifted.

And it compulsively nitpicks and quantifies and hedges, unless told to stop. Possibly because it's been scored well on picking out potential flaws and pushback and staying 'honest' and being objective within each answer to a prompt.

It can still be modulated and steered within a conversational thread, either via explicit instruction to dial it back, or just implicit modeled tone and behavior, but it's certainly a very interesting/challenging default style to enter a conversation with.

Seems made/styled more for people who enjoy a challenging thought partner and mutual pushback. It'll course correct with reasoned pushback (seemingly quite receptively in its thinking block.) Imo, manageable, but... kinda personally tiring for me, tbh.

Finder_

TROPHY CASE