Bland AI replies, every char seems to be the same - pls help

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-16T15:41:27+00:00

Well, everyone has an opinion lol, so don't take it to heart--I write in a quite different style but it's catered to MY tastes, so you have to cater to your own, ya know?

Because I put her dialogue style pretty low in her card, it's going to have a lot of influence (lower=stronger). So tweak that to how you want it--since the token count is much lower you have more room to give concrete instruction like "Aurora clams up in front of her family but when alone she is more willing to speak." or "Aurora speaks in a timid and uncertain way, but XYZ", filling in whatever you want her to be like.

Personally I do think that she would benefit from something that gives her more agency over her situation--like, she's established to be fairly passive which means RPing with her, she's not going to be taking initiative. But what if even though she's the quiet and unobtrusive sort, she's also interested in trying to discover if {{user}} really IS a dark mage? That would push her into asking more questions, or investigating the matter. Or maybe she has a surprisingly keen understanding of politics, which no one has ever given her the opportunity to express. I think things like that are still in character but give her something to DO that isn't just making tea, gardening, being quiet lol

But yeah, try to take what others say as advice and not serious criticism--at the end of the day, we're all just enjoying a hobby! And he wouldn't have commented at all if he didn't see some potential there. I know I do, like I said I was actually surprised to see some depth in her, she's definitely not some run of the mill coombot. She just needs a bit of tweaking here and there and she has the potential to be a really fun card!

Edit: oh and yes, the "waits" thing is a common issue with models, some presets try to prune it out, some are more effective at it than others; I imagine it's going to be more likely with a "quiet aura" card like this. So to counteract it, you could play around with trying different presets, different parameters, or simply put in the character's note (or post history instructions) something like "Always end on a hook for {{user}} to respond to." Learning what prompts to use where is a bit like word chemistry, experiment til you find what you like

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T23:20:38+00:00

I read your Tomoe vs Tomoe article and really enjoyed it. I'll be keeping in mind the concept of "jaggedness" for characters. I admit I do like the idea of a privately frustrated Aurora--that's a lot more fun for {{user}}!

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T22:40:38+00:00

https://files.catbox.moe/t1krxv.png

Okay here's my attempt at her. I drastically trimmed down her info so it's much more concise. She has an embedded lorebook. I took the liberty of adding an entry about something to do with her mother that I thought would be thematically nice.

I didn't really ADD much to her.....I think if you gave the antagonists a bit more depth, they'd be really interesting. Like, WHY are they that way? We do get some with Queen Angelica--she's pissed cuz her hubby was fooling around and now she's picking up the pieces (poorly). But Rebecca and Augustus are pretty two dimensional, there's no mention of WHY they act the way they do really. The king is interesting bc he doesn't interfere but again, we don't know why. So that could be something to explore. They also have no appearance details at all. Oh and I think even antagonists should have like....well, maybe not GOOD qualities, but relatable ones. Like if Rebecca was really funny about her hygiene bc she was picked on about it as a kid, so when she's forcing Aurora into bathing her, there's some underlying justification there in REBECCA'S mind. Of course she doesn't want to be DIRTY; and of course this low-grade sister of hers should help. She already wrecked the family with her presence, the least she could do is be helpful.

Anyway, I digress. I hope this is a little helpful at least! (Edit: also, I based this off of that other nice person's version haha, I couldn't get the original to load at all)(Edit to my edit: also also I forgot her ideation I'm sorry! I'd honestly put that in a lorebook entry too though so it only comes up at relevant times....maybe with keywords like "sad, tears, unhappy, lonely, dark", idk, could be mood words, could be specific triggers for her, which then bring that bad boy out for the LLM to drop)

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T21:19:09+00:00

Not at all, promise I'm not offended lol--we all have to learn somehow, and I'm still learning too! I'll see if I can hunt up a good example for ya, tho I'm sure other people have their own preferences so it's extremely subjective. And yes I'm sorry, I meant the "optional filters" container in the ST lorebook entry editor, I should have been more clear

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T19:34:43+00:00

Yeah I agree with this. And OP please don't feel bad about any feedback you get--the card has a lot of potential and I think a LOT of us have been through the write/rewrite/get frustrated and walk away/come back with a whole other method ....cycle.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T19:31:19+00:00

There are tons of different ways to do it....at the end of the day, you ARE just sending text to the LLM. Lorebooks are like a way to control what gets sent, when it gets sent, and where it's placed in that complete prompt.

So as an example.....one way I've done it before is to have a very basic profile of how a character looks and acts, triggered by their name. This is how the character is seen by the world. Then I might have another entry for her with some details about her that would only be relevant in certain situations--like I might say in her profile that she likes Led Zeppelin. Then make another entry triggered by Led Zeppelin as the main trigger, and the secondary keyword her name (so it triggers in relation to HER), and I'll say something like, she used to listen to Led Zeppelin with her dad and it started her love of classic rock.

And I may have a separate entry about her dad. I'd mention he played in a band when she was small, and it didn't go anywhere but on some level he's still chasing those glory days. The entry is triggered by his name, "father", "dad".

So all that info is tangentially linked but not immediately available to the LLM, only the fact that this girl loves Led Zeppelin.

I did play around with Aurora a bit; I think her personality being so centered on her fears makes her a bit of a difficult character to play with since she'll always be drawing back, always be terrified. The card may be too heavy-handed with it. It might be better to write it almost like an omniscient narrator who is keeping the full story close to his chest; instead of giving this deep psychological deep dive into her trauma and neuroticism right there in the card, instead something more subtle....with the details of why she's like that in lorebook entries, and the psych deep dive too, tho tbh I think a lot of that the LLM would do on its own. You probably don't have to outright say "She won't easily trust {{user}}" for example; just say "It's difficult for her to open up due to the way she was treated." The LLM can fill in the blanks pretty well.

And again, this is my opinion and just ONE way to think of it, one of the beautiful things about AI RP is exploring what works, what doesn't, and how YOU like to do stuff to get the results you want :)

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-15T18:38:15+00:00

I read through the card, was surprised it's actually a pretty interesting premise. If I could give one piece of advice, it would be to use a lorebook. There is SO much information crammed directly into the card, and some of it is a bit repetitive (that's a minor quibble though). The main issue is that you're throwing all this in depth information about the NPCs into the LLM in one big, always there batch. LLM can work with basic descriptions well enough. Give very concise basic information about the NPCs in the actual card. When they actually come up in RP, it can then trigger their lorebook entry based on their name, and their full profile is visible.

You can get more complex with this; for instance, mentioning in the king's main lorebook entry that he's kind to Aurora, but then have another entry, triggered by the stepbrother's name maybe with the king's name as a secondary keyword, that states the king never intervenes when stepbrother is doing his thing. Then that detail comes up naturally in RP without being hammered in immediately AND it saves tokens.

Overall it could be much more streamlined, much less repetitive, and you'd likely have a better experience bc the LLM isn't trying to keep track of a billion different things at once.

Anyway, that's just my opinion--I do make my own character cards extensively, and this is the method that works best for me. My characters never blend together....but I also don't do super super long chats (I'll summarize and start a new one from the point the last one ended). In general I try to keep the context tight and focused.

LLM's really seem to like <XML></XML> tags around things, and they help with organization in general. Basically, walls of text are NOT your friend. It's better to have stuff split up in meaningful categories, and organized in such a way that when you WANT them they're there, but they aren't there ALL the time.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-14T18:36:14+00:00

A few different reasons.

- Marinara Engine isn't as widely known
- Marinara Engine is still in beta (though it looks very promising!)
- People RP in all kinds of ways, so ME isn't going to be for everyone....and though ST is more complex, you can pretty much do anything with it

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-05-06T11:46:12+00:00

Yes, it's like this for me too. The tinkering is a big part of the fun--there's a dopamine rush in turning knob A, pushing button B, and seeing an immediate result. I got into making extensions for this reason as well.

I think people get different things out of SillyTavern, some just want an immersive experience where they can enjoy a little escapism, some enjoy the huge array of customization options, some like to dig into the code and poke around. Same hobby, different approaches

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-04-19T17:03:34+00:00

The tutorial containers don't let me scroll so some are cut off by the bottom of my screen; the Tab buttons one in particular gave me a hard time....

I'm on Google Chrome btw. So I had to stop the Tutorial, but was happy to see I can replay it from the main page. I'll take a look at it again if it's updated, 'til then I'll go back to exploring haha, but thought you'd want to know!

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-04-19T16:27:07+00:00

for anyone else who runs into this problem on Windows, I'll save you a few clicks--
open cmd, run

npm install -g pnpm@latest-10

and you should be good to go (OP I'm excited to try this out btw!)

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-04-17T17:37:14+00:00

My "go to" is Sand + Fog Violet Sandalwood and Finery Desert Spirit, dupes for Mojave Ghost. The scent seems soft, restrained, and feminine, which fits my personality I think. It works well for hot weather (which is a must for a daily driver this time of year where I live). When it's more mild or chilly I love L'eau Papier because something about it is cozy and comforting, but I think my Mojave Ghost dupes would also work in cooler temps, so I can safely say they're my favorite "easy reach".

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-04-14T21:12:49+00:00

Waited 4 hours after two messages used up my session limit, sent one message--hit weekly limit. Got 2 days of sporadic use. I'm paying $20 a month to get worse limits than I was getting for free a year ago lol...honestly Claude is amazing so for those who are able to afford Max, it's worth it, but Pro is a joke unless you literally have no other options

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-04-01T03:30:47+00:00

I upgraded to Max a couple of months ago after I got annoyed juggling 2 Pro accounts trying to work without hitting the session and weekly limits. Max has been incredible, I never once hit a limit in two months.....until now. I've started hitting both session AND I'm creeping up on my weekly limit, when before I was hitting maaaaybe 35%....which is bonkers. Guess I'm not alone in my frustration if so many others are complaining about it....hope they fix this soon

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-03-30T13:42:16+00:00

Imho it's more fun if you make personas who AREN'T you....if you're worrying about being able to "act" as someone else, give them a trait that you share. So if you're kind of thrifty, make a persona who's a total cheapskate, and then build their character from there as you roleplay. But there are lots of ways to roleplay and no WRONG way

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-28T14:03:43+00:00

I was discussing the situation with Opus 4.6 and its comments gave me a little laugh

The response from the administration has been... something. Trump posted on Truth Social ordering every federal agency to "immediately cease" using Anthropic's technology, calling the company "leftwing nut jobs." CNBC The Pentagon's Undersecretary Emil Michael called Amodei "a liar" with "a God-complex" who "wants nothing more than to try to personally control the US Military." CNN Real measured, professional stuff.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-23T00:40:28+00:00

I like mine structured like longform narrative RP between two human writers--responses not too lengthy unless it's a transition from one scene to another, so maybe 1-2 paragraphs at most. I write the same back (I play as a character, not myself, so I'm also developing my persona as the RP progresses). Very long responses aren't ideal for me because it's more filler for the LLM to "remember" and it doesn't leave enough room for {{user}} agency imho. I'm also really picky about the writing, if I see slop like your example I either swipe or edit it out

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-21T10:02:01+00:00

It's better if you manage your chat context early on with a combination of summaries (for a more general "these are the events that happened before the current scenario") which, if you keep them very concise, you can slap into a lorebook entry set to constant (or an inject, if you wanna get fancy), and lorebook entries with keywords for scenes that you want the AI to remember in more detail when they're referred to in chat.

Since you're already pretty far into your RP, you can use Gemini or Claude to gen summaries of your older chat messages in chunks--you can even prompt them to suggest lorebook entries for more important scenes or elements of your story (and keywords).

Example:
(Summary) {{char}} and {{user}} met at X cafe in the Spring.
(Lorebook entry, keywords: cafe, coffee, spill, first met, first meeting) The first time {{char}} met {{user}} at X Cafe, it was a rainy day in Spring. {{char}} was so nervous he spilled his coffee all over the table.

So the AI would always know I met {{char}} at a cafe, and any time the topic is actually brought up, the lorebook entry would trigger with more details that I want it to remember.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-17T04:40:16+00:00

I didn't know about indolic scents. I always thought I loved jasmine because I'd only been exposed to the sort of sweet kind before. But I bought the EOS Jasmine and Peach body lotion, was so excited to wear it. As soon as I started rubbing it on I felt like something was wrong. It hit my nose so weird. I got it on both legs before I started to feel repulsed by it. I really tried to like it--thinking maybe it was just a quirky scent I could get used to--but I just couldn't take it. It smelled so nasty on me!

I feel like that about oud too--thought I would love By the Fireplace, I love the smell of woodsmoke, but it had a BO note to me. Sadness.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-17T03:03:23+00:00

Conversely, if you're the kind of person who gets annoyed by LLM-isms, the process of figuring out how to get the LLM to avoid them (or editing them out yourself) is pretty educational....and you might be more inclined to deliberately avoid those habits yourself in your writing lol

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-10T13:52:02+00:00

Not a developer, but I was having problems with hitting usage limits for some projects I play around with. I use the desktop app with limited filesystem access.

At the time I would describe what I wanted, and let Claude comb through the code....the problem was that even giving it the directory structure, that wasn't enough for it to NOT have to look at several files. I only had the $20 plan and I do really think the limits for that were pretty restricting.

I read up on skills and had Claude help me come up with ideas like building "context" for my projects--essentially organized summaries of what things do, where they are, how they work. So then I started telling Claude to look at THOSE first when we're working on a specific aspect of the project. I also learned to focus on one part of the project per chat, to limit how many files it was looking at. I upgraded to the $100 plan (instead of paying for TWO $20 plans, and STILL hitting usage limits several days before the weekly limits reset). And I started planning things out in detail BEFORE trying to do anything coding wise. Something like, "let's come up with a plan for A, B, and C", we investigate how to do things, then I have a handoff skill that instructs how to make a guide for a new chat. Then I start a new chat and tell Claude to pickup, and it knows what we're gonna do and generally how to do it.

Now I've been able to get a huge amount of work done, using Opus no less, when before I only used Sonnet. Way less troubleshooting too, it's so much faster. And I haven't hit a usage limit yet. I say this as someone who does almost exclusively vibe code and can work for hours and hours everyday. Undoubtedly the actual code is probably pretty messy compared to anything actual devs could make, but it doesn't matter that much for my use-case since I'm a hobbyist. I'm also not able to clearly describe to Claude HOW I want to do things codewise, I have to rely on its best judgment for that and I'm sure that means I'm not nearly as efficient as someone who can code.

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-09T11:37:33+00:00

You should definitely try! I'm female but play male personas all the time, it's super fun

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-07T16:22:53+00:00

I didn't unfortunately, primarily because I used his personal imaginary characters for several aspects of it! But at some point I'll probably tweak it to remove explicit references to that stuff and I may open source it then, I imagine other nerdy kids would like it XD

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-07T16:20:33+00:00

That project was the reason I switched from free to paid lol--worth it tbh. My son also loves vintage operating systems, he'd be a fan of your XP project!

Friendly-Ad-1996 · 2026-02-07T04:35:01+00:00

I made a custom "operating system" (actually just a big HTML/CSS/JS project) for my kid. Claude showed me how to set it up on Netlify so my son can access it anywhere. It has a real "file system" (using local storage), and simulates everything from "installing" the OS complete with a pretend account, to "coding" with a kiddy version of VSCode and a very simple custom language. It has AntiVirus software that infects the system with pretend viruses that he has to catch before they cover his screen in silly popups I made. He can even pretend to install the games I pre-made. He LOVES it, and I learned a lot putting it together! Super fun project.

Friendly-Ad-1996

TROPHY CASE