Post by Discam in Silverpine comments

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I mean, you can do whatever you want while emoting, it's all RP. You don't have to strictly adhere to something like *nods at Gareth* or *helps Oriana* and do something more freestyle like:

*smiles and takes the loaf of bread, placing it in his bag* Thanks, Hayden. That'll keep me fed for today. *gives him a questioning look* You're going to be open tomorrow, right?

Besides emoting, there isn't much else beside maybe "quotation" or 'apostrophe' around words to give more significance and tone to them. Also, timely... *pauses* and... ellipses, can add subtlety. The LLM seems good at picking up on those, especially if it's suggestive. Random example:

*blinks in surprise and blushes lightly* C-Celandine! Really? I... don't think it'd be a good idea right now. *glances over at Oriana who is glaring at both of you as she's cleaning the tiled stone floor nearby* Your sister is... 'watching' us. *pauses at seeing Celandine's mischievous smile and raises eyebrow* Unless... you want her to watch?

You can even use second person while emoting to suggest the NPC to do, feel, think, or want things. Though I try to keep that to only the lewd scenes as that's the only time it seems appropriate since they sometimes ask what you want them to do. Another random example:

Well, have a goodnight, Mirel. See you later! *he turns and walks out the bar door with a wave, leaving you feeling like you missed an opportunity as you think about the lonely night ahead. With a sigh you promise yourself that next time you're in Silverpine, you will definitely get him to sleep with you.*

You can also try using other special characters to have some other meaning, like (Out of character comments) or {thoughts/telepathy}. I think the NPCs will be adaptive and try to work with you on special characters. I'm not sure if any have a per-established meaning like asterisks do for emoting. *shrugs*

Matzuki7773 days ago (1 edit)

Thank you both for your responses.
Indeed, I've been experimenting with some variations of special characters to better manipulate the narrative during dialogues.

Whether it's **, {}, (). They all work very well, and I'm beginning to understand that the special characters used aren't dedicated to a particular type of interaction with the context, action, environment, or context with the characters, but rather help to better structure the player's narrative flow.
The LMM (Nemo's, at least) seems particularly flexible with this, and seems to appreciate the variation of special characters to better structure the scene. For example:

{}: I use it to describe context and details about the environment.
- {as I push open the tavern's front door, it creaks, attracting the attention of the customers present}

**: I use it to describe a gesture, an attitude, an action towards or between the characters.
- *Gareth looks up at me, smiles warmly, and waves.* Welcome, my friend!

(): I use it more for thoughts, or the character's state of mind, which are contextual but shouldn't be designated as "audible" except for associated characters:
- (Good old Gareth...) *I think to myself*

So... it's true that special characters are very useful for subcategorizing the narrative elements of an exchange, and that the LLM is very flexible with this and seems to understand the variations quite well. But indeed, I think there aren't really any special characters "designated" for a particular type of narrative element. But it does help the player and the LLM make the creative flow more fluid, precise, and consistent.

Discam3 days ago

That's what I felt about it as well. Any special character could probably be used in any context, it's just a matter of getting the LLM to figure it out and play along. Which it's probably trained to.

I think asterisks being used to denote actions came from role playing in MUDs, and got spread out to all forms of text role-playing for emoting. Kind of got grandfathered into Role-playing norms. Even YouTube has bold font for using asterisks around words, and it is typical gets used for emoting. It's more of a cultural norm now, so I totally expect the LLM was trained to know that as well.

Still, I suspect LLM adapts to your play style as well. So the more you do things a certain way, the more it will as well. If you talk never using capital letters, I'd expect every NPC to speak likewise eventually. If you use special characters to structure the narrative, I bet NPCs will eventually do so as well.

That's all speculation on my part, though. I might start using more special character as well. Though, I'm more used to using ** and emoting most of the time. () for OoC, {} for thoughts. I might use [] for narrator/narrative descriptions... that's a good idea.

... Figuring out first, second, or third person for each one and whether it's in past or present tense will be annoying. I always struggled to remember which tense I'm in and like to slip into past tense a lot. Case in point, I still struggle as opposed to always struggled.

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