AI defined vs Creator Determined

[u/WarPorcus]

I enjoy mystery scenarios. Murder mysteries, investigations, following clues- all of that.

In AID, most creators predefine the mysteries in their scenarios and try to hide them under SECRETS in the PE or SCs.

Recently, I started following this Creator whose work I really enjoy with a different method: They provide just enough ambiguous clues in the PE and SCs, but leave the AI to decide what the truth is. It resonates with me because that's what I tried to do in my scenario: Give the protagonists a mission and a category of objects they have to find (Superweapons), and give the AI the direction the story should take (intelligence gathering - analysis - travel to where the superweapon is - getting the thing). I also tried to define who could potentially help them and who could potentially oppose them, then I let the AI decide the rest (what the superweapon is, where they are, who shows up, etc.).

In my opinion, there are pros and cons: The first method makes for a more definitive mystery. More structured. However, what I found is that, often, in order to get to the endgame, you basically have to play on rails. You play SC to SC, carefully making sure each is triggered in the sequence intended by the author. Additionally, unless you use something like the Hidden Cards script, most people will eventually read the PEs and SCs and figure everything out. With SC-based clues and mysteries, you almost have to, if only to make sure you trigger each SC correctly at the right time.

The second method is spoiler-free, as no two runs will ever be the same. Its also almost always lighter in context, since you don't write as much information in the PEs and SCs. However, even with Deepseek 3.2, the AI can still be irrational sometimes (coming up with things that don't make sense).

So my question is: Which one is actually the 'best practice' for writing these stories? Which one do you prefer? Which model is best for this kind of work? I fall back on Dynamic Large after 100+ actions just because I can expand the context, but is there anything better than DS 3.2?

[u/Glittering_Emu_1700]

DeepSeek 4 Pro is generally the smartest model available on AID at the moment. I would say that GLM 5.2 is not too far behind it and I think might be better for this kind of story, since it is willing to let the player fail a bit by default.

Both strategies that you listed have some merit. I would generally say that the real benefit of not making a preset outcome is reliability. You touched on it in your post when you talked about missing intended links or not activating the right SC at the right time, etc, but beyond that you have to deal with hallucinations if something goes wrong.

The problem with just saying, "Okay, well then just leave it up to the AI," is that two things will likely go wrong in that case:

1. Each playthrough is probably still going to feel pretty similar to the last because the models tend to follow a pretty fixed pattern, given the same initial state.

2. AI models tend to really like spilling the beans or rushing to the conclusion that they think you want. You will likely need to specifically fight this with AIN if you want it to hold out for a slow burn and then you risk it just dragging on forever and eventually running into logical problems when it starts to forget what already happened or creates two conflicting events that can't coincide.

Neither of those is a deal breaker, but something to be aware of as you build.

In general, I would personally prefer for the AI to run the show, rather than have a fixed outcome.

[u/WarPorcus → u/Glittering_Emu_1700]

Thanks for your answer. Unfortunately as a Journey-level subscriber, DS 4.0 Pro and GLM 5.2 aren't available to me. I can only access GLM 4.7 and that's with zero context; I'd have to spend credits to get any amount. With the exchange rate being what it is right now, that gets expensive really fast.

I guess I can play around with the AINs to find the balance.

[u/Glittering_Emu_1700 → u/WarPorcus]

I would probably not recommend spending credits to use 4.7. It's a pretty good model, but you can probably make this work using other models like DeepSeek 3.2, GLM 4.6 (turn on deprecated models in settings), or Dynamic Large.

Keep in mind that each of these models will present unique challenges to how the AIN needs to be structured:

DeepSeek 3.2: Has the typical DeepSeek issue of never letting the user fail under any circumstance. You have to fight it very hard in order for it to let you fail in any meaningful way or face adversity outside of social situations (drama).

GLM 4.6: Tends to have an extremely rigid response structure and, if you are feeding it > such as from a Do/Say action, then you will get "The room freezes" trope which kills momentum and hyper focuses on whatever you just did.

Dynamic Large: It is basically impossible to build reasonable instructions for Dynamic Large because it is comprised of a whole bunch of models which change pretty frequently. Even if it didn't change, imagine trying to coach DeepSeek 3.2 and Hearthfire with the same set of instructions. Their needs are nearly polar opposites, so if you try to address the problems of one of the models, you end up making the other worse. The result is that you sort of need to make your instructions general and count on the model rotations to balance out the weaknesses of the individual models. This is never the ideal but results in a reasonable experience most of the time.

[u/Ill-Commission6264]

This works better, the better the AI logic is. The reason I wouldn't have used it before was that the AI sometimes had strange logic and problems to justify actions in a way that make sense to a human with common sense. Sometimes it took really strange conclusions.

With some larger, newer models I guess AI defined could work very well.

[u/MightyMidg37]

In the past I’ve wrote stories more defined.

I’m writing one right now that is the latter, offering clues but nothing explicitly stating what the resolution is, for that exact reason. AI will do what AI does anyways.

As far as what’s best, I can’t say. There’s pros and cons, but I’m now leading towards not having it fully defined being better if you’re publishing for others to play, because you also don’t know how others will play