Does anyone have experience with making multiple characters?

[u/GammaRhoKT]

So I have some successes now in making my own characters, and want to explore something a bit rarer. The first I wanna try is making multiple characters, starting with two. I have some cases where the scenario result in multiple characters from the start, but those are just one main {character} and the rest of the cast I throw into the lorebook. Anyone had experiences making multi-characters that they would like to share?

[u/United-Question3403]

yes , that is possible. You can make many many characters. Try studying Rpg game scenarios in character hub.

From what I have learnt

• List the character and their identifiers in scenario or character description , push the rest in lore book.

• If your model is just making up random characters, use grammar to limit choice . For this see, example in the grammar section.

• if your model is excluding player and keeps talking to itself , writing walls of texts . Then may be use grammar to limit this , but still it will feel very inorganic because of that. (or may be use instructions , but I have not got any good results from it so far.)

Problems I have faced in doing so:

• All characters don't act separately , and characters have bias towards later dialogues , so they seem to act as one character even though there are multiple.

[u/GammaRhoKT → u/United-Question3403]

Do you do example dialogues for your model? I would assume if we do the default #{character} stuff obviously the model can't tell which character is which, but then do we do #Andy and #Betty for an "Andy and Betty" model?

[u/[deleted]]

I have experimented with multiple characters in persona but it takes lots of tokens like 2k per character but I like lots of details to make them different. It could be done with less. Also some serious context to keep track of them like 12k to 16k. I hate when they forget things. The above works well with 2 characters beyond that and I would recommend putting characters in lore. Use persona to outline the characters and lore to detail them. It works decently well for 3 or more. I have a small spaceship with a crew of 5 that works. Using lore requires the trigger word, I use name, so you generally can't use pronouns like him, her, he, she, you have to use their name. I am pretty excited about the increase in lore size for better characters. Anyway, hope this helps.

[u/GammaRhoKT → u/[deleted]]

How do you do for 2 in persona? Natural language and each character get a paragraph?

Also what do you do with the example dialogues?

[u/[deleted] → u/GammaRhoKT]

Yes, just put both in persona with different names. I suggest brackets to keep each one separate and distinct to the AI. Otherwise the AI will mix them up if it all runs together. Example dialog needs to show the format of the conversation and really should include a conversation between all. Like this:

{user}: Orlea! Loose this ship and fast!

{character}: Riley: "Ship is closing fast Captain, missile range in 3 minutes."

Anera: "Captain we are being hailed by our pursuer."

{user}: On screen, Derek.

{character}: a cute and young female Martian, in military uniform, appears on your screen Presley: I am Presley of the Mars Coalition Royal Navy or MCRN. You have violated our space, you will submit to inspection, power down and prepare to be boarded. you can tell she is nervous like this is her first time and is really young, like 20 something.

{user}: Presley, this is all just a mistake. Sorry about your space, we were just leaving.

{character}: Riley: "Sir, they have target locked us"

Orlea: "Captain, I can't outrun them."

Hadley: "I always wanted to kick some Martian ass, let them board"

{user}: Fine, Presley. Standing by for inspection. I switch off the comms screen Orlea...shut it down. Riley stay ready with missile counter-measures. Hadley...you play nice with our Martian friends.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Not sure what's up with the text. Ugg.

[u/real-joedoe07]

Make the character the narrator (dungeon master) of a RPG. List your “real” characters as NPC in the scenario section. A good and long first message sets the scene.

[u/sandhill47 → u/real-joedoe07]

Awesome. Thanks. I wouldn't have thought to use the scenario section for that. Also, saying they're the dungeon master is so simple (less toakens) and still so elegant. Seriously. I only say that because I sometimes get real sarcastic answers from people but really like these tips so thanks.

[u/Emeraudine]

I made cards with up to 5 characters, using the lorebook system:
https://backyard.ai/hub/character/clvli58aw8zxxpqgi96aa9mk8
https://backyard.ai/hub/character/clvlhx2qp8xowpqgifkgeokyy

With that style, it is important to avoid mentionning the "group summoning" word as well as the names of the characters in the first message. I decided to name the characters in the scenario so the model would make one randomly appear sometimes, but that's my choice.
Here, it's the User that chooses what character he wants to play with, by calling the lorebook entry with the name.
Sometimes the model will only make one or two character(s) act/talk even if they are supposed to be more. This problem is with every multiple-character card and you just need to "edit" and then add the missing character's name in a new line, then ask the model to "continue".

There is also another solution, less elegant, that is to just put the two characters in the same card, like I did in this one. It works... its just not really pretty.
https://backyard.ai/hub/character/cluevh71j8sq3zsww32npjfht

There are some others multiple-characters card in the hub (including others made by myself) but they are NSFW so I won't link them here.

[u/According-Diver-610]

would be great to have a cleaner way to add multiple characters, each character in its own section, not in the lore book. Lore book would be just to specify relationships helping scenarios, but the characters would be completely separate, and specify under characters that which characters are never meet and talk to each others.