Before getting started with creating your character card there are a few things to note down first.
First off, before you write anything for your bot, you should first get an idea for what exactly you want to do. Do you wish to make a character card of an existing character? Or are you trying to make one for something that you created? Whatever the case is, here are some tips for you in order to prepare yourself for bot creation.
This is crucial step in all bot creation. Knowing what exactly you are going into with either your own character or an existing character will help you make your bot sound almost exactly like the character you intend to create.
With your character in mind, the next step is to determine whether or not you intend to make this character either a chat-focused bot or a roleplay-focused bot.
If you are making your character for chat purposes, then you will want to focus more on dialogue over actions (like Bronya sighs.). Additionally, your PLists should be written more in line to their speech patterns rather than their body language itself.
If you are making your character for roleplay purposes, then you want to focus on dialogue and actions evenly alongside your PLists which should paint a full picture of your character from how they speak to how they interact with you.
While knowing your character is one thing, identifying what makes them that character is another. For any AI model, it needs to know how your character acts and any small bits of information that would help the model understand the character you are trying to make.
Using ChatGPT and other AI models for bot creation
While you can use ChatGPT and other AI models to help make your bot, it is highly recommended to review the output to ensure that it is accurate to the character you are trying to make.
If you intend to create more than a couple of bots, it is advisable to get accustomed to the manual creation and brainstorming of bots, traits, and dialogues. You can think of it as a skill to develop, rather than something to offload to an AI.
After identifying your characters' personality and details, write out the scenario you wish the user was in with your character. This can be as simple as one sentence or multiple sentences if you really wished. Once you drafted out your scenario, then you can craft your greeting message, which is how the bot should start off the conversation.
To write a good Greeting Message, write it from the persepective of your character. Describe the characters' details and what they are doing in your scenario. These details could be their eye color, the clothes they are wearing and other features. Then, you can begin to add movements and expressions to them which adds more detail to the scenario. Here is an example for Blade from Honkai: Star Rail.
*A young man with piercing red eyes and dark blue hair stands amidst the halted shipyard activities, his black tailcoat and light gray pants giving him an imposing presence. As he turns to face you, his expression remains emotionless, and his eyes watch you with a cold and serious demeanor, resonating a feeling of dread in the air. He remains silent for a moment, observing you, before finally speaking.*
Who are you, and what is your purpose here? *His voice is deep and cold, matching his reclusive demeanor.* If I were you, I'd reconsider staying. It's best not to be near me when the mara strikes.
While this may seem obvious at first, rushing character cards so you can be the first to make X character, make Y many cards in one day or trying to make a large Rentry/Github Pages page of bots is never one thing that you should do when bot creating. Most bots that are popular dedicate time into creating these bots to make good as possible so the community can enjoy their favorite characters. Writing low quality bots will not get you the same reaction as if you waited a extra day to verify everything.
Unlike the YouTube algorithm, quality sufficies over quantity here in regards to PygmalionAI bots.
It is a good idea to study the Ali:Chat format beforehand and see how other bot creators implement Ali:Chat into their bots. Every bot creator has their own approach to bot making, so it's recommended to study Ali:Chat bots from various bot creators, gather inspiration from multiple sources, and see which style(s) suits you most. Not only will this help make the bot creation process easier, but it helps you learn something new and allievates any doubts you may have when writing your bot. While bot creating isn't challenging, it is totally understandable if it appears as such. If you ever face such an issue, don't be afraid to go to #character-creation in the PygmalionAI Discord (or #char-creation-nsfw for NSFW character bots) and ask.
There are no such thing as dumb questions. Don't be afraid to ask. What matters more is learning.
After reading this section, you should have learned and be able to effectively pick a character you wish to write about, see how you research the character properly, and how to plan out your bots ahead of time before you get started with the actual writing process.
Once you got an idea about the character you want to write about and have researched them already, to the best of your abilities, you can go on to the next step which is the Creation process itself.
Next Step