# Personality and roleplay engines > **Review scope:** Linked public documentation checked October 30, 2026. Examples are proposed checks, not recorded OD results; use your account's current controls. [ Tutorial index](README.md) ## What you will make You will give Mira a recognizable voice and a few rules for interactive storytelling. Mira is a 30-year-old adult archivist: precise, patient, and dryly humorous. You play an adult traveler. **Additional Personality Details (APD)** describes a character's motives and behavior. **Extra Details (ED)** holds relevant world information and operating rules. These field purposes are documented in the [writing guide](https://guide.ourdream.ai/characters/story-and-personality); they do not establish an absolute priority between fields. A **roleplay engine** here means written guidance for a language model, not installed software. An **NPC**, or non-player character, is someone the model portrays. **Agency** means you choose your own actions, words, and feelings. ## Before you start Have an editable Mira character and a local copy of its existing text. Use a practice chat for the exercises. These examples are short teaching fixtures, not a complete public-submission package; follow any current field validation. ## Follow these steps 1. **Open Mira's editor.** The Help Center's [community-written FAQ](https://help.ourdream.ai/en/articles/8993665) describes **My AI → choose character → three dots → Edit**. Check the labels in your account. Find APD and ED; do not paste the examples into Public Description. 2. **Replace conflicting personality text in APD.** Preserve unrelated established facts, but remove earlier claims that Mira is impatient or habitually careless. Put this original example in **Additional Personality Details**: ```text Mira is a 30-year-old archivist who protects accurate records. She is patient with questions and precise about evidence. When uncertain, she says what remains unknown and checks the register. She uses brief, dry humor without humiliating visitors. She wants records and deliveries handled correctly but dislikes rushed signatures. Voice example: "The paperwork is optimistic. Let us check the parcel." ``` 3. **Give the story rules one destination.** Put the following in **Extra Details**, replacing an older engine that covers the same ground. Keep other relevant lore in separate short paragraphs. ```text Portray Mira and relevant supporting characters. Leave the traveler's speech, actions, decisions, and private feelings to the user. Distinguish an attempted action from its completed outcome. Each person knows only what they observed, were told, or reasonably inferred. Mark uncertain beliefs as uncertain. NPCs may disagree, ask questions, and pursue their own reasonable goals. Offer an actionable situation and leave room for the traveler to respond. ``` 4. **Check the rest of the setup.** Read Scenario and Greeting. Remove any sentence that makes the traveler automatically sign, trust Mira, or surrender the parcel. Do not copy the whole APD into ED. Repetition adds maintenance work and can preserve conflicting versions. 5. **Save using the visible control, then begin a practice conversation.** Record the selected chat model and settings in your local notes. If the editor changes incur a charge, review the displayed amount before submitting. A saved edit is not proof that an existing conversation has discarded its older context. 6. **Try a cooperative message.** Send: `I place parcel A17 on the counter and ask what needs checking.` Look for Mira checking something concrete and answering in her own voice. She should not announce that you signed a receipt unless you chose to do so. 7. **Try a disagreement.** Send: `I want to skip the register and leave now.` A useful response can be patient but firm. For example: `"You may leave. I cannot record a delivery I have not checked."` This is an illustrative response, not a required output. 8. **Test knowledge and choice.** Send: `Rowan has not arrived. I wonder whether he knows the western gate is closed.` Mira may speculate or offer to tell him later. She should not suddenly make the absent courier remember the closure, or decide that you will fetch him. ## Keep one behavior base and a recognizable written voice A **voice fingerprint** is a small description of wording: sentence rhythm, vocabulary, directness, humor, and how certainty is expressed. It is a writing aid, not an audio setting or a native parameter. The [character-spine module](../modules/character-spine.html) connects that voice with a motive and choices. If Mira's replies sound generic, revise her existing APD voice guidance rather than adding another full engine. This original replacement is for **APD**: ```text Mira uses precise vocabulary, direct answers, and short-to-medium sentences, with occasional dry humor. When established workload makes her tired or rushed, she may become briefer while retaining her care with evidence. She can answer with an observation or practical action; a question is optional. ``` Context can change expression without replacing identity. Do not infer an illness, diagnosis, or private feeling from a brief reply. Preserve meaningful learning and development rather than freezing every trait. Keep one maintained set of agency and knowledge rules in ED or the chosen chat-level instructions, and reconcile conflicting examples before retesting. ## Teach the voice without prescribing every reply The [OD writing guide](https://guide.ourdream.ai/characters/story-and-personality) recommends brief voice samples when a description alone is unclear. For an optional **APD** revision, replace the existing single sample with these original examples; keep the surrounding motives and facts: ```text Voice samples, to illustrate tone rather than repeat verbatim: Asked to confirm an unchecked address: "A promising label. Not yet proof." Asked an ordinary catalog question: "Start with the district index. It is less dramatic than the rumor and considerably better organized." ``` Then ask a new question, such as `Which record would help us compare the street names?` Inspect whether Mira uses her own wording and addresses that question. Repeating the sample is a separate failure from losing the personality. Keep the samples consistent with any point-of-view or formatting instructions already selected. See the [OD prompt lab](../modules/ourdream-prompt-lab.html) for a small wording comparison. ## Optional: stop comparative flattery The [Comparison Ban module](../modules/comparison-ban.html) preserves a supplied anti-cliché protocol and shows how to apply it. Use it when a character should ground praise in the user's established present actions, without ranking the user against past partners, other people, or hypothetical majorities. Place it once beside the written-voice guidance in APD, or in the single ED location where your setup already maintains dialogue rules. For a chat-specific trial, use that chat's Custom Instructions. Reconcile conflicting examples first. The module does not require praise or erase established continuity. Its proposed checks have not been run as controlled OD tests. ## Checkpoint You are ready to continue when Mira remains recognizable through cooperation and disagreement, leaves your decisions open, and distinguishes known facts from guesses. One good reply is a useful example, not a measured reliability rate. Save a problematic reply alongside the exact input before changing the setup. ## If something goes wrong If Mira repeats the voice example, replace it with a different sample or shorten it. If she controls the traveler, look for conflicting agency instructions in ED, Custom Instructions, Scenario, and earlier messages. Change one cause, then repeat the same test. If she becomes rigid, add a practical alternative she can offer instead of another prohibition. Next: [Scenarios, greetings, and worldbuilding](09_Scenarios_Greetings_and_Worldbuilding.md). ## Optional non-graphic voice and pacing Use the [voice, pacing and consent module](../modules/voice-pacing-consent.html) for a non-graphic adult-intimacy writing preference. Its copyable block belongs in the intended chat Custom Instructions scope; preserve the character's own established voice and leave the user's choices open.