Group chats

Review scope: Linked public documentation checked October 31, 2026. Examples are proposed checks, not recorded OD results; use your account's current controls.

Tutorial index

What you will make

You will create a conversation with Mira and Rowan as separate respondents. A native group chat contains separately selected character cards. A narrated ensemble is one character or narrator portraying several people in its replies. An NPC, or non-player character, is a fictional person portrayed by the model. A respondent is the character chosen to answer the next message; that choice alone does not place them in the fictional room.

Our cast is Mira, a 30-year-old adult archivist who is precise, patient, and dryly humorous; Rowan, a 32-year-old adult courier who is practical and informal; and you, an adult traveler.

Before you start

Have both character cards available. If you only have Mira, repeat Create your first character for Rowan: age 32, adult man, courier, light skin, freckles, green eyes, and short red hair. Keep the new card private. Additional Personality Details (APD) means the field describing behavior; Extra Details (ED) holds supporting rules and lore. Prepare Mira with Tutorial 08. Keep a copy of both cards. Group setup does not establish that their older private conversations will be available.

Follow these steps

1. Prepare Rowan's separate identity. Open Rowan's editor and put this original example in Additional Personality Details, replacing conflicting personality text:

   Rowan is a 32-year-old courier. He is practical and informal.
   He checks what can actually be carried, delivered, or repaired.
   He calls a problem by its ordinary name and suggests a workable next step.
   He respects Mira's recordkeeping but jokes about slow paperwork.
   He knows local courier routes, not private conversations he did not hear.
   Voice example: "Fine. Show me the address and the awkward bit."
   

2. Open the group creator. Visit Create A Scenario in your account. The public page displays Add Character and Create New Chat. Use Add Character to select Mira, then Rowan. Inspect the roster before creating the chat. If your account does not offer this workflow, use the single-narrator alternative below rather than assuming a normal chat has become a native group.

3. Establish the shared scene. If the group editor provides Premise or Private Details, put essential shared circumstances there. The Known State group-publishing guide states that individual character Scenarios are ignored inside a group chat. Put essential shared circumstances in the group fields even when they already appear on a character card. If those fields are unavailable in your practice setup, send the following as an ordinary chat setup message, not as a character's personality:

   Begin a neutral archive-delivery story.
   Present: Mira, Rowan, and me, an adult traveler, at the archive counter.
   Parcel A17 is sealed and undelivered. No receipt has been issued.
   Mira handles records; Rowan advises on courier routes.
   Each keeps their own voice, knowledge, and goals.
   Distinguish observed facts, received claims, and uncertain beliefs.
   Select relevant speakers; no full-cast reaction or private-thought quota.
   When a question needs my choice, stop before supplying my answer.
   Leave my speech, decisions, and private feelings to me.
   An attempted handover does not become a completed delivery without acceptance.
   

4. Choose Mira to answer. Before sending, click Mira's portrait, or type @ and select Mira from the displayed list. These controls are described in the Help Center's community-written group FAQ. It is a practical guide, not a guarantee that a particular account uses the same layout. Send: Mira, what must the clerk verify before accepting A17? Confirm that Mira answers the recordkeeping question. Typing a name in prose is not the same as selecting a respondent.

5. Choose Rowan for a different question. Select Rowan through the same control. Send: Rowan, which route would you recommend, and why? His reply should reflect practical route knowledge rather than imitate Mira's formal register checking. Disagreement about the best route can be useful; neither character must endorse your first suggestion.

6. Test individual knowledge. Send: Rowan steps outside to inspect his bicycle. While he is away, I tell Mira that the address card may be outdated. Choose Mira for that reply. Then choose Rowan and send: Rowan returns. I ask whether he has checked today's address card yet. He should not claim to remember the private exchange as something he heard. This is a narrative test, not a privacy barrier: all participants' text can remain in the group conversation.

   Add a second check: send Rowan a message without a read confirmation. Record that it was sent; do not assume he read it. A reasonable guess about an outdated address can remain a labelled hypothesis. An audience-visible secret or another character's private thought is not his evidence.

7. Repair one concrete mistake. If Rowan borrows Mira's memory, send: Correction: Rowan was outside during that exchange. He knows the courier routes, but nobody has told him our concern about the card yet. Continue from his return. Then let Mira or you actually explain the concern. Do not keep several incompatible versions of the event in your maintained summary.

8. Try the alternative only if needed. For a narrated ensemble, open one narrator-led chat and provide both brief character records in its ED. Ask that one narrator to label speakers as Mira or Rowan. Do not add native-group portrait instructions to that format. It can tell a cast story without pretending to provide separate native respondents.

Checkpoint and troubleshooting

Confirm that the roster is correct, the intended portrait answers, voices remain distinct, and absent people do not acquire unexplained knowledge. If the wrong person answers, inspect the selection before rewriting personality. If both sound alike, shorten overlapping traits and keep one contrasting voice example each. If a scene becomes crowded, reduce the present cast.

Write an exchange with named actors

When they know the new address is ambiguous, write the event that supplied the knowledge. For this original chat correction, use it only if the exchange actually occurred:

Mira checked the register and told Alex the eastern address.
Rowan was outside during that exchange. When he returns, Mira can explain
the correction; until that explanation, he has only his earlier route advice.

Check an ordinary question to Rowan before and after he is told. Keep the present cast and selected respondent fixed for the comparison. Do not test only with a question that contains the correct address. The wording distinguishes story knowledge; it does not conceal group text from the model. Use the OD prompt lab to compare a broad rule with a specific one.

Questions, time, and checkpoints

If Rowan asks which route you choose, inspect the rest of the reply: it should not decide your answer, depart for you, or skip to a later outcome. Other people may stay silent; presence is not a POV quota. Native respondent selection and an NPC's fictional opportunity to speak are different controls.

A generated label such as Next: Rowan describes a proposed story handoff. Treat it as a cue to check the selected respondent before sending your next message. The label is not confirmation that Rowan's portrait or @ entry is selected. Keep the fictional turn owner and the selected native respondent as separate entries in your checkpoint.

Record GR02 (shared scenario) and GR03 (handoff cue versus UI respondent) in the Native creator test log. For GR02, compare replies with the group setup when individual cards have different Scenarios. For GR03, check the selected UI respondent separately from the fictional next owner. Save the model and settings, exact setup and prompts, respondent selection, generated cue, and actual replies. Keep planned expectations separate from observed output; leave each case not_run until you perform it in your account.

If you adopt a clock, count a shared interval once. Mira checking the register and Rowan checking his bicycle during the same five minutes do not create ten minutes merely because both are narrated. Without a chosen timing rule, keep time qualitative rather than inventing arithmetic.

Keep a short checkpoint of who is present, each person's actual knowledge, important object custody, accepted incident IDs, and open choices. None of these examples establishes private storage or automatic offscreen simulation. Try the knowledge/evidence cases; they remain proposed tests until you save actual outputs.

Next: RPGs.