That would be Hana, my daughteru and favorite OC.

SukinoFindings


Finding AI RP learning resources is tricky — most of them are tucked away in Reddit threads, Neocities pages, Discord discussions and Rentry notes. It has this nice Web 1.0, pre-social media feel to it, where nothing is really indexed or centralized.

To help make things a bit easier, I am putting together this collection of cool, updated stuff I've found online related to SillyTavern and LLMs in general. Think of it as a crash course to get you up to speed on how everything works and where to get things. Want to learn more? Check out my Guides page, where I share little quality of life things I have discovered.

If you know of any other cool stuff, or if you want me to look at yours and add it to this list, contact me at: [email protected] or @sukinocreates on Discord.


Latest Updates:
2025-02-21 — First draft of the Getting Started section and updated relevant sections to accommodate it.
2025-02-20 — Added PygmalionAI to the bot providers, reworked Prompts and Jailbreak sections, and the PList + Ali:chat introduction.
2025-02-17 — Added a calculator and a quick guide to the LLM Models section to help new users figure out which models they can use.
2025-02-16 — Moved things around again. Reworked the Basic Knowledge and Botmaking sections to try to create a proper learning experience. Added a few more links.
2025-02-15 — More links, reorganized the sections AGAIN. Highlights for the theme Moonlit Echoes and the guide Samplers Settings and You, check them out.


Getting Started

  • Install SillyTavern: https://docs.sillytavern.app/installation/ — SillyTavern is the recommended frontend for AI roleplaying. While there are alternatives, it's the most mature and feature-rich platform, consistently receiving updates first and offering extensive customization options with broad system compatibility and ample community support. Follow the official guide for step-by-step instructions on Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, or Docker. For iOS users, check out the solution below.
    • Access SillyTavern Remotely Via Tailscale: https://sillytavernai.com/tailscale-config/ / https://docs.sillytavern.app/administration/tunneling/ — Tailscale is a private and secure tunnel that connects all your devices. This means you can host SillyTavern on one device and access the same instance on all your other devices, or share it with your friends. This is the best way to use it on Android, and the only way to really get it on iOS, if you have a dedicated device to host it — like a computer, unused phone, Raspberry Pi, or homeserver. You can even rent a small, inexpensive remote server or VPS to host it on, it's pretty lightweight.
  • If You Want To Run a Model Locally: Uncensored, free, private. Requires a dedicated GPU or a Mac with M-series chips. You'll need a backend to run your chosen model format and connect to SillyTavern via a local Text Completion API. Choose one and go pick a model.
  • If You Want To Use an Online Model: You need a service that provides an API key. Censorship and privacy are a concern here, as you are sending everything to these services, and they can block your requests or ban you at will. Be careful not to accidentally send sensitive information, as most of the time your data will be used to train models.
    • The Free Ones: These change all the time, but I will try to keep this updated with the options I know of.
      • Google Gemini: https://aistudio.google.com/apikey — Google currently offers free API keys through AI Studio. Generally high quality for roleplaying, but the models are constantly being updated, so it is hard to tell which is the best one to use, and your experience may change suddenly. Heavily censored, so a good jailbreak is a must, and you will still get refusals. Requires a Google account, and your data will be used for training (if used outside the UK/CH/EEA/EU), but well, it's Google, you can't expect much else.
      • MistralAI: https://console.mistral.ai/api-keys — Mistral currently offers trial API keys through Le Plateforme. Mistral Large is their best model. Requires opting into data training and may ask for phone number verification.
      • Cohere: https://dashboard.cohere.com/api-keys — Cohere currently offers evaluation API keys. Command R+ 104B is their best model. Requires registration and is rate limited, read their documentation to know more.
      • Model Providers With Free Key Rotations: https://github.com/cheahjs/free-llm-api-resources — There are providers/revendors that host the same AI models that people run locally, and offer some of them for free in a rotation.
      • AI Horde: https://stablehorde.net/ — A crowdsourced solution that allows users to host models on their systems for anyone to use. The selection of models depend on what people are hosting at the time. It's free, but there are queues, and people who host models have priority on them. By default the host can't see your prompts, but the client is open-source, so they could modify it to see and save them, even though no identifying information (like your ID or IP) is sent to them. Read more on their FAQ to be aware of the real risks.
    • The Paid Ones: Most of these options operate on a pay-per-request model, so the more you play, the more expensive it gets.
      • There are providers/revendors that host the same AI models that people run locally, at all price points. The most famous is OpenRouter, but you can find cheaper alternatives if you look around. Check the section on Where to Find LLM Models to get an idea of what are the good models.
      • You can also pay for the big, corporate models like ChatGPT, Claude and Deepseek, they are pretty smart and will give you the best experience you can get. But only go this route if you have disposable income because they are quite expensive and it turns into a money sink pretty fast. And remember, you need the API key, so don't buy a ChatGPT subscription or anything like that.
        • /aicg/ meta: https://rentry.org/aicg_meta — Comparison of how the different services/models perform in roleplay. Don't take this as gospel, they vary depending on the jailbreak and bots you use, but it can help you set your expectations for what you can pay for.

Where to Find Stuff

Chatbots/Character Cards
LLM Models
  • LLM Model VRAM Calculator: https://sillytavernai.com/llm-model-vram-calculator/ — Want to run a model locally, but are confused by all the model names and numbers? No worries! This simple tool will help you find out which AI models your system can handle. Just enter the VRAM amount of your graphics card and the desired context length (for long roleplaying sessions, 16384 is pretty good), and you'll get a handy list of compatible models. Look for the model with the highest number followed by B (like 8B or 12B), this tells you what size models you can run. For example, if your system can handle an 8B model, you'll be able to run pretty much any model in that size range or smaller.
  • HobbyAnon: https://venus.chub.ai/users/hobbyanon — This page offers a curated list of models of every size, along with an easy-to-follow tutorial for getting started with KoboldCPP.
  • SillyTavernAI Subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SillyTavernAI/ — Do not start a new thread asking for the models. Check the weekly Best Models/API Discussion, including the last few weeks, to see what people are testing and recommending. If you want to ask for a suggestion in the thread, say how much VRAM and RAM you have available, or the provider you want to use, and what your expectations are.
  • HuggingFace: https://huggingface.co/models — This is where you actually get your models, regardless of format. But browsing through it is not very helpful if you don't know what to look for. Once you've figured out what model you want, search for its name + the format you want (like Mistral Nemo GGUF) to see if someone has already quantized it to the format you use.
    • Bartowski/mradermacher: https://huggingface.co/bartowski / https://huggingface.co/mradermacher — I don't know how they do it, but these two keep releasing GGUF quants of every slightly noteworthy model that comes out really quickly. Even if you don't use GGUF models, it's worth checking their profile to see what new models are released.
Chatlogs
  • Chatlog Scraper: https://chatlogs.neocities.org/ — Want to read random people's funny/cool interactions with their bots? This site tries to scrape and catalog them.

Quality and Updated Resources

System Prompts and Presets for Text Completion Models

The system prompts that come with SillyTavern, and most other frontends, are too simple. They make the model roleplay, but not much else; they don't give them rules to follow, they don't tell the AI what the player expects from them. Find out which instruct template your AI model of choice uses — you can usually find it on the original model's page — and grab a better one from one of those people.

Jailbreaks for Chat Completion Models

Always use a good jailbreak, these enterprise-level AI models need prompts to teach the AI how to play. Jailbreaks are not just for making these services write smut and violence, they are versatile and modular, and the NSFW part is usually optional.

Themes
Quick Replies
  • CharacterProvider's Quick Replies: https://rentry.org/CharacterProvider-Quick-Replies — Buttons to effortlessly add a bit of flavour to your RP and make it feel more like a videogame. I don't use them anymore, but I have used them as inspiration for my own buttons.

Build Your Basic Knowledge

Handy Resources for Botmaking

  • Character Creation Guide (+JED Template): https://rentry.co/CharacterProvider-GuideToBotmaking — Start here! Botmaking is pretty free-form, almost anything you write will work, and everyone does it a little differently, so don't think you need to follow templates to make good bots. That said, JED+ is great if you're a beginner, it helps you get your character off the ground by simply filling out a character sheet — think of it as a nice set of training wheels until you get the hang of it. In the long run, I think sticking to a template stifles creativity.
  • pixi's practical modern botmaking: https://rentry.org/pixiguide — Succinct guide to introduce you to some botmaking good practices, and to what kind of cards you can make.
  • How to Create Lorebooks - by NG: https://rentry.co/SillyT_Lorebook — A quick introduction to Lorebooks/World Info. They are a big step up for when you're ready to make your characters deeper and more complex.
  • JINXBREAKS: https://rentry.org/jinxbreaks — Trying to make a crazy character but can't get it to behave the way you want? Maybe this page can help you get an idea of how to prompt it.
  • Getting to Know the Other Templates: Again, don't think you need to use these formats to make good bots, they have their use cases, but plain text is more than fine these days. Read these guides to understand what they are and what they try to accomplish, while picking up some good tips and best practices along the way:
    • PList + Ali:Chat: This format was really popular before we got models with big contexts. It maximizes token efficiency by combining Python/JSON-style lists for defining character traits with example dialogues to lock in distinct narration and speech patterns. This dual approach is particularly powerful for keeping established characters true to form, expressing subtle personality traits through dialogue, or handling complicated speech patterns. While plain text descriptions can lead to loose interpretations, PList + Ali:Chat provides precise control over character behavior, and prevents your own writing style from bleeding into the character. Just consider whether the added complexity is worth the benefits for your specific use case.
    • W++: Honestly, this format is just an inferior PList — use it instead if you want to use a structured list. But, as obsolete as it is, you will still see it around, from old cards, and people who still like to use it, so you might want to understand what it does.

Novel Roleplaying Setups

Misc

  • sphiratrioth666's Character Generation Templates: https://huggingface.co/sphiratrioth666/Character_Generation_Templates — Nothing beats a handcrafted bot. But it's handy to be able to have the AI generate characters for you, perhaps to use as a base, or to quickly roleplay with a pre-existing character. These are prompts to be used on any model of your choice.

Other Indexes

More people sharing collections of stuff. Just keep in mind some of these guides and resources might be outdated or contain outdated practices. Pay attention to when things were made and last updated — a lot of these guides come from when AI RP was pretty new and people were still figuring things out. Back then we didn't have the advanced models with big context windows like we do now, and everyone was learning and experimenting with what worked best.

Edit
Pub: 08 Feb 2025 03:42 UTC
Edit: 22 Feb 2025 07:01 UTC
Views: 2221