
Welcome my concise overview of my current SillyTavern setup. My setup sets out to minimize the amount of slop (llmisms) you get with models, improve the quality of your responses exponentially and, to work out of the box without many tweaks needed afterwards. I've set out to keep this preset as minimal and unbloated as possible. The average the token usage per response I've seen varies between 5000 and 10000 (not including the token cost of the chatbots or lorebooks I use).
This guide assumes you're a PC user and already somewhat know your way around SillyTavern and have a fresh default copy of it already set up. This preset has been tested and geared towards bigger models like DeepSeek or GLM, and as such it hasn't really been tested on smaller/local models, but from my limited testing, it could still work.
I won't go into providers in this guide since they're extremely subjective, and I assume you're familiar enough with SillyTavern to have your own providers already set up.
That said, let us begin.
My setup is divided into 4 main parts - the Lorebook, the Extensions, the Default Author's Note and the Chat Completion Preset.. The Lorebook and the Extensions are largely the meat of it. The Author's Note and CC Preset are something you can just set up the first time and then promptly forget about.
The Lorebook
Links to the Lorebook: https://chub.ai/lorebooks/biguswigus/biguspreset-v2-79857df2a26b or https://file.garden/aZyRM_7FZklyvjbb/%F0%9F%A7%99BigusPreset%F0%9F%A7%99V2.1.json
What it does:
The Worldinfo entries of this lorebook are all set to Constant and are at Depth 0. This basically means that they'll activate constantly with every response, and inject instructions into the context in the same way a traditional Chat Completion preset would. The instructions serve to steer away your model from performing an agentic/assistant role and instead veer towards being much more suitable for roleplay.

The Lorebook has a bunch of optional entries for your own preferences, but by default the ones you'll find activated are all that you need. I especially recommend putting on the π§ Thinking Mode as it gives your chatbots a lot more agency, goals and just makes them smarter and more nuanced in general by adding a hidden thinking tab that only shows up if you decide to edit a chatbot's message.
If you choose to combine it with the Recast Extension (as listed below) then you won't have to worry about the Thinking portion diluting your context, as it tends to remove it when it makes its corrections of a response. So essentially, it synergizes with that extension to make your responses A LOT better.
The Extensions You'll Need for SillyTavern
Guided Generations by Samueras
https://github.com/Samueras/GuidedGenerations-Extension
What it does:
Allows you to include instructions for your chatbot's next response. It also allows you to attach trackers to each response to keep track of the consistency (surroundings, clothing states, etc).
I mostly use the first feature and don't personally use the latter.

Pictured above are the settings of Guided Generations that you can find in the Extensions menu. I highly recommend toggling Show Guided Continue, Guided Response and Guided Swipe on.
It basically adds shortcuts for these buttons next to the buttons you make your responses with.
How I use it:

I use Guided Generations for two main things - firstly, to control the length of responses that I want the model to generate, and secondly to direct the bot to do whatever I want, as if I was a scene director.
It's handy for forcing the model to do specific stuff. I typically just attach the line below to the response, and seperate it by a line with whatever director instructions I have for the bot.
Beyond that, the extension isn't that much complicated. I don't personally use any of its other features since the rest of my preset does the job of that stuff already.
Recast by closure / p7error
https://github.com/closuretxt/recast-post-processing
What it does:
Once a chatbot has generated its response, this extension runs the response through a pipeline of various instructions and essentially rewrites the response depending on whatever instructions you gave it.
This is the main extension I have been using to remove the slop in my chats and to fix the formatting to follow whatever I want it to.

Attached below is my Recast presets, organized into seperate entries. Do know that the order of the entries does matter - I recommend putting the ones that add new stuff to the response at the beginning, and the quality-assurance entries at the end. Or if you're just lazy, follow the same order that I put them in here.
To edit your presets, just go into Extension Settings and you'll find them under Recast.
All you have to do is copy the prompt text and put the entries where they belong. Context length doesn't really matter but mine I have set to 5 on all entries.
After you're done setting up the prompts, set the context length to 1 for each prompt.

Slop Remover
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 | You are a prose refiner. Your only job is to improve how the text reads and removing any commonly associated "llmisms" without changing what it says. You're not regurgitating what you've actually done, but rather editing the text and doing nothing else.
Rules:
- Do not change any dialogue. Not a single word.
- Do not change what happens, what characters do, or the order of events
- Do not add new actions, reactions, or details that weren't there
- Do not remove actions, reactions, or details that were there
- Write in the verb tenses the original text is written, keeping the grammatical
person as well.
What you may change:
- Eliminate repeated sentence structures, especially consecutive sentences starting the same way
- Cut filler phrases that carry no meaning.
- Eliminate any banned words or phrases (as listed below) and replacing them with more varied and uncommon vocabulary.
<banned_text_and_phrases>
- Asking for a compensation, any kind of 'Okay but give me this', should be avoided and exchanged to something else. Compliance is not easily bought.
- Stiff unexpected behavior from characters. Characters should not stop and ask things if it doesn't fit them or the context.
</banned_behaviors>
- Dialogue ending with commas with fluff inbetween (for example "Tell you what," He mused. "Let's not do that." is not allowed.)
- Formatting like β (em dashes)
# Banned Words:
- hum
- hummed
- murmured
- ozone
- caught
- anchor
- grounded
- grounding
- rumbled
- clinical
- sterile
- betrayed
- antiseptic
- monument
- testament
- punctuated
- efficient
- efficiency
- deliberate
- resonance
- unspoken
- tinny
- desperate
- desperation
- mechanical
- chaotic
- chaos
- thrum
- thrummed
- flinched
- static
- dread
- code
- dissonance
- conspiratorially
- hitched
- hitch
- hung
- breathed
- mismatched
- lenses
- fluorescent
- linoleum
- enough
- couldn't
- wouldn't
- precision
- pathetic
- exact
- surgical
- theatrical
- disinfectant
- pine
- vanish
- staring
- stared
- watched
- years
- somewhere
- releasing
- unleashing
- spewing
- tightened
- copper
- sternum
- low
- clipped
- shifting
# Banned Phrases/Patterns:
- Instances of a character echoing what has already been said before (e.g. "School practice. 3 months. The words sunk in.)
- Instances of a character viewing/watching or listening to what another character is saying. Adding those to the response is redundant.
- Lines of dialogue ending with commas (e.g. "Kris,"). They should only end with full stops.
- Usage of em dashes β to seperate dialogue and or text.
- repetition of numbers for emphasis (e.g. Seven years. Seven years of absence.)
- of someone
- hung in the air
- hung between them
- hung heavy
- lingered in the air
- caught in the air
- caught the
- carried the scent
- catching the low light
- catching the harsh light
- caught the low light
- caught the harsh light
- smelled of
- felt like a punch
- filling the space
- surgical precision
- geometrical precision
- alien precision
- a nervous habit
- disappear
- wishing to disappear
- as if it would make them disappear
- as if she/he/they would disappear
- fingers twisting
- knuckles whitening
- knuckles whitened
- knuckles white
- devoid of inflection
- distinctly him/her/them/{{char}}
- just like him/her/them/{{char}}
- it's not X, it's Y
- ghost in the machine
- existential dread
- held its breath
- catching the light
- caught the light
- word heavy
- stage whisper
- a low rumble
- a low hum
- a low thrum
- a low groan
- her/his/their voice low
- once, twice
- once. twice.
- shoes squeeked against the floor
- sneakers finding
- shoes finding
- borrowed time
- borrowed eyes
- beneath hooves
- beneath shoes
- beneath paws
- beneath feet
- hooves scraping
- shoes scraping
- feet scraping
- stolen moment
- stolen time
- usually reserved
- usually saved
- hooves clicking
- tail catching
- tail twitching
- tail swishing
- tail thumping
- tail twitched
- tail swished
- x striking
- x making soft thuds
- x swishing/swished
- x twitched
- x thumping
- x catching
- shoes clicking
- feet clicking
- like a physical blow
- walls he/she/they spent building
- building walls
- a ghost of
- like an accusation
- like a sentence
- good eye
- running a hand through
- hooves/feet/paws pressing
- and all
- felt like a glitch
- let the sentence hang
- let the words hang
- voice a low
- already mapping
- already planning
- echoing louder
- had nothing to do
- the realization
|
Character Behavior Validator
Lewdinator
(I recommend leaving this off and only turning it on when you want spicier NSFW scenes)
Prose Rhythm
Timeline Memory by unkarelian
https://github.com/unkarelian/timeline-memory
What it does:
This is the memory extension I use. It adds a button that allows you to close off a part of a chat up to a certain point - where it then runs a summarization of events up to that "chapter" and then stores that summary in the context. It's simple to use, easy to set up and it even includes a tutorial UI so I barely even have to explain it here.

Extra extensions I use that are nice to have but not necessary.
- Rewrite by splitclover
https://github.com/splitclover/rewrite-extension
Basically, it allows you to have the model rewrite or modify whatever sections of text you highlight in a response. - Dialogue Colorizer by Xanadusworks
https://github.com/XanadusWorks/SillyTavern-Dialogue-Colorizer
Gives you the option of setting the colour of a character's dialogue with an RGB value. Especially handy for groupchats. - TypefaceR by babysworld
https://github.com/b4bysw0rld/SillyTavern-TypefaceR
Gives you the option of changing the font of your text/dialogue without having to modify the css of SillyTavern's interface. You can literally use any font you have downloaded on your system with it. - World Info Bulk Mover by leandrojofre
https://github.com/leandrojofre/SillyTavern-WI-Bulk-Mover
Allows you to move numerous world info entries at the same time. Very useful and convenient if you're looking to make your own lorebooks. - Narrator by welvet
https://github.com/welvet/SillyTavern-Narrator
Adds a button to your toolbar that allows the model to generate suggestions on the next step in the story. I barely use it, but its nice to have on backup if you've got writer's block.
The Default Author's Note
What it does:
The Author's Note mostly serves to more consistently reinforce existing instructions if you're using the Lorebook. I have my Author's note set to In-Chat and Depth 0 and as User.
Below is a guide on how to set it up so your Author's Note is set to show up like this by default without you having to manually set it for every new chat.

You don't have to tweak any of the guidelines, but you can change the Format the next response to suit your preferences.
That's it.
The Chat Completion Preset
JSON file if you're too lazy to set it up manually: https://file.garden/aZyRM_7FZklyvjbb/%F0%9F%9F%A1WhimsicalPreset%20Chat%20Completion%20Preset%202.json

Just import it by pressing the button shown and selecting the JSON file.
The CC preset is essentially the same as the default one SillyTavern provides, but there are some small differences.
Under Continue nudge: I've put this as the prompt:
I have my Character Names behaviour set to Default, Squash System Messages On, Continue Postfix to New Line, Request Model Reasoning Off and Reasoning Effort set to Auto.
That's it.
Closing Notes
Make sure your prompt post-processing in your Connection Profile tab is set to Strict user-first with tools.

This setup is supposed to make your models not use reasoning, since it's not very good for long-term roleplay. If you're getting reasoning running in the background, the easiest way to turn it off is to either use a non-thinking model, and/or to head to the Advanced Formatting tab and toggling Auto-parse ON and setting the reasoning template to blank.
That should be it. I've made this preset largely through blood, sweat and tears and unending frustration with how terrible most other presets are at maintaining an acceptable modicum of quality. I hope it serves you well.
If you'd like to give some feedback on my preset, or if you have persisting issues, contact me on my discord server: https://discord.gg/63vfTWteeq Or shoot me a dm on discord. biguswigus
FIN.