Roleplay Terms and Definitions: A Plain Glossary

Roleplay basics: IC, OOC, OC and canon

You'll see these in almost every roleplay, often in the first few messages.

• IC (in character): Anything your character says, does or thinks inside the story. With an AI, IC is the default, so anything you don't mark as OOC is read as part of the scene.
• OOC (out of character): You speaking as yourself, usually marked with ((double parentheses)), [brackets] or an "OOC:" label. An AI reads OOC notes as instructions about the story, so keep them short and say clearly when the scene picks back up.
• OC (original character): A character you made up yourself rather than one from an existing book, show or game. An AI knows nothing about your OC except what you tell it, so give a few lines of description in your opening.
• Canon: The official facts of a source story. People also use it for anything the roleplay itself has settled ("the bell tower burning down is canon now"). With an AI, state the facts you want kept in plain words, because a passing mention is easy to lose in a long chat.
• AU (alternate universe): Familiar characters placed in a different setting, like a starship crew rewritten as the staff of a small-town bakery. Name the AU in your opening and tell the AI what changes and what stays the same.
• Muse: The character a writer is currently playing, or their drive to write that character ("my muse for her is gone this week"). An AI doesn't lose muse, but you can, and a short OOC note is a fine way to pause.

Writing styles and reply lengths

Length terms describe how much someone writes per reply. The cutoffs differ between communities, so treat these as rough sizes and agree on one with your partner. An AI often mirrors the length you write yourself.

• One-liner: A reply of one line or sentence, often just dialogue. It's quick and casual, but a run of one-liners tends to get short, thin replies back from an AI.
• Semi-para: Somewhere between a one-liner and a full paragraph, usually three to five sentences mixing action and dialogue. It suits AI chat well, since each turn stays easy to read and correct.
• Para: At least one full paragraph per reply, sometimes two or three, with room for description. If you want an AI to write at this length, ask for it in an OOC note and write that way yourself.
• Multi-para: Several paragraphs per reply, usually three or more (very long replies are sometimes called novella). A long AI reply has more room to slip in actions for your character, so read it closely.

Things to avoid: godmodding, metagaming and powergaming

These names describe habits that cause friction in a shared story. Most of them come down to one writer taking a choice away from the other.

• Godmodding: Making your character impossible to hurt, beat or outsmart, like dodging every attack or producing a power that solves every problem. With an AI it can run either way: the AI lets your character win every fight, or it hands its own character a way out of every problem. Ask for real stakes in an OOC note.
• Metagaming: Acting in character on knowledge only the writer has, such as a secret from an OOC note or another character's private thoughts. An AI can do this too, for example by reacting to something you only mentioned OOC, so tell it which facts its character doesn't know yet.
• Powergaming: Writing the result of your action on someone else's character, or forcing a scene forward without giving them a chance to respond. On game-based roleplay servers it also covers doing things that would be impossible in real life. With an AI, write attempts instead of results and ask it to do the same.
• Autopiloting (also called bunnying or puppeting): Writing another person's character without their permission, including their words, actions or feelings. It's a familiar problem with AI partners, which sometimes add a line of dialogue for you or decide how you feel. An OOC note like "Please don't write my character's actions or dialogue" is the usual fix.
• Mary Sue: A character with no real flaws, liked by everyone and never truly failing (a male version is sometimes called a Gary Stu). In AI chat, the version to watch for is a character who agrees with you about everything. Give it a flaw or a goal of its own.
• Plot armor: Protection a character gets because the story needs them, not because the danger was survivable. If you want real risk with an AI, say OOC that your character can lose.

Godmodding vs powergaming vs metagaming

The three get mixed up, and some groups use godmodding as a catch-all. The short version: godmodding is about your own character never losing, powergaming is about deciding what happens to someone else's character, and metagaming is about what your character knows.

Here is one rooftop chase written four ways. Kit is a thief, and the guard belongs to the other player or the AI.

Story tools: retcons, timeskips and NPCs

These are the terms for steering the story itself rather than playing a part in it.

• Retcon: Short for retroactive continuity, meaning a change to something already established so the story works better. Tell an AI in an OOC note and state the new fact plainly: ((Retcon: Kit never saw the map. It's still in the guard's pocket.))
• Timeskip: Jumping past a stretch where nothing important happens, like a long journey or a night's sleep. Tell an AI how much time passed and what changed: ((Timeskip: two days later, Kit reaches the harbor town.))
• NPC (non-player character): A side character nobody has taken on as their own role, such as a shopkeeper or a crowd at the docks. An AI can voice NPCs next to its main character; if they start crowding the scene, ask it to keep them brief.
• Slow burn: A relationship, often a friendship or a romance, that builds gradually over many scenes instead of all at once. AI characters can move things along fast, so a note like ((Keep this a slow burn for now.)) helps set the pace.
• Hook: Something in your reply that gives the other person a reason to act, often at the very end, like a knock at the door or an unanswered question. It can also mean a plot hook, the premise that pulls characters into a story. Ending your own turns on a hook gives an AI something concrete to react to.
• Lore: The background facts of a world, such as its history, places and rules. For an invented world, an AI only knows the lore you give it, so share what the current scene needs and add more as it comes up.

Using roleplay terms with an AI

AI models generally understand common roleplay shorthand, so you can use it in OOC notes: ((Semi-para replies, please, and no autopiloting my character.)) If a reply seems to misread a term, spell out what you mean instead. "Don't write what my character says or does" is harder to misread than "no bunnying."

tempteo has a catalog of AI characters, each with her own personality, plus a five-step creator if you'd rather build an original character for the AI to play.