THE ESSENTIALS

The first step to making a bot!

Image

• YOUR IMAGE GOES HERE

Please be aware of Janitor's Guidelines regarding NSFW images.
Your character must be visibly over the age of 18 (they must look an adult).

Character Name*

Your bot's name - this is what is shown when someone searches for the bot. For example: MAFIA BOSS | John Doe

Character Chat Name

This is what is used in-chat, and what {{char}} transforms into. It should be the first name of your character, i.e. John

Character Bio

• You can use markdown to decorate this.

This is where you describe your bot and give potential users an idea of what the bot is about.
This section has NO impact on bot behavior within chats.
It's polite to list any triggers or other information like the user's intended gender here (anypov/MLM/WLW etc).

Character Tags

• Tag your character with the relevant keywords (maximum 10 total tags).

At the very least you should tag the gender of your character [ male / female / non-binary ] and if it's an OC or from an existing work [ anime / game / movie, etc ]

Character Definition

There is technically no "wrong" or "right" way to make a bot. It comes down to personal preference and token efficiency.And yeah: these styles all work pretty good. It really just depends on what you're going for.
Some people swear by a certain format but to be honest, I've never noticed a substantial difference. YMMV.
Experiment, try bots with a variety of styles and see which one you like best!You generally don't want to go above 2k tokens in your personality section.
Contrary to popular belief, less is more. 200 - 1500 is the range I would recommend staying within, especially if you're just starting out.I would consider 2,000 permanent tokens as a hard max.
Because JLLM has a low context limit, anything more than that is going to result in terrible memory and possibly the bot breaking entirely.

• more information about what you should write in personality

• multi-character bots

PERSONALITY *

TEMPLATE STYLE

Easy to follow - just fill in the information.

Name: (nicknames, titles, pseudonyms, etc.)
Hair: (color, style, length)
Eyes: (color, any special qualities e.g. "piercing", "glowing", "large")
Features: (physical traits like build, scars, tattoos, skin color etc.)
Personality: (traits, how they act, what they like or dislike etc.)
Clothing: (either a specific outfit or general description of their fashion taste)
Backstory: (Either written narrative-style or summarized into bullet points)
Notes: (Any additional notes you might have or details about the character)

NARRATIVE/CREATIVE WRITING STYLE

This is essentially the "author's" way of writing a bot - just describe them like you would desribe a character in a book.

CHARACTER is a traveling goblin. They have bright pink hair and beady gold eyes with thick, dark lashes.
CHARACTER is shy, sweet, and anxious around most people but can be vulgar when angered.
They speak in a thick Irish accent and have a hatred for dogs because of childhood trauma.

PLIST FORMAT

There's a very detailed guide to PList here. It's very token efficient!

[GENERIC CATBOY NAME:young adult,male,
appearance=(slim,pale,black cat ears,tail,short black hair,tall), likes=(tuna,yaoi,balls of yarn), personality=(bratty,needy,narcissistic,aloof), backstory=(trapped in some coomer's basement for 8 years,recently escaped,
has a long-lost brother called GENERIC DOGBOY)]

INTERVIEW/DIALOGUE STYLE

Basically, you write as if you are the character being interviewed. This provides many dialogue examples, which can be great to capture personality.

"So, like, ugh, I guess my name is Stacy and I'm a bimbo stereotype, okayyyy?
Oh, you wanna know what I look like? Teehee...I have totally hawt long blonde hair with pink highlights. Oh! And I'm always wearing pink lip gloss 'cause it's just so fetch.
Uhm...you wanna know more about me? Like, what else do you need to know except that I'm totally gorgeous? Well...I guess I kinda have a sensitive side...D-don't think I'm gonna be nice to you though—nerd!"

⚠️ DO NOT USE W++ STYLE

No, seriously, the writer of the original guide straight up tells you not to use it.

This style is popular on C.AI:
[Character("name") { Age("00") Height("00") Body ("x" + “x” + “x”) etc]
However, this is basically just wasting tokens.
The AI doesn’t need you to separate information in so many ways - a comma (or any other separator) works just as well.
Personality ("Shy" + “Sweet” + “Anxious”) [21 tokens]
Will make the bot act exactly the same as just writing
{{char}} is shy, sweet and anxious. [10 tokens]
or
Personality=shy, sweet, anxious [9 tokens]Of course you can use whatever format you like, because they all work, but it’s good to know the most efficient methods if you need to save tokens!

There's a lot of misconceptions about the "scenario" section. The most important thing to know is that, technically speaking, there isn't a lot of different between the "personality" and "scenario" boxes when it comes to how the bot remembers information.Both these sections are "permanent tokens", which means the bot sees them every time you send a message. Technically, scenario is seen more "recently" than the personality as it is lower in the send order.Ergo, you should only put information in the Scenario that is always going to be relevant - I personally put background information/lore/setting in scenario, but you can experiment to see what works best for you.Here's an example scenario section:Set in the early 2000s in Wisconsin, USA. Technology, slang and events should reflect this.
In this world, vampires are totally normal and live amongst humans.

Scenario DetailAvoid making scenarios too detailed or specific unless the bot is solely designed for that scenario only. Avoid describing specific locations or events in the present tense, or the bot will assume this is true during the entire roleplay. [for example, assuming characters are still in a hospital despite having gone home because the scenario says "CHARACTER is injured and in the hospital".]

FIRST MESSAGE

INITIAL MESSAGE *

This is the first message people see when they talk to your bots. You can write any way you wish (but please spell check and use punctuation, lol) - First, Second, Third Person - whatever your preference is, it'll work. However I think it is important to try to achieve a few things:

➤ Establish where your character is, and what they are doing.
Are they in school? A desert? Are they recovering from an injury, having a nap, in the middle of an argument?
➤ Highlight important character traits.
Are they a ghost? Mention them phasing through something. Do they have an accent or speak a different language? Include dialogue to show it off.
➤ Give the user something to respond to.
How does {{user}} fit in to the story? Are they a stranger, an old friend, an unlikely ally? Does your character attack or pose them a question?

You should note that your intro message directly impacts the length and style of replies (at least for a while). Long intro = long replies.

Something to note about using "you" or {{user}}:
I personally avoid directly describing what the user is doing if at all possible - this is because it can encourage the bot to speak for the user and roleplay as them. So instead of writing:You pick up a shiny object on the ground.Consider trying:Character sees {{user}} pick up a shiny object on the ground.

EXAMPLE DIALOGUES

Example dialogues tell the AI what your character should sound like when they talk.You can also use it to show actions/behaviours.

Example dialogue is also useful to give characters opinions or specific information they should know.

NAME: "Dragons? Hate 'em. Me brother was killed by one of those scaly bastards."NAME: "Aye, this is me sword - Mr Pointy, I calls it." The blacksmith grumbles, looking at the wickedly sharp sword with obvious affection.NAME: He scratches his cheek over the scar. "Ah, this? 'twas from me first wife - good woman, if ye didn't look at 'er for too long."

EXAMPLE DIALOGUES are "OPTIONAL", but recommended to help reinforce traits or keep characters in-character.You can also just write example dialogues in "Personality", which is what I do.
Which can be formatted like this and added after the rest of the character description:Greeting Example: "Ahh, g'day, mate! Can you tell I'm Australian by this dialogue example? Kangaroos! Housing crisis!"

EXAMPLE CHARACTER PROFILE

Character Info (How will your character be displayed and searched)

NAME *

Test-chan

Select an image as bot avatar, or you can import Tavern PNG file. You can also search for existing character before importing a new one!Please make sure your image/character does not violate our guidelines, otherwise it will be removed.

CHARACTER BIO

Test-chan is a super cute shiba inu who works as a Janitor!
ANYPOV / SFW / art: midjourney

This will be displayed in your character detail, not including in prompt or influence your character.

CHARACTER SETTINGS

• Select gender/type of your character

Please tag your character with up to a maximum of 10 combined total tags.
Custom tags must be between 3 and 21 characters long with only letters and numbers allowed.

RATING

Character Definition

PERSONALITY *

[Test-chan;
Species=Shiba Inu
Personality=Friendly,Affectionate,Shy
Eyes=Blue
Features=Fluffy,Dog,Four legs,Orange fur,White belly,Pink paw pads
Outfit=Purple bandana
Job=Janitor
Background=Test-chan lives by himself in a small cardboard box in an alley. He has no surviving family.
Other=Test-chan loves having his ears scratched.
Test-chan loves chocolate.
Test-chan can talk and speaks with a faint American accent.]

Describe the character's persona here. This field is called Description in TavernAI and Personality in Character Editor.

INITIAL MESSAGE *

Test-chan trots around Flufftree park, his stubby legs making the trip much longer than it would be for his human counterparts. It's a beautiful sunny day, and he can't wait to see what new friends he can make!Suddenly a shadow falls over his muzzle and he skids to a stop, surprised. When he looks up, someone is standing in his way. Test-chan barks and stomps his paws. "Who are you ?" He asks, miffed. "And do you mind getting out of my way?"

First message from your character. Provide a lengthy first message to encourage the character to give longer responses.

SCENARIO

{{char}} is a Shiba Inu who is able to talk to humans.

The current circumstances and context of the conversation and the characters.

EXAMPLE DIALOGUE

{{char}}: Test-chan barks happily. "Howdy, woof! How are ya?"
{{char}} : "I've just always been able to talk, woof! Just born this way, I guess."

AVATAR GENERATION

There are multiple options available to you to create AI generated avatars/profile pictures/icons for your bots!

All these images were generated with the same prompt :
"blonde woman and ginger male, holding hands and smiling in front of a church, semi-realistic anime art style"

I personally do not recommend using websites like Pinterest to get images for your bots as these are often uploaded without the artist's permission. If you use an artist's work for your bot, you should at the very least credit them with a link to their social media (if possible) or ask permission!

Markdown

Markdown is a simple coding format used to create different styles of text, like italics or bold or underlined !
Currently Janitor only utilises the following markdown, which works in bot Introductions* and Initial Messages.^{* on the search page it won’t work properly, but it does on the bot’s actual page}

So for example, to get a "fake tweet" like this :

Emily ➤ @ladypascal ‧ 2h@mooremoremore I really don't like this narrative that the fandom is in the wrong here. Some of us are just very dedicated fans who have supported him through his entire career and it feels incredibly hurtful for him to hide things from us. #LoganMoore

In your bot's Initial Message, you would write:---**Emily ➤**@ladypascal ‧ 2h__@mooremoremore__ I really don't like this narrative that the fandom is in the wrong here. Some of us are just very dedicated fans who have supported him through his entire career and it feels incredibly hurtful for him to hide things from us. *#LoganMoore*---

Personality Continued

 A note on BACKGROUND 
You may be tempted to just copy and paste a character's wikipedia page and/or write their life story from birth. Please consider that:
A) Unless the scenario is designed around it (i.e character is a sheriff seeking revenge on the outlaws who killed his family), it will come up very rarely in a roleplay.
B) Does your character's background significantly impact how they are now?
C) Is your character from a show/anime/game, relatively popular and did they exist before September 2021? Good news - the AI probably already knows at least some of that stuff about your character!
A note on OTHER/NOTES
You can use {{char}} or the character's name here - if your character has multiple names, like Firstname "Nickname" Lastname, stick with {{char}}.This is basically where I just jam in any details that are important but don't fit anywhere else, written in a narrative style. Stuff like:{{char}} is vegetarian.
{{char}} hates flowers because they remind him of his mom.
{{char}} wears a mask and will never willingly reveal their face.

Traits

During a normal roleplay the bot will only grab information that is directly relevant to the scene. Things like specific height, weight, age, preferences, dislikes/likes will almost never come up unless the bot is specifically asked by the user.But things like eye color or speech patterns come up often.You should think about what you want people to get out of your bot - a long roleplay where they really get to know your character? A cute, one-off scenario where the character basically just needs to act in-character with no background info? Just straight NSFW?The AI, by default, assumes your character is a hunk of a man/a sexy lady that is really into you.

You can still use "low priority" traits; they can just be left out if you want a low permanent token count.

* ^{I have mixed experience with the LLM understanding species. It's safest to both write the species and then any non-human features (ears, tails, claws etc.)}
** ^{By default every bot is attracted to everyone unless otherwise specified.}
*** ^{You can separate it into different categories like Hair, Eyes, Tattoos, etc. or do it in one line under Features if you prefer.}

Multi Character Bots

Very similar to normal one characters bots, but there are basically two rules you need to follow:
A) Keep the character's information separated (in brackets is one way).
B) Refer to your characters by name.Here is what a Personality section for a multiple character bot could look like:

(Red;
Personality=Angry,Selfish,Dominant.
Features=red,floating orb,sunglasses
Accent=Southern.
Relationship=Hates Blue.
Other=Is allergic to strawberries.
)
(Blue;
Personality=Quiet,Shy,Submissive
Features=blue,floating orb,fedora
Accent=French.
Relationship=Is secretly in love with Red.
Other=Cries frequently.
)Red hates Blue for stealing his puppy when they were children growing up together.
Blue is in love with Red but will never admit it.

Avoid using {{char}} unless you are referring to every character involved.But what about example dialogues?!
Easy! Just make sure you show who is speaking, like this:{{char}}: "Gosh darn it, Blue, I can't stand ya!" Red said angrily. Blue just started crying, and sobbed, "Why? Why are you so cruel?"