This guide aims to help aspiring writers create decent stories using AI Dungeon, whether they be original works or fan fiction.
This guide contains suggestions and tips for “Prompt”, “Memory” and “World Information” formats that tend to give better results when using any of the AI models.
I hope that this guide will help you understand AI Dungeons underlying systems better, and by extension, help you create consistent outputs and stories that are worth publishing to the AI Dungeon platform for people to see.
Please keep in mind that the guide is a work in progress.
I will update the guide when I have time to do so.
This guide currently does not cover:
– World Information (Coming soon, once I write a decent example.)
– Other Prompt formatting examples (Coming soon, once I write them.)
– Author’s Note (Coming soon, once I write a good example.)
AI models overview
The AI Models of AI Dungeon are complex, literature based AI’s that are trained in a variety of styles. They are mostly trained to handle a “Choose your own adventure” writing style, though I personally find that the AI’s give better results when writing in a “Novella” style.
However, formatting and grammar is only one side of the battle to co-writing good stories with any AI model. If you are illiterate in terms of punctuation, spelling and grammar, or story structure, the AI will struggle to understand your story on a fundamental level. It relies on your writing style to format it’s responses appropriately, and some AI models struggle to handle bad spelling or grammar when replicating your style. When writing your story, you should consider the AI as a co-writer of sorts. In fact, you should consider the AI to be a reactionary co-writer, that is suggesting where the story could go.
Since the AI’s are reactionary in nature, it is up to you to keep the story from derailing. A good story stays on track, and you should aim to do the same. If the AI tries to derail the story by adding a new plot element that is undesirable, you should either edit the response to remove the plot element, or adjust your story to integrate it into the story naturally. Griffin in particular struggles with this issue, seeing as how it’s default settings are sporadic in nature. That being said, writing as if you have a short attention span will only compound the issue. After all, the AI is relying on you just as much as you are relying on it to suggest things.
Before we move on to explaining the models individually, you need to understand that if you write in a simple style, the AI’s output will match that in an attempt to stay consistent with your pacing. The same goes for long, drawn out sequences. If the AI thinks that you are trying to create something deep, profound, and meaningful, it will also slow down and match your pace accordingly.
Griffin AI model
The Griffin AI model is the most basic of the three current AI models used by AI Dungeon. That being said, Griffin is predominantly great for Novella or choose your own adventure styled stories, thanks to it’s default settings encouraging it to push the story along at a break neck pace. Though it shines in this department, it struggles to keep characters, scenes, and story elements consistent without tweaking the temperature settings to lessen the randomness.
Hyperactive, simple and straightforward. These are three words that tent to describe Griffin’s behaviour well, especially when left to it’s own devices to come up with story elements. It’s at it’s best when telling short to mid length stories with relatively simple plots, though it can handle complex plots with your help.
Griffin has a short memory for events and how they happened, and will deviate from the story when given the chance. It is best to regularly update the stories memory pins to compensate for it’s short attention span, though it will occasionally still make mistakes. In these cases, simply use the editing feature to correct Griffin’s mistakes in story logic. I’ve found that the further into a story Griffin is, the smarter it becomes in terms of structuring the story appropriately.
All in all, Griffin isn’t the best AI, but it’s great with a bit of tweaking and hand holding. The settings tab for the AI models has several useful settings that you can adjust for better results, and Griffin gains the most benefits from tweaking the temperature settings.
Wyvern AI model
The Wyvern AI model is the most versatile of the three current AI models used by AI Dungeon. Wyvern is notably great for Novella and more complex story styles, thanks to it’s default settings encouraging it to keep the pace consistent with the player or writer. While it excels in this department, Wyvern tends to follow in Griffins footsteps when it comes to occasionally struggling with keeping characters, scenes, and story elements consistent, though Wyvern does a notably better job than Griffin overall, even without tweaking the temperature settings.
Thoughtful, detailed and speedy. These are three words that tend to describe Wyvern’s behaviour accurately, especially when left to it’s own devices to come up with story elements. It’s at it’s best when telling mid length stories with relatively complex plots, though it can struggle at times without your help.
Wyvern has a larger memory for events, world information and how your choices shape the story, and as such, will not deviate from the story as often. It is best to regularly update the stories memory pins to compensate for it’s occasional lapse in memory, though this is a good and a bad thing. Wyvern’s very good at weaving side threads into a overarching narrative, though it can struggle if the plot becomes bloated with details. If the AI becomes confused, simply use the editing feature to correct the part of the story that is confusing Wyvern. I’ve found that the further into a story Wyvern is, the smarter it becomes in terms of structuring the story appropriately. It’s very similar to Griffin in output, though it is generally smarter when it comes to keeping track of things.
All in all, Wyvern isn’t the best AI, but it’s a great choice overall. Despite the need to help the AI from time to time, the default settings for the AI model outputs great material to bounce off of. Sadly, this AI model requires you to subscribe to AI Dungeons premium services, and it’s bigger brother Dragon tends to eat it alive when it comes to overall quality.
Dragon AI model
The Dragon AI model is by far the most advanced and complex of the three current AI models used by AI Dungeon. Dragon is the superior choice for Novella and complex story structures, thanks to it’s default settings encouraging it to treat the story like a book or a piece of literature. Unlike Wyvern or Griffin, Dragon rarely struggles with keeping the stories tone, characters, scenes, and story elements consistent, though it will make continuity errors from time to time, especially if you aren’t paying attention to those errors yourself. Dragon benefits the most from being treated as a co-writer of equal skill, though it will struggle with inputs that are illiterate when forced to create content on it’s own.
Complex, detailed and deliberate. These are three words that tend to describe Dragon’s behaviour accurately, especially when left to it’s own devices to come up with story elements. It’s at it’s best when telling complex and slower paced stories with relatively complex characters, though it can struggle at times without your help. Dragon is by far the most literate out of all the AI models, and handles simulating characters well. Those people wanting a fully fleshed out version of their characters to interact with will love this AI model.
Dragon has a notably larger memory for events, world information and how your characters interact with the story, and as such, will rarely deviate from the story unless instructed to do so by your inputs. Since the memory pool is larger, it is less important to regularly update the stories memory pins, though Dragon will benefit from doing so. Dragon will generally take the Memory and World Information into account when making decisions, and can handle large amounts of World Information when constructing large scenarios and over arching plots.
In the rare event that the Dragon AI becomes confused, simply use the editing feature to correct the part of the story that is confusing Dragon. It’s by far the best at bouncing back from story and continuity errors, and tends to generate less unusable outputs when in the hands of someone who has a good grasp of how a story should be structured.
Overall, Dragon is the best AI, but it’s only as good as you, it’s co-writing partner. The default settings for the AI model outputs excellent material to bounce off of and create unique and complex stories, despite it’s dependency on the writer’s style. Sadly, this AI model requires you to subscribe to AI Dungeons premium services.
Prompt Overview
There are many different types of prompt styles, ranging from simple text adventure formats to a novella book style. There is no particularly definitive method to writing and interacting with the story, but some methods certainly give better results than others.
There are two primary ways of writing a good prompt that any of the AI models can understand. You can either write prompts in the second person or in the third person, similar to a standard story layout. The AI’s are trained to handle both styles, though they are primarily trained to handle second person scenarios. When writing your story, never use first person. It confuses the AI, and will cause problems in your story later.
Several examples will be given in the following sections that show off the various styles in action.
My advice is to pick the style that you like the most, and stick with it for consistency. The better you get at a certain style, the better the AI is at bouncing off of you. If you are not getting satisfactory responses, consider redoing the story in a writing style that is more comfortable for you.
Default Prompt style & formatting
The default prompt style for AI Dungeon is akin to a “Choose your own adventure” book, or a “Multi-User Dungeon” in terms of structure. It is good at telling stories from a second person point of view, with a focus on actions instead of interweaving conversations.
While there is nothing wrong with the default “Choose your own adventure” style that AI Dungeon uses, it tends to create stories that are rather unsightly to read. The default style of prompt can also be difficult to wrangle into a coherent and clean looking story structure, especially if the AI is left to it’s own devices.
As an example, we’ll start with a custom, yet simple and short Fantasy prompt that is similar to the default scenarios crafted by AI Dungeon’s developers. However, let’s make things a bit more interesting by introducing some story elements not commonly found in default prompts.
Prompt:
You are Alice Fordring, a highly revered Paladin of the goddess Xion. After hearing rumours of a mysterious demonic presence in the mountainous town of Vrellin, you'd decided to travel to the infamous Barbarian town, eager to prove yourself as a true heroine of the holy goddess Xion. Upon reaching the town of Vrellin, you'd been shocked to discover that the rumours had not only been true, but they have seriously downplayed how bad things truly were in the town. The town of Vrellin had been ravaged by the demons, with very few of the shops, houses and townsfolk left standing.
As a holy Paladin of the goddess Xion, you have vowed to defend Vrellin until it is safe, though the demon attacks have been getting progressively worse as of late. You suspect that there is a greater Prime Evil pulling the strings, but so far, you have not seen such a creature among the hordes of Demons. Nonetheless, you are determined to defeat the hordes and return Vrellin to it's glory days.
While there is nothing wrong with laying your prompt out like this, most AI models will struggle to inject dialogue or characters without some wrangling. When generating a response, the AI will generally try to match the end of the prompt, resulting in it potentially elaborating on the towns background and “glory days” instead of focusing on your current objective or character. This can be useful for backstory reasons, but allowing the AI to go on too much of a tangent will cause the story to derail.
When using this default style of prompt, the only way to focus on a particular character is to draw attention to it. By adding a line about your character or a NPC to the end of the prompt, you can adjust the prompts focus to steer the AI model in the right direction. This works with any AI model, and it’s nearly always a good idea to add something about your character or an interaction between your character and the environment around them to the end of the prompt. The AI will generally prioritise whatever makes narrative sense based on the last few lines, so use that to your advantage, just like the following example.
Prompt V2:
You are Alice Fordring, a highly revered Paladin of the goddess Xion. After hearing rumours of a mysterious demonic presence in the mountainous town of Vrellin, you'd decided to travel to the infamous Barbarian town, eager to prove yourself as a true heroine of the holy goddess Xion. Upon reaching the town of Vrellin, you'd been shocked to discover that the rumours had not only been true, but they have seriously downplayed how bad things truly were in the town. The town of Vrellin had been ravaged by the demons, with very few of the shops, houses and townsfolk left standing.
As a holy Paladin of the goddess Xion, you have vowed to defend Vrellin until it is safe, though the demon attacks have been getting progressively worse as of late. You suspect that there is a greater Prime Evil pulling the strings, but so far, you have not seen such a creature among the hordes of Demons. Nonetheless, you are determined to defeat the hordes and return Vrellin to it's glory days.
Seeing a portal open in the distance as you approach the northern edge of the town, you are about to charge into battle, when the Vrellin village elder approaches you, yelling at the top of his voice.
The above changes will cause the AI to either describe your protagonist’s reaction to the NPC, describe the NPC, or commence a conversation with the NPC. This is a great way to start a adventure, since the AI will attempt to inject dialogue early and often, without you initiating conversations. Based on what was written in the previous paragraphs, the NPC might talk about the antagonist or an event, or the NPC could potentially add additional plot threads based on the current or past events.
If you want some control over what you or an NPC says, you can always add your dialogue to the end of the prompt. Don’t forget to specify who is talking, along with any actions you wish them to perform during their dialogue. The following example extends the plot through dialogue, along with introducing two new NPC’s for the AI to use and interact with the protagonist.
Prompt:
You are Alice Fordring, a highly revered Paladin of the goddess Xion. After hearing rumours of a mysterious demonic presence in the mountainous town of Vrellin, you'd decided to travel to the infamous Barbarian town, eager to prove yourself as a true heroine of the holy goddess Xion. Upon reaching the town of Vrellin, you'd been shocked to discover that the rumours had not only been true, but they have seriously downplayed how bad things truly were in the town. The town of Vrellin had been ravaged by the demons, with very few of the shops, houses and townsfolk left standing.
As a holy Paladin of the goddess Xion, you have vowed to defend Vrellin until it is safe, though the demon attacks have been getting progressively worse as of late. You suspect that there is a greater Prime Evil pulling the strings, but so far, you have not seen such a creature among the hordes of Demons. Nonetheless, you are determined to defeat the hordes and return Vrellin to it's glory days.
Seeing a portal open in the distance as you approach the northern edge of the town, you are about to charge into battle, when the Vrellin village elder approaches you, yelling at the top of his voice.
"Dame Alice! The demons are attacking from multiple directions this time! There are more portals to the east! Please! Defend us! Vrellin cannot take another devastating attack." He bellows, his face full of fear as he points to the east side of the town. Behind him, a group of heavily armed soldiers approach, lead by Varrik, the captain of the Vrellin guard.
"Relax old man! Our town has the unbeatable combination of our dear heroine Alice and my elite group of soldiers. I'm sure that we can handle the horde, despite our dwindling numbers." Varrik snorts arrogantly, gesturing to the legion of heavily armed guards behind him. "I've already stationed numerous men at the South, East and West gates, so I'm positive that we will prevail!"
Rolling your eyes at Varrik, you turn back to the portal, eyeing it with a look of determination on your face.
The above example is a good example of a full prompt that encourages the AI to have dialogue driven NPC’s that interact with the protagonist and the environment. It is recommended to write as much as you can within the 3500 character limit. While writing your prompt, it is always a good idea to have the mentality of a co-writer. You should work with the AI instead of fighting it. Be patient with the lower end AI’s like Griffin, and with enough time and effort, decent stories can be co-written with any of the AI models.
Default Memory style & formatting
Memory is a key part to AI Dungeon. It assists the AI in keeping track of important concepts and characters, along with the general overarching narrative that it’s trying to co-write with you. While the memory is limited to only 1000 characters, you generally have enough room to write something that gives the AI a good idea of what’s going on.
When creating your stories memory pins, you should restrict yourself to talking about things that are necessary to the plot. Extraneous character details and backstories should never be entered into memory, unless it is apart of the basic information of the protagonist. When considering what to put in your memory pins, you should prioritise character names, Character jobs, current events, and future events you wish the AI to weave into the narrative when it gets the opportunity.
Keeping with our default styled Fantasy prompt, it’s time to give the AI some basic information about the story. To do so, press the pin icon in the bar above the text input, and open the memory sidebar. There are many different memory formats, but a well written default style seems to give the best results overall.
So, before we look at some examples, why don’t we break down what details are important in a memory tab? There are plenty of factors you should consider, but not all of them are required for the story to function.
| Details | Importance? | Relevant? | Required? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protagonist’s name. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| Protagonist’s age. | In certain circumstances. | Yes. | No. |
| Protagonist’s occupation / Job. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| Protagonists appearance. | No. | Yes. | No. |
| Protagonist’s current situation. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| Protagonist’s backstory. | Yes. | Yes. | no. |
| Protagonist’s equipment. | No. | Yes. | No. |
| Protagonists location. | Yes. | Yes. | No. |
| Stories plot. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| Protagonist’s Allies. | Yes. | Yes. | No. |
| Stories antagonists. | Yes. | Yes. | Yes. |
| Ongoing plot elements. | Yes. | Yes. | No. |
| Ongoing side plots. | No. | Yes. | No. |
| Finished plot elements. | No. | No. | No. |
| Past events. | No. | Yes. | No. |
| Relationships. | No. | Yes. | No. |
| World descriptions. | No. | No. | No. |
| Culture descriptions. | No. | No. | No. |
| World’s backstory. | Yes. | Yes. | No. |
The table above shows some of the things you should consider when writing your memory tab. The idea is to fill in important and relevant information, without bloating the AI’s understanding of the world you are trying to co-write with it. Keep in mind that the more detail you add, the less wiggle room the AI has to interpret and play with the information given to it. That being said, too much detail will result in the AI getting confused about what is really important. When in doubt, leave certain details to be fed to the AI via world information. We will cover World information later in this guide, so don’t worry about it right now.
You need to decide what is important to share with the AI, and what is simply “Garbage Data” that the AI could misinterpret as a canon fact. The AI can occasionally fail to differentiate the past from the present, causing it to bring a background plot point into the foreground of the story. This can be a good thing if you have a constantly reoccurring antagonist(s), though you should refrain from putting your history with them in the Memory tab. Instead, consider adding a World Information entry to explain previous historical moments to the AI.
You are Alice Fordring, a incredibly hot and tall Woman with incredibly large and voluptuous breasts, blonde haired and silver-eyes. You are a Paladin who is beloved by all. You are the holy champion of the goddess Xion, who is a hot female goddess that looks like a cute 25 year old Japanese girl with black hair. As her champion, your duty is to slay demons and other evil things that lurk in the mountains to the north of your kingdom. As the chosen one, you've fought the Prime Evil demons over a hundred times, and you've been fighting them for years. You started fighting the Demons seven years ago, after they killed your family and converted your sister into a succubus, which traumatised you as a child. This is the primary reason why you became a knight.
After hearing rumours of a mysterious demonic presence in the mountainous town of Vrellin, you'd decided to travel to the infamous Barbarian town, eager to prove yourself as a true heroine, and get revenge on the demons!
As you can see, the above memory pin might look good on paper, but there is plenty of “Garbage Data” that the AI can use to create inconsistencies, continuity errors, and become highly confused. When writing your memory pins, you should keep it concise and to the point, eliminating any excess information that isn’t relevant to the current situation going on in the story. You should consider the memory tab to be the equivalent of explaining the basic premise to the AI, along with telling the Ai about any significant characters that are in play. Each person will generally have their own preferences for what is considered to be important, and at the end of the day, it is up to you as to how you structure the memory. That being said, here is a cleaner version that you should aim to replicate.
You are Alice Fordring, a highly revered Paladin of the goddess Xion. After hearing rumours of a mysterious demonic presence in the mountainous town of Vrellin, you've travelled to the infamous Barbarian town, eager to assist the townsfolk and prove yourself as a true heroine.
You've vowed to defend the town of Vrellin from the Demon hordes, and slay the Prime Evil demon Mephistopheles, who you suspect is responsible for the attacks. You're defending the town of Vrellin alongside Captain Varrik and the Vrellin guards. You're the last defence against the poor townsfolk and their demise.
The above revision of the memory pin is simple for the AI to understand, and has minimal “bloat” or “garbage data” that the AI can use to potentially derail the story. While it doesn’t have any backstory information on the protagonist, the AI is aware of the current situation and plot. Memory should be used to reference World Information cards, which will assist you in filling in the blanks for historical events and backstories.
Interacting with your prompts to craft a story
While the tutorial for AI Dungeon recommends that you use the “Say” and “Do” commands to talk and move, this tends to create unnecessary text clutter, resulting in an ugly looking story, and the AI repeating itself constantly.
It is not recommended to use the “Say” and “Do” commands. Instead, I’d recommend using the “Story” command instead. It will only print what you type, and will not confuse the AI when interacting with it. An extra bonus of using the “Story” command is that you won’t have an oddly strange text layout in your story. Using the “Story” command can be beneficial even when talking to NPC’s, since you can structure your conversation with them in a natural format that is easy to read. The following two examples use both the “Say” and “Story” command.
Writing the story using the “Say” command:
> You say "I am Alice, the champion of Justice! You must be Thraak, right? You're the ugly orc that's been terrorising the town of Vrellin, aren't you!?"> You say "I am Alice, the champion of Justice! You must be Thraak, right? You're the ugly orc that's been terrorising the town of Vrellin, aren't you!?" "I am Alice, the champion of Justice! You must be Thraak, right? You're the ugly orc that's been terrorising the town of Vrellin, aren't you!?" You say..
"So what if I am human? I... Hey! Nobody calls me ugly and gets away with it! You're going to pay for that Human!" Thraak replies.
Writing the story with the “Story” command:
"I am Alice, the champion of Justice!" You shout angrily, brandishing your sword at the rather large, ugly and brutish looking Orc standing before you. "You must be Thraak, right? You're the ugly orc that's been terrorising the town of Vrellin, aren't you!?""I am Alice, the champion of Justice!" You shout angrily, brandishing your sword at the rather large, ugly and brutish looking Orc standing before you. "You must be Thraak, right? You're the ugly orc that's been terrorising the town of Vrellin, aren't you!?""So what if I am human?" The Orc grunts, scowling down at you as he struggles to understand you. After a short awkward pause, Thraak's face twists into an enraged expression as he reaches for his giant battleaxe. "I... Hey! Nobody calls me ugly and gets away with it! You're going to pay for that Human!"
As you can see, the "Story" command is far more versatile when it comes to spreading out dialogue and using actions at the same time. The "Say" or "Do" commands are great for creating an experience similar to a MUD, but they can create duplicate dialogue that can confuse the AI, along with limiting character movement and speech to their own separate actions.
I personally find that you have more control using the "Story" command, so I recommend that you use that to create stories.
Hope you enjoy the Guide about AI Dungeon – AI models overview, if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!
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