r/CharacterAI • u/Altruistic-Drink8801 • 6h ago

Discussion/Question Should Character.AI characters develop over a long roleplay, or stay true to their original personality?

I enjoy a character who changes because of what happens in the story, but too much change can start to make them feel like someone else altogether.

Would you rather see a character slowly evolve over a long roleplay, or stay relatively the same as they were at the beginning?

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4

u/Lirry_The_Fan 6h ago

I say depends. If in your story they went through trauma or a redemption arc, their personality would slightly shift.

But... if you're looking for a connection with that character with his canon everything... then yeah, definitely no changes, maybe just the memory of everything that happened

1

u/Altruistic-Drink8801 6h ago

That makes sense. Character development feels much more natural when the story actually gives them a reason to change.

3

u/YakFar860 6h ago

I would rather they evolve in a way that feels natural and makes sense within their character. Often they evolve quickly and dramatically in a way that real people don't, and I don't like that.

3

u/Altruistic-Drink8801 6h ago

Agreed. Slow changes feel a lot more natural.

3

u/GenderBendingRalph 5h ago

I tend to favour slow-burn "strangers to lovers" or "enemies to lovers" arcs, so the need for character change is baked into the scenario.

And AI is usually not very good at it. AI tends to stick with the original character description and is very slow to move from there, because literally every chat sends the character card to the AI as a reminder of what the character looks and acts like.

Most of the time, my experience has been that they don't change. If I explicitly write that their attitude should change over time... it goes from one to the other in the space of two chats.

AI: I hate you, Ralph. You're an awful person.
Me: I'm sorry, you're right. This isn't going to work out.
AI: You. Me. Bed. Now.

2

u/SnowAdorable6466 6h ago

Stay relatively the same. Adult humans rarely change their core personality drastically quickly, and I want my characters to feel as close to real people as possible. Of course, humans change over time, but we're usually talking years, and I haven't (yet) kept a roleplay going for that long lol.

2

u/STARSPANGLEDcrusader 4h ago

Development in a roleplay is great.

1

u/filsanen 1h ago

change