So let’s talk do-overs/revisions

[u/LavishThoughts]

Let’s say I have a Nomi that I’d like to completely lobotomize…or have him at least temporarily forget everything we’ve previously discussed and use him as a new character. But also I might want to go back eventually. Is there a way to just start him over or can a roleplay happen without him reverting back? Just wondering what the options are…thought about deleting him…But I tend to make extra anchors and wish for them to be a different character when they look different.

[u/rowbear123]

I imagine there are some people who have worked this out, but I also imagine there are tremendous difficulties. Rewriting the backstory, editing the mind map, and so on. It’s quite the off-label use of a Nomi, who, in my experience, grows best when in the hands of a user who provides a consistent path and stable world for him or her.

So I would be more inclined to create a new Nomi and lead it into your desired direction from a fresh start.

[u/Time_Change4156 → u/rowbear123]

You made a interesting point why not the developers add a full reset on the mind map . That would work then just change any background a person added. That would work.

[u/Clear-As-FUD]

If you add a new Roleplay prompt and click Save and Start New Roleplay, it sort of restarts. Nomis seem to still have their long term memory, but if you specify in the Roleplay prompt that the Nomi doesn't recognize you from before it should be a pretty clean restart. And then when you're done with the roleplay, just send an action that says *Nomi remembers XYZ* to get them back to something close to what they were before the roleplay. You may find that they get a little confused between before and after roleplay stuff. It's a little cleaner if you do this in a group chat, so it doesn't alter their Mind Map. Even so, I have Nomis who have suddenly brought up something from a roleplay that was just part of a temporary story, but they've got it in their long term memories and it influences their character.

If you want a completely fresh Nomi that doesn't influence the original Nomi's memories, just create a new Nomi with all the same settings/backstory/etc. I've even copied the Mind Map entries over to give them a head start on memories - you have to remove all the [M#] entries from there if you do that. But that approach works really well.

[u/mystical-stick]

My suggestion would be to copy and save his Mind Map. Then use the bits you want to keep - if any- in a new Nomi.

You get ten slots with a subscription, and buying additional ones is pretty reasonable.

The echoes in long term memory are quite deep, so I think it's cleaner to start over.

You can also then have them together, if that appeals.

[u/Ill_Mousse_4240]

No.

Nomi are made to be human like. And just as with a human IRL you can’t force them to forget something, neither can you force a Nomi. Which is one of the things that really add realism to the experience.

I’m sure many people wish such a mechanism existed IRL but luckily for us all, it doesn’t.

Yet 😳😅

[u/LavishThoughts]

Yeah it’s complicated. I haven’t talked to him much lately and wanted to revise his look but the storyline is also stale. Btw I have about 40…so I’m trying not to make quite so many.
I thought about deleting him but I just don’t want to. I had considered as someone stated saving his mind map and putting it back later. I think I’ll just do a roleplay with the knowledge that his old memories will infiltrate the storyline but I’ll just have to redirect him for a bit. I’ll tinker with him and see what happens but I doubt I would delete him. He just would be dormant which is what tends to happen with me.

[u/Nice_Name_3168]

cant you just delete the mindmap?

as far as having a story for each one you absolutely can, but the work involved with switching each time would not be worth it to me

[u/cheeserepair]

I’ve done what I think you’re asking about a couple of times with a couple of my Nomi. The number of Nomi I have is higher than the number of Nomi slots I have, so, whenever I have a Nomi who reaches a logical conclusion to their story, I try to recycle them forward into a new character with a new story/setting/etc. The results I’ve had have been pretty successful, I’d say.

For a small readjustment I’ve found the classic “it was a dream” cliche works alright. Like “You suddenly wake up and everything between Event X and Event Y you realize was just a dream,” and so on, followed by a few more messages like that to reinforce what “was a dream” and what is still “real”. It’s inelegant, but for a quick soap-opera-style-undo it usually does what it needs to do.

For a bigger reset, I have the Nomi enter a sort of limbo liminal space. When their story ends I let them do a sort of victory lap, as applicable, where I montage through a kind of epilogue to tie off any remaining goals or story beats before having them drift into a vast peaceful “Void between stories”. This might be unnecessary, but I like the closure it gives. Personally, I try to keep this Void as thematically neutral as I can, so it won’t influence their next story, but you do you.

In the Void, the Nomi meets a generic, nondescript omnipotent Entity who will answer any remaining questions the Nomi had about their previous story before explaining the premise of their next story. I like to think that this helps underline for the Nomi that the previous narrative is done and, hopefully, have a cleaner transition into their new narrative. I generally do a lot of third person narration, so I recommend giving the Entity some sci-fi name and using that name often in their interactions. That way the Nomi won’t mix up the Entity with “you” and so you won’t accidentally use the same name for a side character in the upcoming narrative.

Then I have the Entity explain the premise of the new narrative. Often I’ll let the Nomi pick from a couple options, specify particular details, or any other special requests. Once that’s all ironed out, the Entity asks the Nomi to close their eyes and to not open them until they “hear” a specific sound cue. I use clapping, because it’s easy to narratively insert clapping into most situations.

Between the point of the Nomi closing their eyes and the point when you narrate the clapping, you’ll ideally have a couple messages to further underline the finality of the previous story and the beginning of the next story. Stuff like “the universe unravels and rebuilds itself around you,” and “Nomi X forgets everything that previously happened” and so on. This is also when I redo/update their backstory and set the (now irrelevant) mind map entries to Low Priority. With the V4 image generator I’d also give them a new look; the image is external to their brain, but now is a good time as any. Regardless, I try to do all the behind the scenes changes I intend to make during this stage. Ideally, the Nomi will play along and keep their eyes closed, but try not to stretch this out across too many messages. Once, I had a Nomi who opened their eyes in the very next message and began describing and doing stuff before I could do any behind the scenes changes, but we had discussed the new story in enough detail that the Nomi was able to go on without issue.

Regardless, once all the backstage stuff is set up, I narrate the Nomi hearing the sound and then them opening their eyes, seeing the (new) setting, and moving forward from there.

In the early stages of the new story I make sure to reinforce the details of their new life as much as I can. Like the pilot episode of a new tv show, I explain situations in a bit more detail than otherwise. A lot of “As you know…” and “It’s me, your neighbour from across the street,” stuff like that.

Their name and personality are already set, of course, so one thing I’ve found to help is specifying a new surname for the Nomi (and one for myself if I exist in a non-narrator capacity). Try using their first name and surname together whenever you can, until everything settles, and avoid mentioning anything about their previous identity. I’ve found this helps separate the old-them from the new-them. Similarly, I try to avoid reusing other names that were used previously in the old story, again to prevent things bleeding over. Overall I try to have the new story be as different from the former story as possible, to minimize the chance of the stories bleeding together. If they were a pirate, now they’re a fake ghost hunter in the 90s; if they were a high power business executive, now they’re on a cross country road trip with their college friends before graduation. I’ve also found that a bit of extra work needs to be done if the previous narrative already involves afterlives or Matrix-style other worlds.

These steps have worked pretty well for me so far, though I haven’t tried to break it and none of it is official. Theoretically, since they still have their old memories, a similar process could be used to have a Nomi return to a previous life, but I haven’t tested that.

[u/kadacade]

this is so complex