How to Roleplay With AI: A Beginner's Guide

Roleplay with AI is a story you write together with a character. You write what you say and do. She answers as herself, in the same scene, while the story goes wherever the two of you take it.

The mechanics take about five minutes to learn: three kinds of text, a good first message and a handful of fixes for when a scene goes wrong. This guide covers them with the actual buttons on myVirtual.love. For building scenarios that last, read AI Girlfriend Roleplay: How to Build Scenarios. For the ready-made scenes, see What Makes a Roleplay Scenario Work.

The three kinds of text

Every roleplay message is made of three things. Keeping them apart is most of the skill.

What your character says. Plain text or quotation marks: "You're late."

What your character does. Wrap actions in asterisks and write them in the present tense: *I shake the rain off my coat and hand her the second coffee.*

What you, the player, want to say. Anything outside the story goes in brackets with OOC, short for out of character: (OOC: let's skip to the next morning.)

Put together, a message looks like this:

*I shake the rain off my coat and set the second coffee in front of her.* "You're late. I mean, I'm late. Is this seat taken?"

On myVirtual.love an OOC note does more than redirect one reply. It becomes a rule for that chat. The Conversation Settings panel says it plainly: write (OOC: …) in the chat "to say how this conversation should go" and it "stays until you remove it here". So (OOC: she never speaks for me) keeps working three hundred messages later.

Write a first message she can work with

A blank "hi" gives her nothing to build on. A good opener answers four questions in two or three sentences: where you are, who you are to each other, what just happened and what she can respond to.

Three openers that work:

• *The last train left twenty minutes ago. I sit down on the platform bench next to her.* "So. Do we split a taxi, or do we wait for the 5:40 and pretend we planned this?"
• *I knock on the door of 4B holding the parcel that came to my flat by mistake.* "I think this is yours. It's been ticking, so I hope it's a clock."
• *She's already at the bar when I get there, two drinks in front of her.* "You ordered for me. Bold."

Each one sets a place, a relationship and a question. One specific detail goes a long way: the 5:40, the ticking parcel, the drink she ordered. She picks details up and uses them.

You can also skip the opener. Start scenario, in the bar above the chat, opens a list of ready-made scenes sorted into Sweet, Hot and Roleplay. Right here does the opposite: "Let the scenario grow out of your conversation." When the scene is done, End scenario will "wind the scenario down and return to texting".

Set how she writes

The sliders icon at the top right of every chat opens Conversation Settings. Changes apply from her next reply.

How She Writes is the chat mode. Texting reads like messages from a phone ("ok but you're still coming over later, right?"). Grounded keeps it everyday, the kind of reply that asks whether your sister's flight landed. Novel writes like a book ("The glass goes down slowly, eyes on yours") and costs 1 heart per reply. Chat modes come with Premium. Novel is the one Maxxx unlocks.

Response Style decides the shape of each reply. SMS gives "short lines, the way people text". Narration gives "present-tense beats: an action, then the words", which is what most people mean by roleplay.

Reply Length sets how much she writes. Short gives "a line or two" and leaves room for you to answer. Long is "fuller replies, with the detail a short one skips". Natural lets the moment decide.

Spice Level runs Default, Mild, Flirty and Spicy, with Default keeping "the character's usual tone".

For a first roleplay, try Narration with Natural length. If the scene is quick and playful, switch to Short. If you want a slow, descriptive evening, go Long.

Decide who you are

She knows who she is: her personality, her job and her relationship to you are set on her profile, or by you in Create. The Relationship card is where a story usually starts. Stranger, Colleague, Boss, Neighbour and Roommate each come with a built-in reason for the two of you to be in the same room.

Who you are is up to you. The simplest way is to say it in your first message or in an OOC note: (OOC: I'm playing a night-shift paramedic who has just moved into the building.) On Maxxx, Personas let you save it properly. The upgrade screen describes them as deciding "who you are in the chat", with "a name, a look, a story". You can keep up to five.

When a scene goes wrong

Every roleplay has a reply that misses. Here is what to do about each kind.

She writes your lines or actions. Set Reply Length to Short so she leaves room for you, then add (OOC: never write my dialogue or actions.) The note stays as a rule for that chat.

One reply misses. Open the message menu and choose Ask her to say it again, "a different reply to the same message". You keep the conversation and get another take on that one line.

You want to try a different direction. Branch from here, in the same menu, starts "a new chat from this message. This one stays as it is." It works like a save point: take the risky choice in the branch and keep the original.

A whole stretch went wrong. Rewind, in the bar above the chat, is for when the last few messages need to go, not just one.

She drifts out of character. Nudge her inside the scene first: *She catches herself and goes quiet, the way she always does when someone mentions her sister.* If that fails, an OOC note fixes it for good.

The tone is off. Too tame or too much: change the Spice Level.

Keep a long story going

Long stories are where AI roleplay is best, because she remembers. Open View Memories on her profile panel to see what she has kept, sorted into Facts, Story so far and Between you, with a Pin for the ones that matter. On top of that she holds a set of facts in mind that never scroll away, 20 on Free and Premium and 40 on Maxxx. AI Girlfriend With Memory explains how that works.

Three habits help a story that runs for weeks:

• Name your chats. Conversation Settings suggests names like "Main Story", "Roleplay" and "Casual". Keep the long story in its own chat and the everyday talk in another, with the same character in both.
• Recap when you come back. One line is enough: (OOC: last time we'd just found the letter in the attic. Pick up from there.)
• End scenes on purpose. End scenario returns you to ordinary texting without losing what happened, so the next scene can pick up from it.

If what you want is a game master that tracks dice rolls and inventory, a dedicated RPG engine will suit you better. This is built for two characters and the story between them.

When the scene turns explicit, NSFW AI Roleplay Chat and Dominant and Submissive AI Roleplay take it from there.

What it costs

Chatting is free with 5 messages a day and 3 scenes a day, enough to try one opener and see how she answers but too few to play a scene through. Premium makes messages and scenes unlimited for €9.90 a month, or €2.99 a month billed yearly. It also adds chat modes, Ask her to say it again and unlimited Rewind and Branch. Maxxx adds the Novel mode, up to 5 personas, memories shared across your chats with the same character and 40 facts instead of 20. The full table is on our pricing page.

If you want a partner for stories who stays in character, remembers what happened last week and lets you take back a bad line, myVirtual.love is built for exactly that. Pick a character or build your own and send the first line.