Guide · Reference
AI roleplay glossary Roleplay jargon, in plain words.
The words you’ll meet in AI roleplay communities, character cards, and story apps, from AU to World Info, each defined in a sentence or two.
The short answer
What do AI roleplay terms like OOC, god-modding, and swipe mean?
OOC means out of character: a note to your partner or the AI that isn’t part of the story. God-modding is taking control of characters that aren’t yours or making your own unbeatable, and a swipe is an alternative version of a reply you can flip to when the first one misses. This glossary defines 92 terms like these, with notes on how each one works in LoreWeaver.
Updated
The dictionary
92 terms, from Action to Worldbuilding.
92 terms under 20 letters
A
- Action#
What your character does in a turn, as opposed to what they say. LoreWeaver’s Do mode turns a first-person action into narration.
- Alternate greetings#
Extra opening messages on a character card. Most apps offer them as swipes on the first message; LoreWeaver offers them as openings you choose when a session starts.
- Asterisks#
A common chat convention for marking actions, as in *sighs* “Fine, I’ll come.” Story apps that reply in full scenes rarely need them.
- AU (alternate universe)#
A story that drops established characters into a different setting, such as a modern-day or coffee-shop AU.
B
- Bleed#
When feelings cross between you and your character, in either direction. The term comes from live-action roleplay.
- Bot#
Community shorthand for an AI character, usually one defined by a character card.
- Branch#
A copy of a story from a chosen moment, so you can follow another path without losing the first. LoreWeaver shows every branch in a tree view.
C
- Canon#
What is established as true in a story or its source material. On LoreWeaver, the storyteller treats your world, lore cards, and events already in the story as canon.
- Character book#
A lorebook embedded in a character card, so the character’s people and places travel with them.
- Character card#
A file that defines an AI character, usually a PNG portrait with the data hidden inside, following the Tavern V1, V2, or V3 spec. See character cards explained.
- Character sheet#
The record of a tabletop character’s abilities, statistics, and gear.
- CHARX#
The V3 character card package: a zip file holding card.json and assets such as the portrait.
- Constant entry#
A lorebook entry included on every reply whether or not its keys appear. LoreWeaver calls this pinning.
- Context window#
The most text, counted in tokens, that a model can read at once, including the reply it writes. See context windows explained.
- Continue#
Asking the AI to keep the scene going without a new turn from you.
D
- DC (difficulty class)#
The number a roll must meet or beat to succeed, borrowed from tabletop games. LoreWeaver’s Loom can roll dice against one.
- Dead dove#
A fan-fiction tag, from “dead dove: do not eat”, warning that a story contains exactly the dark content its tags describe.
- Description#
The main field of a character card: who the character is, how they look, and how they behave.
- DM or GM#
Dungeon master or game master, whoever runs the world and its other characters. In AI roleplay, usually the AI.
E
- Emergent lore#
Facts that appear during play rather than being written ahead. LoreWeaver’s Emergent Lore Detection, on Plus and up, suggests lore cards for them.
- Example dialogue#
Sample exchanges on a character card, stored as mes_example, that teach the AI the character’s voice. See how to write an AI character.
F
- First message#
The greeting a character card opens every chat with, stored as first_mes.
- Flag#
A saved value in LoreWeaver’s Loom, such as quest_stage set to 2, that threads can read and change.
- Fluff#
A gentle, low-stakes scene or story, light on conflict.
- Fourth wall#
The invisible line between a story and its audience. A character who talks to you directly is breaking it.
- Frontend#
The app you roleplay in, as opposed to the model that writes the replies. SillyTavern is a frontend.
G
H
- Hallucination#
When an AI states something false with confidence, such as a name or event that never happened in your story.
- Hard limits#
Content a player never wants in a story, whatever happens.
- Headcanon#
Your own interpretation of a character or world that the source never confirmed.
- Hook#
A detail that invites action: a locked door, a stranger’s glance, a letter with no signature.
- Hub#
LoreWeaver’s library of published worlds, each playable in one click.
I
- IC (in character)#
Writing as your character, inside the story. The opposite of OOC.
- Impersonation#
When the AI writes your character’s words or actions for you. Undo, regenerate, or edit the reply, and add a note asking it not to.
- Insertion order#
The lorebook setting that sorts entries firing together and decides which win when space runs out.
- Isekai#
A story in which someone is transported into another world, often a game-like one.
K
- Keys#
The words that wake a lorebook entry when they appear in the story. LoreWeaver lore cards use their title and tags as keys.
L
- Lines and veils#
Session zero tools from tabletop play. Lines are content that never appears; veils are content that can happen off screen.
- LitRPG#
Fiction with visible game mechanics, such as levels, statistics, and skill screens.
- The Loom#
LoreWeaver’s no-code IF→THEN engine, which fires story events, tracks flags, shows meters and quests, and rolls dice during play.
- Lore card#
LoreWeaver’s lorebook entry: a character, place, faction, item, event, or category of your own that joins a reply when pinned or named.
- Lorebook#
A set of entries added to the prompt only when their keys come up. See lorebooks explained.
- LoreMap#
LoreWeaver’s graph of how a world’s lore cards relate, which can also bring connected cards into a reply.
M
- Macro#
A placeholder such as {{char}} or {{user}} that the app replaces with a name or value when it builds the prompt.
- Mary Sue#
A character with no real flaws who wins everything and charms everyone, which drains a story of tension.
- Memory#
What a story app saves about past events so the AI can recall them later. LoreWeaver saves them every few replies as you play. See why AI roleplay forgets.
- Metagaming#
Having your character act on something only you, the player, know.
- Model#
The AI system that writes the replies. LoreWeaver calls it the storyteller and offers several to choose from.
N
- Narrator#
A voice that describes the scene rather than speaking as a character. Many story worlds use one.
- NPC (non-player character)#
Any character the player doesn’t control. In AI roleplay, the AI plays them all.
- NSFW#
“Not safe for work”: sexual or graphic content. LoreWeaver allows mature content between adults within its community guidelines, and published worlds carry maturity ratings.
O
- OC (original character)#
A character you created, rather than one from existing fiction.
- One-shot#
A story meant to finish in a single session.
- OOC (out of character)#
A note outside the story, usually in parentheses or brackets: “(OOC: skip to the next morning.)”
- Opening#
The scene a story starts from. A LoreWeaver world can offer several to choose from.
- Oracle#
A solo-play tool, often a table or a roll, that answers yes-or-no questions about the world when no game master is present.
P
- Persona#
The character you play, saved for reuse. LoreWeaver personas work in any world and fill in {{user}}.
- Pinned#
Included on every reply. Pin the few lore cards every scene needs.
- Plot armor#
The protection a character enjoys because the story needs them alive.
- Post-history instructions#
A character card field placed after the chat history, giving the AI its final instructions before it writes.
- Power-gaming#
Playing to win or to max out a character at the story’s expense.
- Prompt#
Everything sent to the AI for one reply: instructions, the world, your character, lore, memories, recent story, and your new message. See how to write roleplay prompts.
- Purple prose#
Writing so ornate that it gets in the way of the story.
R
- Railroading#
Forcing a story down a fixed path whatever the player chooses.
- Recap#
A running summary of the story so far. LoreWeaver rebuilds each session’s recap from its memories, and you can edit it.
- Regenerate#
Asking for a new version of the latest reply. Also called a reroll.
- Repetition penalty#
A generation setting that discourages the AI from repeating the same words and phrases.
- Retcon#
Changing something already established in a story, short for retroactive continuity.
- Rewind#
Returning a story to an earlier reply and removing everything after it.
S
- Sandbox#
An open world with no fixed plot, where the story follows the player.
- Scan depth#
How much recent text a lorebook searches for keys.
- Scenario#
The character card field describing the situation the story starts in.
- Self-insert#
A player character who is a version of the player.
- Session#
One playthrough of a world. In LoreWeaver, each session has its own messages and memory bank.
- Session zero#
A planning talk before play to agree on tone, limits, and expectations.
- Ship#
A pairing of characters someone wants to see together, from relationship. Shipping is wanting it.
- Slow burn#
A relationship, usually romantic, that develops gradually over many scenes.
- Storyteller#
LoreWeaver’s name for the AI that writes the replies.
- Swipe#
Swiping a reply, or tapping an arrow, to see another version. Earlier versions stay available.
- System prompt#
The standing instructions that tell the AI how to behave before any story text.
T
- Temperature#
A generation setting for randomness: lower is steadier, higher is more surprising.
- Token#
The unit models read and write, a whole word or part of one. In English, a token averages about three quarters of a word.
- Top-p and top-k#
Sampling settings that limit which next words the AI considers.
- Trigger#
Anything that sets something off, such as a key waking a lorebook entry or a condition firing a Loom thread.
- Trope#
A familiar story pattern, such as enemies to lovers or the chosen one.
U
- User#
The person playing. On a character card, {{user}} stands for their name.
W
- W++ and PList#
Compact bracketed formats for character definitions that save tokens at some cost to nuance.
- World Info#
SillyTavern’s name for a lorebook.
- Worldbuilding#
Designing a setting’s places, history, people, and rules. See the worldbuilding guide.
Questions
AI roleplay terms, answered.
01What does OOC mean in roleplay?
OOC stands for out of character. It marks a note about the story rather than part of it, usually in parentheses, like “(OOC: let’s skip to the next morning)”. IC, in character, is the opposite.
02What is god-modding?
God-modding is controlling characters that aren’t yours or making your own character unbeatable. In AI roleplay it usually means writing the AI characters’ reactions for them, which leaves the story nothing to surprise you with.
03What is a swipe in AI roleplay?
A swipe is an alternative version of a reply. You swipe or tap an arrow to write or browse versions; on LoreWeaver, earlier versions stay available, and the one you select becomes part of the story.
04What does slow burn mean?
A slow burn is a relationship, usually a romance, that develops gradually over many scenes instead of arriving all at once. Long-term memory matters for it, because the payoff depends on everything that came before.
05What is a self-insert?
A self-insert is a character who is a version of the player, placed into the story. It’s a common and perfectly valid way to roleplay.
06What is metagaming?
Metagaming is having your character act on information only you, the player, know, such as a twist you read in a world’s description. It quietly spoils the story for you.
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