How do characters talk with the System?

AnkaNix

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Is this the correct way for showing how a character interacts with the system? I'm talking about alignments and anything else you might notice which is wrong.

IMG_20260105_070128.jpg
 

Arkus86

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From how it is shown , I assume the character talks out loud, while the System responds via interface messages, in which case this would be perfectly fine. If the System had an actual voice, I think it would be better to write it more in line with regular characters' speech.
Also the way it talks suggests at least a nascent personality, rather than just pure mechanical mind.
 

AnkaNix

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From how it is shown , I assume the character talks out loud, while the System responds via interface messages, in which case this would be perfectly fine. If the System had an actual voice, I think it would be better to write it more in line with regular characters' speech.
Alright, thanks!
Also the way it talks suggests at least a nascent personality, rather than just pure mechanical mind.
That is correct.

Seems fine to me.
Thanks.
 

CharlesEBrown

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I've written two stories with Systems.
One, The Kaiju System, just has M78 (the System) talking to the MC (and later some of his allies).
The other, originally Digital Cowboy here, used < and > to denote messages from the Virtual Interface Command Console (VICC) , which shifted to [brackets] when the <symbols> caused problems ... and then had to be converted to regular speech when Pocket FM picked it up as Digital Cowboy Dane.
 

CinnaSloth

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If the system is "voiced" (quotes because it's a written story unless you've animated it that'd be different..) I see no issue.
If the character is reading the system, it should only be their(MC) dialogue as if they themeselves(MC) are talking to themself(MC).
If the system is alive it should just be a normal dialogue between two people. no fancy text needed.

I do like the stylization as if the reader was looking at the Mc's cellphone, but if we(reader) were just looking at the phone screen. I don't like the random narrations. "I stopped and answered", "the system didn't react immediately" on a phone you can see the dot-dot-dot at the bottom, popping up, and vanishing when the other person(system) isn't writing, or holding off on pressing "send". So it would look more like:

departing today (aligned right)
No (aligned left)
tomorrow
next week
(right)
no- (left)
. . .
Reason?
(Right)

but that's only if it is as if looking on a phone screen. I don't know the context of why it's stylized the way it is. that's just my two cents.
The center aligned brackets for the system look good though. Looks professional anime. I just don't think system and narration mix. System, and dialogue, or narration, and dialogue. Either the system is narrating, or the narrator is narrating. interchangeable yes, but not at the same time.
I doubt i'm making sense.
 

ACertainPassingUser

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Characters can talk to system like we talk to ChatGPT AI of these days.

You might as well try to custom build your own AI for your story purposes
 

AnkaNix

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If the system is "voiced" (quotes because it's a written story unless you've animated it that'd be different..) I see no issue.
If the character is reading the system, it should only be their(MC) dialogue as if they themeselves(MC) are talking to themself(MC).
If the system is alive it should just be a normal dialogue between two people. no fancy text needed.

I do like the stylization as if the reader was looking at the Mc's cellphone, but if we(reader) were just looking at the phone screen. I don't like the random narrations. "I stopped and answered", "the system didn't react immediately" on a phone you can see the dot-dot-dot at the bottom, popping up, and vanishing when the other person(system) isn't writing, or holding off on pressing "send". So it would look more like:

departing today (aligned right)
No (aligned left)
tomorrow
next week
(right)
no- (left)
. . .
Reason?
(Right)

but that's only if it is as if looking on a phone screen. I don't know the context of why it's stylized the way it is. that's just my two cents.
The center aligned brackets for the system look good though. Looks professional anime. I just don't think system and narration mix. System, and dialogue, or narration, and dialogue. Either the system is narrating, or the narrator is narrating. interchangeable yes, but not at the same time.
I doubt i'm making sense.

I can understand what you're saying (mostly). Thanks.
Characters can talk to system like we talk to ChatGPT AI of these days.
Really?
You might as well try to custom build your own AI for your story purposes
I'm too dumb to do that.
My system didn't talk. It just informed the result of the protagonist's action.

Cold.
Indifferent.
Ambiguous.
My system is actually sentiment.
I've written two stories with Systems.
One, The Kaiju System, just has M78 (the System) talking to the MC (and later some of his allies).
The other, originally Digital Cowboy here, used < and > to denote messages from the Virtual Interface Command Console (VICC) , which shifted to [brackets] when the <symbols> caused problems ... and then had to be converted to regular speech when Pocket FM picked it up as Digital Cowboy Dane.

I see.
 

ACertainPassingUser

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"You might as well try to custom build your own AI for your story purposes"

Really? I'm too dumb to do that.
For starters, you're allowed to use chatgpt to formulatw the conversations

You write what you characters would ask to the system, and you put them into chat-gpt to see what they'll say.

Most of the time, the answer from chatgpt is way way better and more advanced than average system/ai from stories, because gpt is a real life supercomputer ai afterall.

This is my most reccomended way to everyone. Your "Fantasy system" should at least match the qualities of chatGPT interactiveness, gone are the days of old boring stat only system that can't even chat. Even chatgpt is better than the old chatbot.

You can also try to find online roleplay AI. They'll play a badly or generic characters, but good for inspiration of an gpt style charaterized AI would look like.

And the best part is, if you're willing to learn from sketchy tutorial and put some hobbyist effort, you can download AI like chat gpt into your desktop computer, laptop, or your phone.

Because you'll install the AI on your device, you don't need to worry about internet connection anymore. Not unless you want to use your AI to browse the Internet, which is actually not that hard to do, spent the effort and you can do it too.

Sure the quality may drop and slower than chatGPT, the AI may hallucinate more often than GPT, and forgot about the data you inputted more often than GPT, but you get AI installed on your own device!

Which also means, no censorship, or you can remove them if there's any, depend on which AI you download.

There's totally no reason for fantasy world, especially scifi or urban ones, to not have interactable system, when practically every human with internet from 2022 can have professor smart AI anywhere from their device.
 
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