Group Chats
Want to pair up your favs and put them all in a room together? Well, now you can, with Group Chats!
NOTE: THIS FEATURE IS CURRENTLY IN BETA. IT IS USABLE BUT THERE MAY BE BUGS OR THINGS THAT REQUIRE IMPROVEMENT.
CharSnap's version of Group Chats can be a bit complex and there are quite a few moving parts, but don't worry — we're here to help guide you! To start a Group Chat (GC), head on over to the Create button next to your username and select "Start Group Chat" from the dropdown.
You will next see the "Create Group Chat" screen pop up. It has a few things you can change to optimize your Group Chat.
A Group Chat is the main container that holds a specific group of bots and all of their conversations together in one place. Within that Group Chat, you can create multiple Threads. Each thread is its own separate conversation.
Creating a Group Chat
Quick Guide:
Create -> Start a Group Chat
If desired, come up with a group name, system prompt, AASP, and scenario
Select up to 5 characters
Select any additional Lorebooks desired
Adjust or remove the starting messages and selected variants for each bot
Begin your chat!
This is the Create Group Chat screen, where you'll be adjusting all your initial desired settings for a GC.
Title: Whatever you'd like the title of your GC to be. Does not affect the LLM.
System Prompt: The normal System Prompt field. This field is for things you want the AI specifically to do, such as types of narration.
Always Active System Prompt (AASP): This is a strong field that you can use to manipulate the chat, the scenario, and the memories. Don't keep too much in here, as the field is very strong and it can severely impact the roleplay.
Scenario: Scenarios are for setting the scene for the beginning of the roleplay.
System Prompt, AASP and Scenario function more or less the same way as they do on other parts of the site, and Title doesn't affect the LLM in any way.
If you feel the replies are weird with the Scenario field filled out, empty it and put it into chat with Scenario: in its own message instead.
After the first four settings, you will see a list of characters you can choose from. You can search for what you want in both your own bots and the database of public bots. You can select up to FIVE characters per group.
When the Group Chats feature is out of beta, they will be token limited instead of bot limited, and higher sub tiers will have higher limits according to their context memory. This means the 5-bot limit will be going away at that time.
Below that is the selection for Lorebooks. Lorebooks that are already on bots will automatically be selected. They can be removed, and other Lorebooks can be added. This is being reworked at the moment and is subject to change.
You can search both your own and public bots and Lorebooks to add to the chat — be aware that searching is based off of name only.
The devs are currently looking into how to allow people to use private bots they have the links to in Group Chats.
Character Configuration
After you've selected some bots, they will pop up below in the Character Configuration area. In the Character Configuration section, you can change which variant of a bot will be used, whether or not they have a first message and what it will be, and their Display Name for the conversation. When using multiple bots with the same name, it automatically appends numbers to their Display Name.
You are able to start a GC with no first message at all — in which case, you can either write the first message in chat yourself, or you can select one or more bots to speak first.
With variant selection, you can choose any of a given bot's variants you'd like to use for that particular Group Chat. As for disabling the first message, all you need to do is click the checkbox that says "This character has a first message in the conversation," and it will remove the first message from that character.
For the first message, you can change the box to "." for the character that has a first message in the convo, and then within the chat have the bot send a new message to use what's in the scenario field.
Display Name also changes the {{char}} macro in chat, so if you want the narration to use only the character's first name instead of their first and last, you'll need to change that field to their first name.
So if I keep Sampo as "Sampo Koski," it will use "Sampo Koski" in chat a lot. If I change it to "Sampo," the narration will simply refer to him as "Sampo."
The Group Chat Interface
The Full GC Interface
The GC interface can be a bit confusing, so here's a quick run-through of it.
The Side Panel
The side panel has two tabs, as well as the settings for the GC. The tabs are as follows — the Characters tab and the Info tab.
The Characters tab shows you all the bots currently in the chat, and allows you to pin them by clicking on the triple dots and selecting Always Respond so they will reply to every message sent. If pinned, the character will show up in the Info tab under Active Responders.
The Info tab shows you the Group Statistics, Your Persona, Quick Info: Active Responders, AI Model, and Active Lorebooks.
Group Statistics: This tracks how many messages have been sent in a given thread, and how many active characters they are. (Note: If you have four bots in a chat and add a fifth, the 'Active Characters' number will remain at 4 until the new bot speaks for the first time.) These stats are separate per thread, and are NOT a running total of the entire group's stats.
Your Persona: Your currently equipped Persona. You can change it at any time, but you cannot edit a Persona from here.
Quick Info: Active Responders: This section shows you which characters you've set as "Always Respond," but you will need to go back to the Character tab if you want to change it.
AI Model: Shows a list of models and which one you have selected, as well as a list of your Favorites. You can change models at anytime.
Active Lorebooks: A list of which Lorebooks are active in the current thread.
Settings
Edit Group
The Edit Group/Edit Group Chat screen is very similar to the original creation screen, and is where you can change your Group Name, System Prompts, AASPs, Scenarios, and selected Lorebooks. Certain changes may NOT take effect in the current thread, and may require a new thread to work.
Manage Characters
Using Manage Characters, you can add or remove characters at any time. You can also configure existing characters' first messages, variants, and Display Names. First message changes will only work in a new thread if you've started your current thread already.
At the moment, if you add a character to an ongoing chat, you will manually have to add their Lorebook if they have one.
View All Threads
In the View All Threads menu, you will see a list of every existing thread in a GC. If a chat has responses, it will show a preview of a couple of those responses. To open a specific conversation, click anywhere on its entry in the list. You can delete the entire Group Chat from here (by pressing the triple dots in the top right corner of the menu), as well as delete individual threads (by pressing the triple dots on the right side of any given thread). Please be aware: these actions are permanent. Once a thread or Group Chat is deleted, your access to it will be lost forever.
New Thread
Clicking New Thread creates a new conversation within the Group Chat. This new thread will then appear in the View All Threads menu.
Delete Thread
Delete Thread will delete your currently selected thread. It will permanently delete all messages and preferences associated with that conversation. and the action cannot be undone.
Interacting with the Chat
Chatting Area
We now come to the chatting area — welcome! This is an example of a chat with no first messages, only a user message and the responses to it. This is fairly straightforward in general, but the character selection above the text box is new.
Character Selection / Speaking Directly to Bots
Right above the text box, you'll find a list of the bots in the chat. This list can be minimized to save some screen space using the arrow in that row.
In order to speak directly to one or more bots, you will need to either select them here in character select, or @ them. Typing @ will bring up the list for you to choose a character from. Once a character is selected, you can either send a message directly to them, and only they will respond, OR, you can send a completely blank message, and they'll respond to whatever was in the chat at the time. Here is an example of selecting one character to send a message to:
As you can see, only the Sampo I selected responded to my character's comment. If I had sent a blank message, he would've responded to the last character that had spoken.
You can double tap on a particular bot in character select to get it to respond immediately. You can only get one bot to respond immediately this way; selecting multiple will not do anything.
Response Anatomy
Much the same as responses in regular chats, with a little tweak to rerolls, here is the anatomy of a response:
Button 1 - Copy Response
Button 2 - Edit Response
Button 3 - Reroll/Regenerate Response
Button 4 - Delete Response
Generally speaking, rerolling/regenerating messages operates the same as it does in normal chats, but in Group Chats, you can use a dropdown menu to select which response you want in addition to swiping.
Request to Respond
By clicking on the sparkle button underneath the send button, you can pull up the Request to Respond menu. You can then select whichever characters you'd like, press the blue button (or double tap their pics), and they will automatically write replies. It essentially functions the same as selecting a character in character select and sending a blank message.
Finding Group Chat Conversations
There will eventually be a search bar here to help you look for particular Group Chats.
You can find all your Group Chat conversations by navigating to the Conversations tab in the sidebar, and clicking on the "Group Chats" button next to "Individual Chats." Clicking on one of the entries in the list will bring up the Conversations list and enable you to select any existing Thread you desire.
FAQ
FAQ
Q: Can I disable a character from speaking?
A: For now, you will either have to remove that character from the chat, or use the character selection, located above the text box, to choose only the specific characters you want to participate.
Q: Can I adjust response frequency for each character?
A: Not at the moment; you will need to do so manually by using the tools mentioned in the previous question (removing character/character selection above text box).
Q: Can I mix my private bots with public bots?
A: Yes.
Q: Can I add or remove characters AFTER the Group Chat has been created?
A: Yes, by using the Manage Characters option from the Settings menu.
Q: How many characters can I add to a Group Chat?
A: 5.
Q: How do I make a specific character respond to me or another character?
A: After a message has been sent, you can control who speaks next. Use the character selection menu (located above the text box) to select ONLY the character you want to respond. Then, send a blank or empty message. This will prompt only the selected character to generate a reply. You can also select more than one character and send a blank reply and they will all respond.
Q: What is a Thread and why would I use one?
A: A thread is a conversation within a Group Chat. You can start a fresh chat with the same characters and settings by making a new Thread.
Q: Do characters remember what happens in other Threads?
A: No.
Q: Can I edit a character's response like in a normal chat?
A: Yes.
Q: All my characters are responding at once and it's too chaotic. What do I do?
A: Use the character selection menu above the text box to select only who you want to respond.
Q: What do I do if a character seems to forget who they are or what's going on?
A: You can optimize your bots for GC to free up some context memory. Around 1800 permanent tokens is optimal for a GC bot. You can also use fewer characters, start a new Thread, or gently remind the character in your own message.
Q: Help! It seems like the character selection above the text box is gone/weird!
A: It was likely minimized; you can click the arrow in that space to maximize it again.
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