Roleplay formatting: asterisks, quotes and italics explained

The styles side by side

Brackets, single or double, mean "out of character" in every style; see what OOC means. Asterisk style is the most common in character apps because it looks clean when the asterisks turn into italics. Novel style is popular with people who write long, literary turns. The beginners guide covers the basics; this page is about keeping the AI consistent.

How formatting breaks

• An asterisk that never closes, so a whole paragraph turns italic or raw stars show up.
• Speech inside the asterisks: *"Sit," she says.* reads as one block of italics.
• A switch mid-chat from asterisks to novel style, or back.
• Bold (double asterisks) creeping in, or quotation marks dropped from dialogue.

The cause is nearly always mixed samples. If the greeting uses asterisks, an example line uses novel style and your turns use neither, the model averages them. A reply that was cut off mid-action also leaves an unclosed asterisk behind, since the closing star never arrived.

Make it consistent

• Use your chosen style in every turn of yours. The model mirrors you within a few messages.
• Fix the first broken reply: add the missing star, pull speech out of the italics.
• If you made the character, write the greeting and every example line in that style; they are the template.
• To change style, say it once and show it: (OOC: switching to novel style, no asterisks: plain narration, speech in quotes.)

Before: *"I told you not to come back here," Mara says, wiping the bar, "but you never listen.* After: *Mara keeps wiping the bar.* "I told you not to come back here." *She doesn't look up.* "But you never listen."

Same words, but the after version separates action from speech, closes every pair, and gives the model a clean pattern to copy.

Dice, messages and other special formats

Some stories need more than actions and speech. Grimm writes dice as [d20: 11 + 4 = 15] and keeps HP on its own line, and because his example lines show that format, it survives hundreds of messages. If your story uses text messages or voice notes, give them a format of their own, such as the sender's name in square brackets at the start of the line, and use it the same way every time. Kian Rostami, whose story opens at an airport after two years of voice notes and shared tracks, is a good place to mix in-person scenes with remembered messages.

App settings that help

In SillyTavern, the Regex extension can rewrite replies automatically, for example stripping asterisks if you prefer novel style. In JanitorAI, match the bot's first message and example dialogue to your style, or add one line to a proxy's custom prompt: "Format: actions in *asterisks*, speech in quotes, never speech inside asterisks." On UnsavedAI, the same line works as an OOC note, Edit fixes a broken reply in place, and imported SillyTavern or Chub cards keep whatever style their greeting uses, so check it after importing.

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