Self's preference tracker
An interesting approach to making a preference tracker in IW utilising a couple of tracked items. This tool allows you to track lots of information in surprising depth for a low character count, it will also allow you to automatically prune the list as things become outdated.
This system was originally made to deal with the old tracked item limit of 4000 characters. The character limit has since been increased to 10000 characters, so the article is not needed as much. It is still useful for various reasons, including the aging function.
This uses names and codes within tracked item to store information and then retrieve it later for the AI to use.
The system contains 4 main parts.
- The guide - This will be in your main instructions, it instructs the AI on how to use the information you are storing in the tracked item.
- The Tracked item - This is where the information will be stored and manipulated.
- The character counter - This is going to allow for automatic pruning.
- The pruner - This will do the pruning.
In this guide we'll make a 'Hobby preference tracker' This is going to allow us to track any hobbies our character mentions in-depth.
First step is to create 'The guide' this has instructions on what the AI should be interpreting in the tracked item. This guide for the AI instructs the AI on what each letter means, some examples of how to interpret the letters. It also includes a definition of the concept of an 'Appendment', which we will need later.
Tracked item - 'Notes on Hobbies' is a comprehensive list of my likes, dislikes and experience in hobbies. following the names of each hobby is a letter, these letters are a short hand to represent my opinion and experience of that hobby. The following list indicates the meaning of each letter T - To indicate I want to GM this game, I want to run this game P - To indicate I want to Play in this game as a player A - To indicate I enjoy this game as a player or a GM, I enjoy this game from all sides U - To indicate it is unknown yet weather i like this game yet X - To indicate I am not interested in this R - To indicate i really enjoy this L - To indicate I like this N - To indicate my opinion is neutral D - To indicate that i dislike this V - Very experienced - I know this intimately (I play this kind of game daily) E - Experienced - I have a lot of experience (I know what this is and have tried it) G - Green - i have a little experience (I know what this is, but haven't tried it) I - Inexperienced - I have no experience (I don't know what this is) For example Card games-ARE Indicates that I am happy to play this game in any roll, represented by the A, and I 'Really enjoy Card games', as represented by the R, and that i have 'a lot of experience with Cardg games', as represented by the E Dungeons and Dragons-TLG Indicates that I want to GM Dungeons and Dragons, represented by the T, and I 'like Dungeons and dragons', as represented by the L, and that i have 'little in Dungeons and Dragons', as represented by the G The word, game, activity or interest at the beginning of the string is the 'information'. Any following characters and numbers are the appendments. For example: Board games-PLG-7 indicates 'Board games' is the information and '-PLG-7' are it's appendments.
Next we need to create the tracked item, which I am calling 'Notes on Hobbies'. This tracked item is check every time I mention my hobbies in a story. It instructs the AI on how to first, name my hobby, with some examples on acceptable formats and distinctions. Then, Step-by-step instructions on how to add the relevant 'Appendments' adding one to show my interest, next one to show how much I like this, and another to show how much experience I have in that given hobby.
Finally there is a number added to the end of the string of letters, this is basically an age counter for that given hobby. It will increase the number each turn I don't mention it, ensuing that, if I mention something in passing once it's age will increase, where as if I mention something regularly it's age will keep resetting to 0. using this system you can effectively 'age' the data in the list for later
I have told the AI to assume I have 'Experience' with a game if I don't mention it, since I wouldn't mention it if I didn't at least know what it was.
The tracked item can also overwrite old hobbies and re-specify them with more detail or more accurate 'appendments'
Notes on Hobbies
Text
Notes on my views and experience of hobbies, games, interests or similar
Automatically update tracked item - Yes
Each time I mention or think about a hobby, game, interest or similar - Add that hobby, game, interest or similar to this list, on a new line After each hobby, game, interest or similar add one of the following appendment to indicate my roll: T - To indicate I want to GM this game, I want to run this game P - To indicate I want to Play in this game as a player A - To indicate I enjoy this game as a player or a GM, I enjoy this game from all sides U - To indicate it is unknown yet weather I like this game yet X - To indicate I am not interested in this After that add one of the following appendment to indicate my preference R - To indicate I really enjoy this L - To indicate I like this N - To indicate my opinion is neutral D - To indicate that I dislike this After that add one of the following appendment to indicate my experience V - Very experienced - I know this intimately (I play this kind of game daily) E - Experienced - I have a lot of experience (I know what this is and have tried it) G - Green - I have a little experience (I know what this is, but haven't tried it) I - Inexperienced - I have no experience (I don't know what this is) Finally add a number 0 after the hobby, game, interest or similar Each turn, increase each of these numbers by 1 for each hobby, game, interest or similar, to indicate how long ago I mentioned the hobby, game, interest or similar. This should be displayed like this Hobby-TLE-0 - to show that I want GM this hobby, I like this Hobby, I and have experience in this Hobby and this is the first turn I have mentioned it. Hobby2-ARG-3 - to show that I enjoy this Hobby from all sides, and that I Really enjoy this, but only have a little experience and this is the 3rd turn since I mentioned it Each time I mention a hobby, game, interest or similar again, review and update my preference and experience, it should be updated to to the most recent and new version of that hobby, game, interest or similar, then reset the number following that hobby, game, interest or similar to 0 Hobby, game, interest or similar names should be kept short, with few notes. When ever I mention a hobby, game, interest or similar, and it does not match the information in this list, or the information in this list is incorrect, edit this list to ensure the appendments are correct, adjusting them where nessacary, choosing the most enthusiastic version. It is important to list hobby, game, interest or similar I do not like, so they do not come up in the story If you are unsure, always set my experience to - E - experienced It's important to appropriately distinguish hobby, game, interest or similar, for example: Board game - is an acceptable format Euro-style Board game - is an acceptable format and distinction Card game - Is an acceptable format Tableau building card game - is an acceptable format and distinction Model making - is an acceptable format and distinction Airplane Model making - Is an acceptable format and distinction Computer Gaming - Is an acceptable format Mobile computer gaming - is an acceptable format and distinction
Basically that's it, that's going to track and codify, extract and use tonnes of information on Hobbies. The only problem here is that eventually the tracked item is going to get full, despite how efficient this is at storing data. The character limit for tracked items IW is 10000, this means we need to figure out how to clean this up.
For this we'll first create another tracked item, 'Hobbies character count', this will create a running total of the characters in the tracked item 'Notes on hobbies'
Hobbies character count
Number
The count of characters used in the 'Notes on Hobbies' tracked item
Automatically update tracked item - Yes
Update each time the tracked item 'Notes on Hobbies' is updated. Update this number to the amount of characters used in the tracked item 'Notes on Hobbies', Including numbers, Spaces, white space and line breaks
That tracked item will now continue to count the words contained within the tracked item, this means we can now set up a trigger event based on this tracked item, Ill call this 'Hobby trim'. I have set this to 3300, since the AI's counts can some times be off, this allows a little wiggle room.
I prioritised the most pointless information stored in the list. Hobbies with G, N, I or U. This should remove any hobby in the list that I have Green experience with, No opinion on, no experience of and Unknown opinion.
Then the AI will begin to prune based on age of the record, starting with the oldest. Then working down though the list until it would be roughly 2500 characters, then stopping.
Hobby trim
Trigger based on tracked item values Tracked item - Hobbies character count Trigger when item value is: Greater than or equal to - 3300
Tell AI what should happen next turn: Delete from the tracked item 'Notes on Hobbies' Any line that contains the append G, I, N or U. Removing information to ensure relevancy of this list is maintained. Then, Delete from the tracked item 'Notes on Hobbies' The line of information with the highest number in the tracked items. Continue deleting lines from tracked item 'Notes on Hobbies' in a descending order from highest to lowest, until the number of characters in 'Notes on Hobbies' Including numbers, Spaces, white space and line breaks, is less than 2500 Characters, then stop. This is to ensure that the oldest items in this list are removed.
These 4 items will give you Deep storage of details and the ability to keep them up to date, keeping relevance and deleting old and outdated information
The order and meaning behind each letter can be changed, longer strings, anything really