Quick Start
Writing within Charisma is designed to be quick and simple. There's no special syntax or code to learn, and you can create stories, episodes, scenes and characters in minutes.
This quick start guide will help you create a story for the Charisma app using a story template.
Create an account
To create a story in Charisma, you will need to first sign up for a Charisma account.
After you've signed in, you'll be taken to your Stories page. Click the Click to create button on the Starter panel.
Create a new story using the template
If you would like to create your own story from scratch and not use the templates, simply just select Blank at the 'Choose Template' step.
- Click the Click to create button on the Starter panel.
- Give your story a title. This will be what your story is named when it is published in the app.
- Give your story a description. Add a description for your story so people know what to expect. Think of this as a blurb, it will be visible on the app under your title
- Choose genres. Choose a genre from the dropdown list.
- Choose template. Select the 'basic' template.
- Click Create Story.
- Select "1. Introductions" under Story in the sidebar on the left.
Start using the editor
To write a story and script how characters should respond, you write straight into a story graph.
Let's dive straight in!
What are nodes?
Story graphs are made up of a number of connected nodes. When playing through the story, a player flows through the nodes, left-to-right, and each node has a different effect. These include...
- waiting for a player to say something (a Player node),
- a character speaking (a Character node),
- saving information that a character could later refer to (a Memory node)
... and so on.
There are two special nodes that are always in every graph, and those are the Graph Entry and Graph Exit nodes, which are where the graph begins and ends.
- Graph Entry: Press
n(for eNtry) to jump to this node. - Graph Exit: Press
x(for eXit) to jump to this node.
Which node is chosen when there are multiple nodes joined to the right?
Charisma will work out the best pathway to take based on how the graph was written and what the player is saying.
For example, if you have a number of Player nodes, Charisma will choose the route with the Player node that most closely matches to what the player has just said. Behind the scenes, Charisma uses AI to evaluate the pathways.
Or, if you have a Player node connected to a number of Character nodes, one node will be picked at random.
There are a number of other features like priorities and gates which can influence what pathways are chosen. To read more, head to How Matching Works.
Playing the story
Use the slide-out chat tester on the right hand side of the screen to test your story.
Click "Chat from graph start" to start playing the graph from the Graph Entry node.