World Settings Guidelines

World Settings should define what makes your world different, not restate what SkyrimNet already knows or enforce broad personality traits across every NPC.

Keep It Minimal

Less is often more. Large world prompts can introduce unnecessary prompt bloat, reduce context efficiency, and make NPC behavior less varied.

Before adding a rule, ask:

Is this information already available through SkyrimNet's prompts, NPC bios, memories, or game context?

If the answer is yes, it usually does not belong in the World Settings.

Avoid Redundant Instructions

Do not restate information that SkyrimNet already provides, such as:

• NPCs are living in Skyrim.
• NPCs should not break the fourth wall.
• NPCs should behave naturally within the Elder Scrolls universe.
• General dialogue or roleplay rules already enforced by SkyrimNet.

Duplicating existing instructions only increases prompt size without improving behavior.

Avoid Global Personality Rules

Instructions such as:

• "People are greedy."
• "Everyone mistrusts strangers."
• "Corruption is everywhere."
• "The world is dark and hopeless."

can unintentionally influence every NPC in similar ways, reducing personality diversity and encouraging repetitive or exaggerated responses.

Instead, allow NPC bios, memories, relationships, factions, and current circumstances to shape individual personalities naturally.

A kind character should remain kind. A cruel character should remain cruel. Variety produces more believable interactions than forcing a universal tone.

Use World Knowledge Instead

If you want to change the world's history, current events, or shared beliefs, prefer World Knowledge over global prompt instructions.

Examples include:

• A recent Thalmor invasion.
• A devastating plague.
• A civil war that ended differently.
• The disappearance of a major city.
• New religious movements.
• Changes to political power.

These facts become part of the world's shared understanding, allowing NPCs to react according to their own personalities rather than because every character received the same behavioral instruction.

For vanilla lore (such as Alduin or the Civil War), there is usually no need to restate existing events unless you are intentionally changing history or informing NPCs about the current state of the world.

Let Context Drive Behavior

Rather than telling every NPC that the world is dark, provide the events that made it dark.

For example, instead of:

"The world is cruel. Everyone is afraid."

Prefer World Knowledge entries describing:

• villages destroyed,
• wars,
• famine,
• political upheaval,
• monster attacks,
• economic collapse.

Good-hearted NPCs may try to help others. Selfish NPCs may exploit the situation. Cowards may flee. Brave characters may fight.

The same world naturally produces different reactions from different people, resulting in richer, more believable roleplay.

A Good World Setting Is Small

Many playthroughs work well with little or even no World Settings at all. In many cases, a single custom rule (for example, regarding dialogue style or explicit language) is sufficient, while SkyrimNet's existing prompts, NPC bios, memories, and World Knowledge provide the rest.

When in doubt, keep World Settings focused, specific, and minimal.

Prompts in Skyrimnet

In SkyrimNet, all prompts are defined in their respective prompt files in SKSE/plugins/SkyrimNet/prompts. This does not only apply to the prompt for getting the npc to speak, but also things like Generating Memories, Prompts for choosing the appropriate action to call as well as prompts added through mods.

Likely, the most relevant prompt sub-folders for you to add your files in are prompts/submodules/character_bio/ and prompts/submodules/system_head/

Character Bio

All prompt files in the character_bio folder get combined into each characters bio.

They are combined in the order they appear in the folder, so having your prompt start appropriate number, you can choose at which point in the bio you would like your custom entry to be rendered (eg. 0001_myMod.prompt would render before anything else)

Since you character bios are always evaluated for a specific npc, you have the npc for which it is evaluated available in the npc variable

{{ decnpc(npc.UUID).name }} has been magically turned into a mudcrab

System Head

TBA

Decorators

Decorators are functions callable from within your prompt, that return some value.

There are several native decorators supplied, an overview of which can be found in this wiki, in the API section, or in the SkyrimNet dashboard.

🧙 SkyrimNet Prompt Editing Tutorial

SkyrimNet’s prompts drive how NPCs think, remember, and act. Editing them can be powerful—but also risky. This guide teaches you the do’s and don’ts so your edits feel natural, immersive, and stable.

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🎯 Core Principles

• Keep prompts clean and minimal. Don’t overload with redundant instructions—the LLM already understands basics like conversation flow and basic social cues.
• Structure matters. maintain the existing SkyrimNet format (actor, event, context, etc.). Don’t break the JSON or YAML scaffolding.
• Think like a player. Write prompts as if you’re nudging the NPC’s perspective, not micromanaging it.
• Don’t overexplain. More text ≠ better output. Unnecessary “slop” confuses the model.

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✅ Good Practices

1. Be Concise and Clear

Good:

The NPC should respond in-character, reflecting their current mood and memory of the player.

❌ Bad Example

Always respond politely. Use medieval language. Avoid modern slang. Pretend you are in Skyrim and never break character. Do not be rude unless instructed otherwise. Remember the player’s name and past events. Always show emotions. Never forget the lore of Skyrim.

Why: The LLM already knows how to roleplay. Too many rules = more hallucinations.

2. Use Context Variables, Not Hardcoding

SkyrimNet passes context with variables like

✅ Good:

You are roleplaying as {{ decnpc(npc.UUID).name }}, a {{ decnpc(npc.UUID).gender }} {{ decnpc(npc.UUID).race }} in Skyrim. Remain completely in character and speak as they would in the given situation.

❌ Bad:

The NPC sees the player walk in the tavern and remembers that last time they argued with them.

(Unless you’re writing a test case, don’t hardcode events—the bios and memory system handles that!)

3. Guide Tone, Don’t Dictate Dialogue

✅ Good:

The response should feel cautious and slightly distrustful.

❌ Bad:

Say: "I don’t trust you, stranger."

Why: Direct scripting kills variety and makes NPCs sound robotic.

4. Let the LLM Infer Social Cues

You don’t need to tell it obvious things:

“Remember to greet politely” → unnecessary.

“Answer in complete sentences” → unnecessary.

“Stay immersive” → unnecessary.

Instead, just describe the desired tone or intent.

5. Watch Out for Hallucination Traps

Certain instructions encourage the LLM to invent events that never happened:

“Describe what just happened in great detail.”

“Always recall the player’s history.”

“Pretend you know everything about the world.”

Instead, use memory safely:

6. Respect Segmentation

SkyrimNet already breaks gameplay into events, memories, and reactions. Don’t force prompts to summarize the whole story so far. Just focus on the current event + relevant memory slice.

🚫 Common Bad Habits

❌ Writing 10+ “DO NOT” rules in every prompt.

❌ Using walls of prose in system instructions.

❌ Forcing NPCs to behave unrealistically polite/formal.

❌ Trying to encode Skyrim lore in the prompt.

❌ Asking for narrative control (“Make a plot twist happen now”).

🛠️ Quick “Prompt Hygiene” Checklist

Before saving your prompt edits, ask:

• Am I giving the minimum necessary guidance?

• Am I avoiding redundancy?

• Am I using variables ({{ }}) instead of hardcoding details?

• Am I trusting SkyrimNet’s memory system, not forcing fake history?

• Am I shaping tone and style, not dictating exact dialogue?

✨ With these habits, your SkyrimNet prompts will be clean, stable, and immersive—keeping NPCs dynamic without breaking into hallucinations or robotic, forced chatter.