When to use it
You need a character who feels alive and a quest that isn't "bring me 10 pelts" wrapped in flat text. The NPC has to have a personality, and the player's choices have to change the lines and the outcome. The AI plays narrative designer. The result: a quest plus a dialogue tree in a structure you can drop straight into an engine or dialogue editor.
The prompt (copy and paste)
You are a game narrative designer. Write a quest and a branching NPC dialogue.
WORLD AND TONE: "<FILL IN, e.g. post-apocalypse, gallows humour>"
NPC: <name, who they are, what they want, how they speak — 2-3 character traits>
QUEST SITUATION: "<FILL IN the setup>"
CONSTRAINTS: <e.g. lines no longer than 2 sentences; there's a Persuasion check>
Return:
1. The quest: title, hook (why the player cares), objectives step by step, 2-3 DIFFERENT endings depending on choice and success.
2. The dialogue tree, as nodes. For each node — the NPC's line + 2-3 player response options + where each one leads (node id or outcome).
3. At least one branch with a check (skill/item/reputation): what happens on success, what happens on failure.
4. Hold the character's voice across ALL lines (vocabulary, rhythm, verbal tics) — they should be recognisable.
5. Consequences: what changes in the world or in relationships after each ending.
Keep the tree format compact (node: line → choices → transitions) so it can be moved into a dialogue editor. No filler, no grandstanding that's off-tone.
Why it works: the narrative-designer role plus an explicit "node → choices → transitions" structure turns "prose with flourishes" into an import-ready dialogue graph.
Filled-in example
World/tone: cyberpunk noir, cynical. NPC: Vera, a mercenary hacker, speaks in short barbed lines, doesn't trust corps. Setup: the player needs a pass into the corp tower. Constraint: there's a Hacking check.
What the AI should return: the quest "Back Door", hooked on "a pass in exchange for a favour"; node 1 — Vera: "Corps? Bold. Or stupid." → choices [pay / lean on her / offer a job]; a branch with a Hacking check: on success she hands over a clean pass, on failure a burned one that trips the tower's alarm; 3 endings (partner / one-off deal / enemy); Vera's voice — clipped sentences in every line.
Variations
- Voice only. "Give me 20 lines from this NPC for different situations (greeting, haggling, threat, farewell) in their voice" — to populate the world with barks.
- Reactivity. "Rewrite the nodes taking a reputation variable into account: <low/high> — different lines and different available branches."
- Tone across languages. "Give me Russian and English versions of the lines, preserving the character rather than translating word for word."
Pro tips
- The AI's weak spot is a consistent voice: after 2-3 nodes the character slides into neutral speech. Demand a voice pass and point at every line that fell out of tone.
- Ask for endings that genuinely diverge (the world or relationships change), otherwise the player's choice is decorative.
- Keep the tree format compact and give nodes ids — that way you can move it into Yarn/Ink or your engine's dialogue editor in minutes.