How do I start a new adventure in AI Dungeon using a community scenario and then customize it for my character?

You can spin up a new AI Dungeon adventure from a community scenario in under a minute—and then bend it around your character until it feels like a bespoke campaign written just for you. Think of community scenarios as “starter worlds” and your character + settings as the way you claim them as your own.

Quick Answer: From the main AI Dungeon menu, go to Scenarios, pick a community scenario you like, and hit Play to start a new adventure. Then customize it by choosing or editing your character, adding AI Instructions and Author’s Notes, and creating Story Cards and Memory entries so the models keep your character’s goals, traits, and backstory front and center.

Why This Matters

If you just click “Play” and accept everything default, you’ll still get a story—but it’ll feel generic fast. The real magic happens when you treat community scenarios as frameworks, not cages. By tuning your character, AI Instructions, and memory tools, you avoid:

the “samey” protagonist who sounds like every other hero,
plot amnesia where the AI forgets your backstory,
and railroaded stories where your choices barely matter.

Dialing in those controls makes the AI dungeon master feel like it’s running your campaign, not just replaying someone else’s.

Key Benefits:

Instant on-ramp: Community scenarios save you setup time with prebuilt worlds, hooks, and NPCs, so you can start playing in seconds instead of writing everything from scratch.
Deep character identity: Custom character fields, AI Instructions, and Story Cards keep your personality, voice, and goals consistent over long runs.
Stronger consequences: When the system actually remembers who you are and what you’ve done, choices have weight—characters can die, relationships evolve, and “GAME OVER” can be real.

Core Concepts & Key Points

Concept	Definition	Why it's important
Community Scenario	A prebuilt world or setup created by another player, with its own lore, starting situation, and sometimes custom instructions.	Lets you jump straight into a genre or setting you love without worldbuilding everything yourself.
Adventure Instance	The unique, ongoing story that starts when you click Play on a scenario. Every run is different, even from the same scenario.	This is your timeline—your character, your choices, your consequences. All customization happens here.
Control Tools (AI Instructions, Author’s Note, Story Cards, Memory)	Structured fields that tell models like Muse, Harbinger, or Hearthfire how to behave and what to remember.	They turn “generic AI story” into a tailored campaign that respects your character’s voice, goals, and world rules.

How It Works (Step-by-Step)

Here’s the basic flow for how to start a new adventure in AI Dungeon using a community scenario and then customize it for your character.

1. Find and start a community scenario

Open AI Dungeon
- Go to https://aidungeon.com and log in.
- From the main hub, look for Scenarios, Explore, or similar (this is where community content lives).
Browse community scenarios
- Filter or search by:
  - Genre: fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, romance, horror, slice-of-life.
  - Tags or title: e.g., “Faerûn,” “space opera,” “school drama.”
- Open a scenario’s detail page to preview:
  - The description (world premise, tone, stakes).
  - Any creator notes or built-in AI Instructions.
  - Recommended models (if the creator suggests one).
Start an adventure instance
- Click Play (or equivalent) on the scenario.
- This creates a new adventure based on that scenario—your own branch. The original scenario remains unchanged for everyone; your run is private and unique.
- You’ll usually be prompted for character details before the first turn.

2. Define and customize your character

This is where you stop being “generic protagonist” and start being you.

Fill in character basics
- Use the scenario’s prompts, typically:
  - Name
  - Role/Class/Profession (e.g., “elven warlock,” “rogue AI negotiator”)
  - Brief background (1–3 sentences is enough)
- Be specific:
  - Instead of: “You’re a warrior.”
  - Try: “You’re Kael, a disgraced city guard who took the fall for a noble’s crime and now hunts the criminals the law won’t touch.”
Set goals and flaws in your description
- In your background, embed:
  - Goals: “You’re determined to clear your name and expose the noble who framed you.”
  - Flaws: “You’re impulsive, hot-headed, and deeply afraid of being powerless again.”
- These give models like Muse and Nova juicy hooks to improvise character-driven drama.
Customize your starting situation (if allowed)
- Some scenarios let you tweak:
  - Starting location
  - Initial equipment
  - Relationship to a key NPC
- Use those fields to align with your character concept:
  - “Start as a bodyguard to the fairy queen” vs “start as the suspected assassin.”

3. Set AI Instructions so the story fits your style

Most players skip this. Most players also complain about generic vibes. These two facts are related.

Open AI Instructions for the adventure
- In your adventure UI, find AI Instructions (sometimes under Advanced, Settings, or Controls).
- You’ll see system-level text (what we use to keep it in text-adventure mode) plus any scenario-specific guidance from the creator.
Layer your own preferences
- Don’t delete the existing instructions; add yours beneath or in a clear section like:
  Player Instructions:
  - The protagonist is Kael, a disgraced city guard framed by a noble.
  - Focus on gritty city fantasy, street-level intrigue, and moral gray choices.
  - Keep combat dangerous; Kael can be seriously injured or die. Avoid plot armor.
  - Show the world reacting to Kael’s decisions; relationships change based on his actions.
Tune tone and pacing
- Examples of useful directions:
  - “Keep descriptions vivid but not purple; 3–6 sentence paragraphs are ideal.”
  - “Favor dialogue and internal thoughts to show Kael’s personality.”
  - “Avoid modern slang unless a character is specifically written that way.”
Align model choice with your character
- Different models feel like different GMs:
  - Hearthfire: cozy, slow-burn, slice-of-life. Great for character and vibes over danger.
  - Muse/Nova: character-and-emotion-forward storytelling; good for dialogue and internal conflict.
  - Harbinger/Wayfarer: consequence-heavy, more brutal runs; “characters can die” is the default vibe.
- Use the scenario’s recommended model as a starting point, then switch if the tone doesn’t match you.

4. Use Author’s Note to “lock in” your character’s lens

Author’s Note is the short, always-on reminder for how this story should feel.

Add a focused Author’s Note
- Keep it brief (1–2 sentences), written like meta-instructions:
  - “Dark, street-level fantasy told from Kael’s rough-edged perspective, with high stakes and no guaranteed happy endings.”
- This helps models respect your POV and tone, especially in longer scenes.
Point it at what matters most
- If your main goal is character drama:
  - “Emphasize Kael’s relationships, regrets, and internal conflicts in every major scene.”
- If your main goal is tactical challenge:
  - “Highlight risk, resource scarcity, and smart planning; enemies exploit Kael’s mistakes.”

5. Create Story Cards for your character and key NPCs

Story Cards are structured lore chunks—exactly what story models need to avoid vagueness.

Make a card for your character
- Include:
  - Name, role, and appearance
  - Key traits: 3–5 bullet points (e.g., “resentful of nobles,” “secretly soft with children”)
  - Current goals and fears
  - Important history relevant to the scenario
- This gives the AI concrete details to pull instead of generic “a mixture of emotions” filler.
Add cards as you meet important NPCs
- For each recurring character:
  - Their relationship to you (“mentor,” “rival,” “ex-lover,” “former squad captain”)
  - Their agenda (“hiding a demonic pact,” “wants to control the guild”)
  - Any promises, debts, or secrets between you
- This stops the system from morphing NPC personalities between sessions.
Tag and organize
- Tag cards by faction, location, or arc so they stay relevant as the story shifts.
- You don’t have to write a novel; 3–6 tight bullets per card beats a wall of text.

6. Lean on Memory (Auto Summaries + Memory Bank)

Long adventures live or die on whether the AI still remembers who you are at turn 200.

Let Auto Summarization do the grunt work
- As you play, the system condenses older turns into summaries to save context.
- This keeps the “big beats” but loses throwaway details.
Promote crucial character info to Memory Bank
- When something matters long-term, save it explicitly:
  - “Kael publicly exposed Captain Varren’s corruption; Varren now wants him dead.”
  - “Kael swore an oath to protect the fairy queen with his life.”
- These memory entries are then preferentially retrieved, keeping your character’s past actions active in the story.
Update when your character changes
- After major events:
  - Update your character card and Memory with new wounds, vows, titles, or shifts in belief.
  - Example: “Kael lost his sword arm and now fights with a crossbow and gadgets.”

7. Play in-character and reinforce your customization

Even with good setup, your inputs teach the model what “being this character” means.

Write actions in your character’s voice
- Instead of:
  - “> I attack the bandit”
- Try:
  - “> I lunge forward, reckless as ever, trying to drive my blade through the bandit leader before he can give the order to fire.”
- Your style is a continuous signal to models like Muse/Harbinger about tone, pacing, and personality.
Narrate internal thoughts and stakes
- “> I glance at the noble on the balcony, wondering if he recognizes the guard he threw away.”
- The more you surface motives and fears, the more the AI can trend toward character consistency instead of generic hero behavior.
Correct gently when it drifts
- If the output forgets a trait or breaks your customization:
  - Use a quick action like:
    - “> Reminder: Kael is missing his sword arm; he can’t ‘grip the sword with both hands.’ Adjust the scene.”
  - Or adjust your Story Cards/Memory to reinforce the point.

How It Works (Step-by-Step) — Quick Recap

Pick a community scenario: Search, preview, and hit Play to spawn your own adventure instance.
Define your character: Fill in name, role, and a tight background with goals and flaws.
Customize control tools: Add AI Instructions, tune an Author’s Note, create Story Cards, and update Memory so the models treat your character as a real, persistent person.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Letting the default protagonist stand unchanged
- Problem: You end up with a bland, interchangeable hero.
- Avoid it by: Always editing the character name, background, and role to match the story you actually want to play.
Ignoring control tools (AI Instructions, Author’s Note, Story Cards)
- Problem: The AI drifts into clichés, forgets important details, or flips NPC personalities.
- Avoid it by: Spending 5–10 minutes up front adding a character card, a clear Author’s Note, and a few Memory entries for key goals and relationships.

Real-World Example

You pick a community scenario set in a sprawling fantasy city—part intrigue, part dungeon crawl. By default, it wants you to be “a brave adventurer looking for gold and glory.” That’s fine, but you want something sharper.

You hit Play and immediately rewrite the character prompt:

“You’re Kael, a disgraced city guard who took the fall for a noble’s crime. You survive on odd jobs in the slums, secretly tracking rumors that could lead you back to the man who ruined your life.”

In AI Instructions, you add:

“Keep this story grounded and tense. Focus on investigations, betrayals, and tough moral choices. Kael can die—no plot armor. NPCs remember how he’s treated them.”

You set an Author’s Note:

“Gritty, street-level fantasy noir. The city is a character, and every favor has a cost.”

You create Story Cards for Kael, the corrupt noble, and your former captain. After a few sessions, you add Memory entries about a botched assassination attempt, a promise to protect a street urchin, and a growing alliance with a crime lord.

By session 20, Harbinger isn’t serving a generic “hero vs. bad guy” arc. It’s running a personal revenge campaign where the city’s factions and your past choices keep closing in. When the noble finally recognizes you at a masquerade ball, the story calls back to your earliest actions—and your customization is what made that possible.

Pro Tip: Whenever a scene feels especially “on brand” for your character—perfect tone, perfect conflict—open AI Instructions and Author’s Note right after and capture why it worked in one or two bullets. You’re effectively training your future turns to hit that same vibe.

Summary

To start a new adventure in AI Dungeon using a community scenario and then customize it for your character, treat the scenario as a flexible framework. Pick a scenario that matches your genre, spin up an adventure, then immediately reshape it with a specific character concept, clear AI Instructions, a focused Author’s Note, and a handful of Story Cards and Memory entries. That combination lets models like Muse, Hearthfire, and Harbinger run long, consequence-heavy stories where your character feels persistent, distinct, and genuinely central to the world.

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