How to…

Short recipes for common tasks.

Start a new story#

  1. Right-click your world and choose New world…, and give it a name.
  2. Write the Story: setting, situation, mood. Click Back to game.
  3. Click each of Character A, B, C, name them and describe them.
  4. Describe User (you) and, if you like, the Audience.
  5. Optional: add a place under Places and describe it.
  6. Write your first line at the bottom and click Send.

Write characters that come alive#

  • Give each character something they want in this story, and something they hide or fear.
  • Describe how they talk: short and dry, chatty when nervous, formal, sarcastic.
  • Make them different from each other. Characters with similar descriptions blur into one voice.
  • Keep it short: a few strong sentences work better than a page.
  • Put shared facts (the setting, what everyone knows) into the Story, not into each character.

Bring a character on or off stage#

  1. In the left column, tick the box after the character to bring them on, or untick it to let them leave.
  2. Send your next turn. The others notice the arrival or departure.

At most three characters can be on stage at once.

Move the scene to another place#

  1. Add the place under Places if it isn't there yet, and describe it (right-click, Edit).
  2. Click the place.
  3. Optional: under Events, write what gets everyone there ("The bell rings for dinner.").
  4. Send your turn.

Fix a turn you don't like#

Pick what suits you:

  • Change a few words: click into the card and edit. The characters build on your version.
  • Let Roller sharpen it: click Patch. If you don't like the result, use Undo patch in the turn's ⋯ menu.
  • Try again: click Back, then Send again. Each answer comes out differently.

Try a different direction#

  • To branch off from where you are now: right-click the game and choose Fork.
  • To branch off from an earlier turn: open that turn's ⋯ menu and choose Fork from here.

The original game stays untouched, and you can play both.

Let the characters act without you#

Click Pass instead of Send. Your character steps out of the scene for that turn, and the others carry on among themselves. Click Pass again for more turns, or Send to come back.

Continue a long game#

  1. Click Summarize at the bottom and wait for the summary.
  2. A new game, "… (continued)", appears below the old one, with the summary as its backstory. Read it and correct anything that's wrong.
  3. Click Back to game and play on.

The summary needs the whole game once, so it also has to fit into the model's context. If it doesn't, make the context bigger first.

Make a long game fit#

  1. Click Config.
  2. Under Context size, enter a bigger number, for example 16384 or 32768, and press Return.
  3. Go back to the game and send your turn. The model is reloaded with the new size.

If your Mac runs short of memory, choose a smaller number, or a smaller model, or continue in a new game.

If you use LM Studio and loaded the model there yourself, its size is set in LM Studio. Either eject the model in LM Studio (Roller then loads it with the size from Config), or load it there with a bigger context.

Switch to a different model#

  1. Pick the model in the list at the top. Switch between LM Studio and Local if needed.
  2. Send your next turn. If the model isn't loaded yet, it's loaded first.

You can switch models in the middle of a game: the new model reads the whole play so far. Check the token gauge: the new model may have a different context size.

Download a model from Hugging Face#

  1. Check your memory: Apple menu → About This Mac → Memory. Then choose a size from the list in Model sizes; for example, with 16 GB, an 8B model, or 12B if few other apps are open.
  2. Open huggingface.co in your browser. You don't need an account for most models.
  3. Search with the box at the top of the page: the model's name, its size and "GGUF", for example gemma 3 12b gguf or qwen3 8b gguf. Pick a result whose name ends in GGUF. Publishers such as unsloth, bartowski or lmstudio-community reliably offer GGUF versions of the popular models.
  4. On the model's page, click Files and versions.
  5. Find the file ending in .gguf with Q4_K_M in its name, and check its size against your memory. Click the small download arrow next to it.
    • Skip files with mmproj in the name.
    • If the model is split into parts (names ending in -00001-of-00003.gguf and so on), download all of the parts.
  6. Wait for the download to finish: model files are several gigabytes.
  7. In Roller, switch to Local, then click the folder button next to the model list: Roller's models folder opens in Finder.
  8. Drag the downloaded file from your Downloads folder into the models folder. (Parts of a split model go into the same folder.)
  9. Back in Roller, click ↻ next to the model list. Your model appears in the list: pick it, and send your next turn. The first time, it is loaded (see Loading a model).

Model names and versions change quickly. Any recent model of the right size is a good start; well-known families include Gemma, Qwen and Mistral.

Get models with LM Studio#

If you'd rather not handle files yourself:

  1. Download LM Studio from lmstudio.ai and install it like any Mac app.
  2. Open LM Studio and go to its Discover tab (the magnifying glass). Search for a model; LM Studio shows which versions fit your Mac. Click Download.
  3. In Roller, switch to Local and click ↻: models downloaded with LM Studio appear in the list too.

Or use them through LM Studio itself: in LM Studio, open the Developer tab and start the server; in Roller, switch to LM Studio and pick the model.

Save the play as a script#

Click Download at the bottom. The script is saved to your Downloads folder. Each change of place starts a new scene in it.

Move a world to another Mac, or share it#

  1. Right-click the world and choose Export legacy…, and save the file.
  2. Copy the file to the other Mac (or send it to a friend). Remember: it isn't locked with your password.
  3. There, in Roller (or another app built on Roller), click Import world above the worlds and choose the file.

See Import and export.

Change your password#

  1. Make sure Roller is unlocked (the link next to the password field says reencrypt).
  2. Type your new password in the field.
  3. Click reencrypt and confirm.

From now on, only the new password works. Don't forget it: it can't be recovered.

Make the characters livelier#

  • Give them stronger wants in their descriptions; see Write characters that come alive.
  • Use Patch on turns that feel flat.
  • Throw in Events: something happens, and they have to react.
  • Raise the chance of the Outrageous nudge in Config, or add your own nudge rules.
  • Try a slightly higher Temperature in a preset of your own.

Dictate instead of typing#

  1. Click into the box you want to fill (for example says).
  2. Click Listen and speak. The button glows while it hears you.
  3. Click Stop when you're done.

Your words appear a phrase at a time, a second or two behind you. You can switch languages between sentences. The first time, your browser asks for permission to use the microphone. Everything stays on your Mac.

Dictation needs a one-time setup: double-click Setup Speech.command in the Roller folder. It downloads the speech model (about 550 MB) if it's missing.

Hear lines read aloud#

  1. Select a line on the stage (or in a box), up to about three sentences.
  2. Click Speak, which appears next to Listen while text is selected.
  3. Click it again to stop.

The voice switches with the language of each sentence. Voices and speed are set in Config, under Speech.