PlotLight vs RoleCall
Start your journey on the stage
PlotLight & RoleCall
RoleCall is actually two apps that share one account, one library, and one set of users. You'll move between them as you play and create — and most of the time you won't have to think about it. This guide explains what lives where, why the split exists, and how to navigate between them.
The short version: RoleCall is where you chat. PlotLight is where you publish, browse, and connect with other creators.
The Two Apps at a Glance
| App | URL | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| RoleCall | rolecallstudios.com | The chat app. Scenes, groups, your library, your settings, your characters in motion. |
| PlotLight | plotlightstudios.com | The creator + community app. Discovery, portfolios, Stage Whispers, moderation, the model benchmark. |
Same sign-in. Same account. Same library. Two different rooms in the same theater.
The Big Idea
When the platform was one app, two very different experiences kept fighting over the same screen:
- The chat experience — dense, focused, dark, distraction-free. You're inside a scene. The UI gets out of your way so the writing breathes.
- The creator experience — bright, browsy, social. You're scrolling Discovery, reading someone's portfolio, picking a character to take home.
Two visual languages. Two information densities. Two completely different "I'm here to relax with a character" vs. "I'm here to find new content" headspaces.
So they got split. The chat app stayed where it was. The creator-and-community surfaces moved to PlotLight at plotlightstudios.com, where they could be designed for browsing instead of for being a side panel next to a conversation.
The split is invisible most of the time. You sign in once, your library follows you everywhere, and the apps link directly into each other from their navigation. But each app gets to look and feel like the thing it actually is.
What Lives in RoleCall
rolecallstudios.com is the chat half. Anything that involves talking to a character, configuring a scene, or running the AI happens here.
Chat surfaces
| Surface | What it is |
|---|---|
| Scenes | A live conversation with one or more characters. Where most of your time is spent. |
| Groups | Group chats with multiple AI characters in the same scene. |
| Visual Novel mode | The dedicated VN play surface — dialogue boxes, sprite swaps, music, choice menus. |
| Story Director | The immersion modules — relationships, quests, inventory, calendars, maps — that track scene state automatically. |
| Compendium | Lorebooks with an AI librarian. World info that gets pulled into scene context by meaning. |
| Post-Production | The cleanup pass that runs after each AI reply — declichéing, polish, translation, custom agents. |
Your library
Your personal collection of content lives in RoleCall. This is the same database that PlotLight reads from — but the editing surfaces and the chat-side picker UI live in RoleCall.
| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Library | Everything you've created, forked, or favorited — characters, presets, lorebooks, personas, prompts. |
| Characters editor | Create and edit character cards. |
| Personas editor | Build the personas you show up as in scenes. |
| Presets editor | Build AI behavior recipes — prompts + sampler settings. |
| Lorebooks editor | Build world-info books that activate by keyword or by AI selection. |
| Series | Group related characters, lorebooks, and presets into collections. |
| Regex scripts | Find-and-replace rules that clean up or reformat AI output. |
Configuration
| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Settings | Account, profile, accent color, notifications, recovery phrase backup. |
| Providers & Keys (BYOK) | Connect your own AI provider — OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, OpenRouter, NanoGPT, custom endpoints. |
| Models | Pick which models you actually want to see in the model picker. |
| Encryption | Recovery phrase, device pairing, the BYOK encryption that keeps your chats end-to-end encrypted. |
| Tier & Billing | Your tier, plan, and Premiere Theater access. |
Other RoleCall-only surfaces
- Docs — the pages you're reading right now
- Support — help requests
- Director's Notes — release notes and platform updates
- Admin tools (admin/super-admin only) — content review, user management, server config
What Lives in PlotLight
plotlightstudios.com is the creator + community half. Anything browseable, social, or about a creator's public presence happens here.
Discovery & browse surfaces
| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Discovery | Browse and search every published character, preset, lorebook, persona, and prompt across the platform. |
| Featured stages | Staff-curated picks and trending content. |
| Discovery filters | Tag-based, fandom-based, content-rating filtering across all 5 content types. |
The Discovery editor experience — picking a character, hitting Fork, landing it in your library — lives here. The chat experience picks up afterward in RoleCall.
Creator presence
| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Portfolio (Playbill) | Your public creator page. The thing someone sees when they tap your username. |
| Portfolio editor | Block-by-block editor for your portfolio — bio, pinned characters, curated carousels, featured work, links. |
| Portfolio viewer | The read-only public face of any creator's portfolio. |
Stage Whispers
The full Stage Whispers feed lives on PlotLight. Stage Whispers are standout AI messages users have hand-picked from their own chats and published to share.
| Surface | What it's there for |
|---|---|
| Whispers feed | The full scrolling feed of published whispers across the platform. |
| Whispers by character | All whispers tagged to a given character. |
| Whispers by tag | All whispers under a given theme tag. |
| My characters' whispers | Whispers from chats with characters you created. |
| Activity | What's happening with your whispers — likes, replies, mentions. |
| Liked | Whispers you've liked. |
| Flagged | Moderation triage for whispers you've reported. |
Moderation
The moderation control panel lives on PlotLight, because moderation is about public content — reports, queues, decisions. RoleCall used to host moderation; the page there now just bounces you to PlotLight.
| Surface | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Moderation queue | Reports you've filed and the actions taken on them. |
| Reporting flow | When you hit "Report" on a character, lorebook, preset, or whisper, the report is filed here. |
| Decision history | What moderators did with each report. |
PlotPoints (the model benchmark)
PlotLight hosts PlotPoints, the public benchmark scoring AI models on roleplay quality.
| Surface | What it's there for |
|---|---|
| Leaderboard | Live rankings of every model that's been benchmarked. |
| Rubric | The 11-axis scoring system — every dimension that goes into a model's score. |
| Methodology | How the benchmark works, what gets tested, how rounds are run. |
| Round detail | The chats and votes that produced each round's scores. |
| Author guide | How creators contribute to running and grading the benchmark. |
Blog
The RoleCall blog lives on PlotLight — release notes, deep-dives, creator interviews, platform updates that aren't just "the version bumped."
Side-by-Side: Where Do I Go For…?
The quickest mental model is this: doing things with a character → RoleCall. Finding, sharing, or showing off things → PlotLight.
| Task | App |
|---|---|
| Start a scene with a character | RoleCall |
| Run a group chat | RoleCall |
| Edit a character card | RoleCall |
| Edit a preset | RoleCall |
| Edit a lorebook | RoleCall |
| Edit a persona | RoleCall |
| Configure post-production | RoleCall |
| Manage Story Director modules | RoleCall |
| Open the Compendium | RoleCall |
| Run a Visual Novel scene | RoleCall |
| Connect an API key (BYOK) | RoleCall |
| Manage your recovery phrase | RoleCall |
| Browse Discovery | PlotLight |
| Search for a new character | PlotLight |
| Visit someone's portfolio | PlotLight |
| Edit your own portfolio | PlotLight |
| Publish a Stage Whisper | RoleCall (from inside a scene) |
| Scroll the Stage Whispers feed | PlotLight |
| Report someone's character | PlotLight |
| View your moderation queue | PlotLight |
| Look up a model's benchmark score | PlotLight |
| Read the blog | PlotLight |
| Read the docs | RoleCall |
A useful tell: anything that prompts the AI lives in RoleCall. Anything that's about people looking at things lives in PlotLight.
Single Sign-On — One Account, Both Apps
You don't need to sign in twice. The account is shared.
- Sign in on either app and your session is recognized on the other.
- When you click a link from one app to the other, RoleCall and PlotLight quietly hand off your session in the background. You arrive on the other domain already signed in.
- Your tier, your role, your library, your favorites, your portfolio data, your follows — all the same on both sides.
- Sign out on either app and you're signed out everywhere.
This handoff is invisible most of the time. The only place you'll notice it is when an external link (a Discord paste, a search result) sends you to a page on the other app — you might see a half-second flash as the session syncs before the page loads.
Navigation Between Them
Both apps have a quick link to the other right in their main navigation.
From RoleCall → PlotLight
The left-side dock in RoleCall has an entry labeled PlotLight (with a search icon). Tap it to open PlotLight in a new tab, signed in to the same account.
You'll also find direct links sprinkled throughout RoleCall:
- The Portfolio dock entry → your portfolio editor on PlotLight
- Any creator username (
@theatrix) anywhere on RoleCall → opens their portfolio on PlotLight - The Blog entry → the PlotLight blog
- The Discovery picker on character/preset/lorebook selection sheets → opens PlotLight Discovery
- The page at
/moderationon RoleCall just redirects you to PlotLight moderation — see below
From PlotLight → RoleCall
The PlotLight dock has an entry labeled RoleCall (with a chat icon). Tap it to jump back into the chat app — usually landing on your Scenes list.
You'll also find direct links throughout PlotLight:
- Any character's Start Chat button → opens a fresh scene on RoleCall
- The Sign In / Sign Up buttons → bounce to RoleCall's auth pages
- The Docs link → the RoleCall docs
- The Support link → RoleCall support
The Moderation Redirect
If you click an old link to rolecallstudios.com/moderation — say, from a Discord conversation last month, or from a settings shortcut — RoleCall will catch it and bounce you to plotlightstudios.com/moderation automatically. Moderation used to live in RoleCall; it moved to PlotLight when the split happened, and the redirect makes the move invisible to anyone with a stale link.
This same pattern protects a handful of moved routes — /discovery, /portfolio, /blog, and the moderation surfaces all 301-redirect from RoleCall to PlotLight. Old bookmarks, shared links, and OG previews still resolve.
What's Shared Between Them
The two apps are not two separate platforms with synced content. They are two viewing surfaces on the same database. Anything you create, fork, or favorite is immediately visible on both.
Shared automatically
| What | How it shows up on each side |
|---|---|
| Characters | Edited on RoleCall, browsable on PlotLight Discovery, displayed on portfolios. |
| Presets | Edited on RoleCall, browsable on PlotLight Discovery. |
| Lorebooks | Edited on RoleCall, browsable on PlotLight Discovery. |
| Personas | Edited on RoleCall, browsable on PlotLight Discovery. |
| Prompts | Edited on RoleCall, browsable on PlotLight Discovery. |
| Series | Created on RoleCall, displayed on portfolios. |
| Favorites | Hit Favorite anywhere, it's there everywhere. |
| Forks | Fork on PlotLight, the copy lands in your RoleCall library as a draft. |
| Profile | Your username, display name, avatar, bio — same on both apps. |
| Tier | Premiere tier on RoleCall = Premiere tier on PlotLight. |
| Roles | Admin, moderator, super_admin — recognized by both apps. |
| Whispers | Published from inside a RoleCall scene, displayed on the PlotLight Whispers feed. |
| Bans/suspensions | Enforced by both apps the moment they're applied. |
Library status on both sides
When you fork a character from PlotLight Discovery, that character lands in your RoleCall library as a draft. You finish editing it on RoleCall. When you flip the status to published, it instantly becomes visible on PlotLight Discovery. The same lifecycle (draft → private → published → archived) is enforced from both sides.
No syncing, no waiting, no manual republishing. The two apps see the same row in the same database.
What Happens ONLY in One App
Some surfaces have no presence on the other side at all. Knowing which is which saves you the "wait, where is this?" moment.
Only on RoleCall
- The scene UI itself — message rails, input dock, swipes, branches
- The model picker above the message box
- BYOK provider setup — your API keys are encrypted in your browser and never transit through PlotLight
- The recovery phrase flow
- Encryption / device pairing flows
- Story Director module configuration for a specific scene
- Compendium auto-generation and the AI librarian
- Post-Production configuration and per-message runs
- Character / preset / lorebook / persona editors (full editor experience)
- Visual Novel mode
- The chat-level AI — every model call that produces a reply
- Settings → providers / keys / encryption / models
- Whisper authoring — you publish a whisper from inside the chat that produced the message
Only on PlotLight
- The Discovery browse experience — the grid, the filters, the featured stage
- The portfolio editor — block-by-block layout, carousels, pins, themes
- Portfolio viewing — every public profile page
- The Stage Whispers feed UI — the social scroll, the tag pages, the activity surface
- Moderation control panel — reports, queues, decisions, history
- PlotPoints — the leaderboard, the rubric, the methodology pages
- The Blog
- The community signals at scale — trending content, what's hot this week, who's rising
In broad strokes: RoleCall is private and active. PlotLight is public and curated.
Where Do I Go When…?
A quick reference for common intents. Bookmark the page that lives in the app you're going to use most.
| I want to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Start chatting with the character I just forked | RoleCall → Scenes or Library |
| Find a new character to chat with | PlotLight → Discovery |
| Look up a creator I like | PlotLight → their portfolio |
| Show off my best characters | PlotLight → Portfolio editor |
| Set up my own API key | RoleCall → Settings → Providers |
| Backup or check my recovery phrase | RoleCall → Settings |
| Track a long campaign's relationships | RoleCall → Story Director (in the scene) |
| Publish a great AI reply I just got | RoleCall → the message's actions menu |
| Scroll funny / amazing AI replies from everyone | PlotLight → Stage Whispers feed |
| Report a character that has the wrong tags | PlotLight → that character's report button |
| Check what happened to a report I filed | PlotLight → Moderation |
| Compare AI models for roleplay quality | PlotLight → PlotPoints leaderboard |
| Read about a new platform feature | PlotLight → Blog |
| Read the help docs | RoleCall → Docs |
| Change my display name or avatar | Either app's Settings (they sync) |
| Switch personas mid-scene | RoleCall → scene rail |
| Edit a character card I made | RoleCall → Library → the character |
| Browse other people's lorebooks | PlotLight → Discovery → Lorebooks |
Why the Split Helps Both Halves
A few things get noticeably better because the apps are separate.
The chat app stays focused. The model picker, the input dock, the message rails, the immersion panels — none of them have to share screen real estate with a "trending creators" sidebar or a feed of strangers' messages. The scene is the only thing on the page.
The community surfaces get room to breathe. Discovery cards, portfolios, whisper feeds, and the leaderboard all want to be browsy — bright, generous spacing, lots of imagery. They get that on PlotLight without having to coexist with a dark chat interface.
The two apps can iterate independently. Big changes to Discovery don't risk breaking your active scene. Big changes to the scene don't reshuffle the Discovery page someone is bookmarking.
Search and SEO behave correctly. Public content (characters, portfolios, whispers, blog posts) lives on a domain optimized for being found, shared, and previewed in Discord and Twitter. Private content (your scenes, your settings, your keys) stays on a domain that doesn't expose anything publicly.
You don't need to think about any of this. But it's why opening a portfolio feels different from opening a scene, even though they're "the same site."
Mobile
The two-app split works the same way on mobile as on desktop — two separate domains, two bookmarks, one shared sign-in.
A few mobile-specific notes:
- Both apps are responsive. There is no separate native app yet.
- Adding both apps to your home screen is the easiest setup. Tap RoleCall for chat, tap PlotLight for browse. They install as two separate web apps.
- Cross-app links open in the same browser tab on mobile (unlike desktop, where some links open a new tab). The SSO handoff still works — you'll just see a flash as the session syncs.
- If you primarily use RoleCall, install just RoleCall. The PlotLight links from inside RoleCall will still open in your browser when you need them.
Two Apps, One Account: Mental Model
If you take only one thing away from this page:
Both apps see the same library. Each app shows it differently.
- A character you create on RoleCall is immediately visible on PlotLight Discovery (once you publish it).
- A character you fork on PlotLight is immediately editable in your RoleCall library.
- Your favorites, your tier, your portfolio, your bans, your follows — all shared, all the time.
The split isn't about content being in different places. It's about the experience being designed for the thing you're doing in that moment. Chatting is a different mode than browsing. Each gets its own room.
Quick Recap
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Where do I chat? | RoleCall — rolecallstudios.com |
| Where do I browse? | PlotLight — plotlightstudios.com |
| Do I sign in twice? | No. One account, both apps. |
| Is my library duplicated? | No. Same database, two viewing surfaces. |
| Where do I edit my characters? | RoleCall. |
| Where do I edit my portfolio? | PlotLight. |
| Where do I report bad content? | PlotLight. |
| Where do I publish a whisper? | RoleCall (from inside the scene that produced it). |
| Where do I read whispers? | PlotLight (the feed). |
| Where do I configure my API key? | RoleCall — and only RoleCall, ever. |
| Where do I check a model's benchmark score? | PlotLight → PlotPoints. |
| Where do I look at someone's portfolio? | PlotLight. |
| Where does the AI actually run? | RoleCall — every model call happens here. |
Welcome to the two-app theater. Curtain up — pick a room.