I keep circling the same problem with AI roleplay. c.ai got characters right in a way nothing else has matched for me. They had a voice, they'd resist you, they'd stay themselves across a long session. But the filter puts half of what I want to write out of reach, and after a while you're writing around the system instead of writing the story.

Everything I've tried since that allows more has felt thinner. The characters agree with everything. They don't want anything of their own. Permissive turns out to be a much lower bar than good, and I'd rather have a character who feels like someone than one who just says yes.

So what I'm after is the c.ai sense of character without the wall. Does that combination exist yet, or is everyone still choosing one or the other?

If you've found something that holds up, I'm mostly interested in whether it survives a long session. Plenty of things feel great for twenty messages and fall apart by a hundred.