This survey explores the burgeoning field of role-playing with language models, focusing on their development from early persona-based models to advanced character-driven simulations facilitated by Large Language Models (LLMs). Initially confined to simple persona consistency due to limited model capabilities, role-playing tasks have now expanded to embrace complex character portrayals involving character consistency, behavioral alignment, and overall attractiveness. We provide a comprehensive taxonomy of the critical components in designing these systems, including data, models and alignment, agent architecture and evaluation. This survey not only outlines the current methodologies and challenges, such as managing dynamic personal profiles and achieving high-level persona consistency but also suggests avenues for future research in improving the depth and realism of role-playing applications. The goal is to guide future research by offering a structured overview of current methodologies and identifying potential areas for improvement. Related resources and papers are available at https://github.com/nuochenpku/Awesome-Role-Play-Papers.

翻译：本综述探讨了语言模型角色扮演这一新兴领域，重点追踪了其从早期基于人物设定的模型发展到由大语言模型（LLMs）驱动的先进角色驱动仿真的演进历程。早期由于模型能力有限，角色扮演任务主要局限于简单的人物一致性保持；如今，该领域已扩展至涵盖角色一致性、行为对齐与整体吸引力在内的复杂角色刻画。我们对设计此类系统的关键组成部分——包括数据、模型与对齐、智能体架构以及评估——提供了全面的分类梳理。本综述不仅概述了当前的方法论与挑战（例如管理动态人物档案和实现高层次的人物一致性），还指出了未来研究的潜在方向，以提升角色扮演应用的深度与真实感。其目标是通过对现有方法论进行结构化梳理并识别潜在的改进领域，为未来研究提供指引。相关资源与论文可在 https://github.com/nuochenpku/Awesome-Role-Play-Papers 获取。