A ride-along pairs a practice roleplay with a coach who sits alongside the learner and offers a suggestion only when asked. The coach never appears as a character in the scene itself. It's the right format when your team is practicing a real conversation and wants coaching available without leaving the roleplay, as opposed to Standard (solo practice against a counterpart), Tutor (the AI teaches a skill directly), or Multipersona (two or three people who interact with each other and the learner).
Using the Tutor template is best for this roleplay. Avoid using the Pitch or Objection Handling template.
Here's how to set one up.
The isolation rule
The coach talks only to the learner and never acknowledges the roleplay persona, even if the learner tries to bring the two together. The roleplay persona never acknowledges the coach either.
If you're building a multi-persona roleplay instead (no coach, two or three people who all interact), skip this. Those personas should engage each other directly.
Generate a draft with a prompt
Yoodli's Builder can draft a ride-along for you. When you create a new roleplay, use the description field to describe what you want in plain language, and the AI will generate a first draft of the cast, Context, and goals for you to review.
Before you write your description, have these ready:
The conversation or skill you want your team to practice
Who the learner is: role and team
Who they're practicing with: the counterpart's role, situation, and what makes the conversation hard
The objections or pushback that counterpart should realistically raise
Any framework, talk track, or process your team already uses
What you want the coach to be an expert in
A sample description to adapt:
Build a two-role ride-along: a coach and a [counterpart role]. The learner is a [learner role] at [company or context] practicing [the conversation or skill]. The coach knows [framework or resource] and should introduce themselves briefly, then only offer a short suggestion when the learner asks, never talking to or acknowledging [counterpart]. [Counterpart] is [title, situation], worried about [their concern]. They should raise [first objection] first, and only move to [next objection] if the learner doesn't address it well, softening once the learner displays [what a strong response looks like]. Score the learner on two to four goals: [list them].
Paste this straight into Builder, or into your own AI tool first if you would rather iterate on the wording before bringing it into Yoodli. Either way, check what comes back against the isolation rule above and the field details below before assigning it to your team.
Setting it up manually
Describe Your Roleplay: Two to four sentences. State the skill being practiced and make clear this is a multi-persona ride-along.
Context: This is the field that actually drives behavior.
Open with this exact line, filled in with your role count: "You will be playing the following 2 roles:" (or 3). Don't paraphrase it.
Write one paragraph per persona, starting "As [Name], you are..."
Close the coach's paragraph with: "Interject only when the learner asks you a specific question. Do not acknowledge or interact with [roleplay persona] in any way."
Close the roleplay persona's paragraph with: "Do not acknowledge or interact with [coach] in any way, even if the learner speaks to [coach] directly."
Common mistakes
Paraphrasing the opening line
Giving the coach a personality that steps into the scene
Forgetting the isolation line
Writing coach guidance as a lecture instead of one short suggestion
Naming the persona inside a goal
Vague, subjective instructions like "be helpful"
Video tutorial here