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Orsen
2011-08-31, 12:22 AM
Hello everyone!
I'm soon going to be playing an Elf Ranger who focuses on archery. The group I'm playing with are all beginners, but I have a good five years under my belt. I only know one person in this group (the DM) and I don't want to rub anyone the wrong way, which is why I'm here to ask how does one roleplay a below average Charisma and not be a jerk.
I know my character has become an adventure to explore the world and see the sights so I was thinking of maybe having him just be a little over excitable, but I don't want him to be annoying. Possibly I could just play him as shy, or introverted and not very talkative.
Do most people even role play their mental ability scores?
Any help would be much appreciated!

Edit: The score is 8 if this influences anyone's ideas or suggestions.

GoblinArchmage
2011-08-31, 12:53 AM
I interpret Charisma as relating to one's social skills, so in my opinion a character with a low score would, as you already stated, be relatively shy or socially anxious while a character with a high score would be the opposite.

B!shop
2011-08-31, 02:10 AM
I always try to play my character's mental stats, and I've got a pair of them with low charisma.
One of them was rude and uneducated, and I played his low charisma as lack of empathy.
The other one was an arrogant noble, his low charisma representing his low opinion of other people.

By the way, 8 is not so low (assuming the average is 9-11).

Drachasor
2011-08-31, 02:23 AM
You don't need to roleplay it, necessarily.

Ever known someone that when they talk and you pay attention to them, it seems pretty normal, but when they are in a group they tend to be ignored. It doesn't matter how good their point is or whatever, people just tend to talk over them? That's someone with low charisma.

On the other hand, you could potentially play someone who stutters and is very shy, but when they start trying to talk everyone stops what they are doing and pays attention to the embarrassing display, and is moved positively by it.

Raistlin1040
2011-08-31, 02:27 AM
8 isn't really that bad at all. If you want to roleplay it, feel free, but you don't have to. That said, I'd suggest things like speaking quietly. If your allies are too loud, they'll miss out on what you have to say. I read somewhere that Charisma is, in many ways, "sense of self", so someone with lower Charisma might have lower self-esteem.

GolemsVoice
2011-08-31, 04:13 AM
As others said, having low Charisma can manifest in many ways, depending on your character's character. Low Charisma may be shyness, rudeness, lacking social skills, fear of people or just arrogance. Sometimes, low Charisma means your character acts in a way that doesn't endear him and his opinion to people, even if he may have good points, sometimes, low Charisma means what your character has to say just isn't heard, for example, because he stutters, or tends to avoid speaking at all.

prufock
2011-08-31, 07:18 AM
Lots of good suggestions here. I'll offer another: be a little insecure and uncertain of yourself. When people ask your opinion, advice, input - don't give a solid answer. Sort of mumble, use phrases like "well, maybe..." and "I'm not really sure...."

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 08:13 AM
(covering a lot of the same ground here, but hopefully compiling most of it into one post)

Most of the ability scores can represent a number of different things. Charisma can involve any number of the following:

Sense of self
Self-worth
Self-confidence
Self-respect
Physical appearance
Grooming
Build
Posture
How one holds oneself
How one presents oneself
Likeability
Ability to read others
Empathy
Ability to relate to others
Communication skills
General social skills
Ability to manipulate others
Ability to convince others
Strength of presence
Strength of personality
Ability to read and act correctly upon social cues
Knowledge of unwritten social rules
Annnnnnd so on.

The 8 Charisma of this particular character could represent a mild lack in any number of these.

I played one character once who was drop-dead gorgeous, basically an 18 or so Cha in terms of physical appearance - her grandmother was a succubus, after all - and a pretty strong personality. But on the other hand, she had PTSD, was somewhat unhinged, and had a lot of deep-seated insecurities. Thus her Charisma score evened out at about 14.

Do most people even role play their mental ability scores?I consider all ability scores extremely important to roleplay. The class tells us what they can do, religion and possibly alignment tell us what they believe in, but the ability scores tell us what they are.

Bearpunch
2011-08-31, 08:52 AM
Well, I am playing a Monk with low CHA in an upcoming 4e game, and my explanation is that he is both an Assassin (for highly complex story reasons) and he has taken a vow of silence. In his life of silence and solitude, he has lost several socail skills. He is essentially a character that overreacts negatively and doesnt know how to react positively.
If that makes sense.

Amphetryon
2011-08-31, 08:56 AM
Because an 8 is not especially low, you could choose to simply have your character not speak especially clearly. A heavy accent or a bit of a mumble, and your ability to communicate with the rest of the group is just affected enough to be an inconvenience.

Fallbot
2011-08-31, 09:20 AM
Whelp it's all been said already, but nope, low charisma doesn't have to mean jerkishness.

I played a character with 8 charisma who would mumble, stammer and prefix most sentences with "um...". Although I suppose that could be just as annoying as being over excitable if overdone. Just don't turn your character into a caricature and you'll be fine.

Prospector
2011-08-31, 09:29 AM
I recently created a low Cha character, 7, and am thinking of playing him rude and/or having a disfiguring scare on his face. Is this too much of a handicap or too little? What is appropriate for a 7?

Orsen
2011-08-31, 09:44 AM
(covering a lot of the same ground here, but hopefully compiling most of it into one post)

Most of the ability scores can represent a number of different things. Charisma can involve any number of the following:

Sense of self
Self-worth
Self-confidence
Self-respect
Physical appearance
Grooming
Build
Posture
How one holds oneself
How one presents oneself
Likeability
Ability to read others
Empathy
Ability to relate to others
Communication skills
General social skills
Ability to manipulate others
Ability to convince others
Strength of presence
Strength of personality
Ability to read and act correctly upon social cues
Knowledge of unwritten social rules
Annnnnnd so on.

The 8 Charisma of this particular character could represent a mild lack in any number of these.
Thanks for the list! I've bolded two that I think will let let me be a team player, and still show the low charisma.

Because an 8 is not especially low, you could choose to simply have your character not speak especially clearly. A heavy accent or a bit of a mumble, and your ability to communicate with the rest of the group is just affected enough to be an inconvenience.
I love the accent idea. Both of my favourite characters I've ever DM'd had accents and it made them so much fun to interact with.

Whelp it's all been said already, but nope, low charisma doesn't have to mean jerkishness.
I played a character with 8 charisma who would mumble, stammer and prefix most sentences with "um...". Although I suppose that could be just as annoying as being over excitable if overdone. Just don't turn your character into a caricature and you'll be fine.
I think what I made bold is the most important part in your post. I've also DM'd for someone who only had the ability to play caricatures and it resulted in characters that were no fun to interact with for anyone.
Thanks for the helpful advice everyone!

Amphetryon
2011-08-31, 09:52 AM
Just a note on the accent thing from personal experience:

A certain maturity level from your group is needed to pull this off, unless you're exceptionally good at the accents. Use of an accent in the wrong group can cause giggle fits or get everyone "competing" to use funny accents, which is often detrimental to the mood.

QuidEst
2011-08-31, 11:46 AM
Hmm… for low CHA, I might be tempted to go with Foot In Mouth Syndrome. give him lots of Freudian slips. You know, where you say one thing and mean your mother. I mean another! So he's talking to royalty and says "your face" instead of "your grace" before correcting himself.

A score of eight is just a -1. I would put that at "All right, once you get to know him." Still, showing new roleplays that it's good to roleplay their ability scores is good.

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 11:54 AM
Yeah, maybe "has to work harder for a good first impression".
I recently created a low Cha character, 7, and am thinking of playing him rude and/or having a disfiguring scare on his face. Is this too much of a handicap or too little? What is appropriate for a 7?This doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but perhaps a little two-dimensional. I'd recommend fleshing it out a bit, but it's certainly not bad.

Prospector
2011-08-31, 12:32 PM
This doesn't seem unreasonable to me, but perhaps a little two-dimensional. I'd recommend fleshing it out a bit, but it's certainly not bad.

I have a good backstory for him. To summarize he was raised among bandits, which aren't known for there manners. When he left it wasn't on good terms, which where the scar came from. He has never really dealt with 'normal' society, so he constantly is aggressive and blunt when dealing with people. He really has a good heart in-spite of how he was raised, but you got look past his glaring personality flaws. Does this sound like a good way to RP a Cha 7 character?

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 12:35 PM
So when you say "rude", you mean "never learned even the most basic of social graces" :smalltongue: Yep, that works for me.

Hiro Protagonest
2011-08-31, 12:47 PM
(covering a lot of the same ground here, but hopefully compiling most of it into one post)

Most of the ability scores can represent a number of different things. Charisma can involve any number of the following:

Sense of self
Self-worth
Self-confidence
Self-respect
Physical appearance
Grooming
Build
Posture
How one holds oneself
How one presents oneself
Likeability
Ability to read others
Empathy
Ability to relate to others
Communication skills
General social skills
Ability to manipulate others
Ability to convince others
Strength of presence
Strength of personality
Ability to read and act correctly upon social cues
Knowledge of unwritten social rules
Annnnnnd so on.

Bolded the ones that are actually based off wisdom. There might be more.

randomhero00
2011-08-31, 01:36 PM
No offense of course but I kind of laugh at this type of question OP. Almost all of us were awkward/low in charisma in high school and younger days, while not being jerks. Think of those days. (might help if you think of others rather than yourself)

Just misinterpret everything. If a pretty woman/man says you're funny, then you think he/she likes you and make appropriate awkward comments. And do the opposite of dating etiquette for your character/race/region.

If some guards say "Stand aside" you take it as a threat/challenge to your ego. (and then do what your character would do such as fight like if barbarian, or run probably if wizard.)

etc.

Dr.Epic
2011-08-31, 01:39 PM
Be socially awkward and don't always grasp the hidden meanings to what people say. Oh, and state the obvious like no one else is able to figure what we all know out.

McStabbington
2011-08-31, 02:57 PM
Yeah, but some of that is bleeding over into "roleplaying low wisdom" territory, especially not being able to see people's hidden meaning.

Part of the problem for you, I think, is distinguishing between how a person interacts with the world, and how effective they are at doing that. There are lots of different ways of playing a person whatever their charisma, and what they do to interact with the world is largely determined by their past and their present abilities. A solitary, brooding person might be that way because of some tragic backstory (if you're cliched), or because they grew up isolated even though now they have plenty of acquaintances, or because they just have a fondness for books and don't much care for human company. Their charisma, however, is a reflection of how much panache they have carrying it off: a solitary, brooding figure with a high charisma will be the kind of guy whom romance novels are built around, whereas a low charisma solitary, brooding figure is that somewhat off uncle who only speaks to ask you to pass the mustard and occasionally say something creepy at Thanksgiving.

In order to build a good character who happens to be a bit less charismatic than average, you also have to figure out what he can do and what, based on his past, he estimates that he can do. Let me give you an example.

My gaming group once played a group of Jedis from the first edition of the Star Wars d20 RPG. My character was a low-level scoundrel who then multied into Jedi Consular before prestiging into Jedi Master. One of the few Jedi who survived the purge picked him up and began training him at about the age of 11. In his own mind, he was given the chance to be somebody after escaping a lifetime of being just another orphan street rat making his living day to day in the slums of Corellia. So he was all about force mysteries and figuring out lost Jedi arts. By the end of the game, in fact, he had more skill points invested in being able to do force stuff than Master Yoda, and he had mastered not one but two different lightsaber combat styles (Type II and Type IV, if you're interested. So the same styles as Master Dooku and Yoda).

But it also manifested as a deep desire to prove that he was worth this saving, so despite the fact that his greatest asset was his mind and his ability to think through a problem (18 Int, 14 Wis; pretty good for a human), he often rushed headlong into danger he couldn't handle and spread his skill points too thinly to be more than 2nd or 3rd best at any force ability. Which of course just looped around and amplified his own inferiority complex as we gamed, because while nobody could do half as many things as he could, invariably there was someone in our group who could do what he could do but better. As a consequence, in retrospect I like to think of him as being one of my better roleplayed characters, since his charisma (12) more or less exactly matched how everyone else interacted with him: they saw him as someone who was solid, dependable and capable of doing most any mission, but also headstrong and prone to pushing himself into positions that called for a combat or diplomatic specialist, which my character was most certainly not.

GungHo
2011-08-31, 04:09 PM
I had a low charisma dwarf that cursed prodigiously. I don't mean funny Joe Pesci cursing... I mean to the level where it makes even a teenage boy uncomfortable. It probably didn't help that I'd just watched Deadwood.

Dr.Epic
2011-08-31, 04:17 PM
I had a low charisma dwarf that cursed prodigiously.

A low cha dwarf!? What's next? A half-orc barbarian with int as a dump stat?:smallwink:

Drachasor
2011-08-31, 04:19 PM
Low charisma doesn't really mean you are liked or disliked. It means that when you try to influence a social dynamic a particular way, then you aren't very good at it. Most typically, your efforts would get ignored or otherwise come to naught.

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 09:53 PM
Bolded the ones that are actually based off wisdom. There might be more.There can be overlap. For instance, there's often some overlap between Wisdom and Intelligence, or even Strength and Constitution. That's what roleplay is for.
Yes, you can put those things under Wisdom. But they work just as well under Charisma.

Side-note: I dislike it when people say things like (sorry Drachasor, you're just the last example) "charisma doesn't really mean...". Charisma can mean lots of different things. Low Charisma, as I said, can mean poor social skills or an uncanny knack to rub people the wrong way, or grumpiness. Saying it needs to be roleplayed a specific way, or cannot be roleplayed some other way, I think is needlessly and falsly confining.

Drachasor
2011-08-31, 11:06 PM
Side-note: I dislike it when people say things like (sorry Drachasor, you're just the last example) "charisma doesn't really mean...". Charisma can mean lots of different things. Low Charisma, as I said, can mean poor social skills or an uncanny knack to rub people the wrong way, or grumpiness. Saying it needs to be roleplayed a specific way, or cannot be roleplayed some other way, I think is needlessly and falsly confining.

It actually is really hard to rub people the wrong way, mechanically speaking. A Charisma of 8 requires that you roll a 6 or less if the target is unfriendly, and a 1 or less if they are better than that. Even a Charisma of 2 is only going to make someone who is already unfriendly hostile less than 50% of the time (compared to 25% of the time with average charisma). Assuming no ranks in diplomacy for either. And they'd need a 4 or less to lower the attitude of someone who started out better than unfriendly. The vast, vast majority of the possibilities is "no change."

Note that someone with no diplomacy and a Charisma if 6 (-2 penalty) makes someone who is unfriendly or indifferent have a better opinion of them on a 17 or higher. (17, 18, 19, or 20). They make that same person have a worse attitude on a 3 or lower (1, 2, 3) for someone indifferent. So in fact that have a better chance of improving the attitude of someone than worsening it for an indifferent person. There's a greater chance of worsening for someone unfriendly already (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 -- 20% vs. 35%).

So, from a purely mechanical standpoint, I'd say it is true that generally low charisma DOESN'T mean you rub people the wrong way. It really just means you have trouble influencing people the way you want to influence them. That's why your disguises don't work, and your intimidation isn't intimidating, etc, etc.

There's only a small truth to the "rubbing people the wrong way" idea.

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 11:26 PM
We're not talking about mechanics. We're talking about roleplay.

Drachasor
2011-08-31, 11:39 PM
We're not talking about mechanics. We're talking about roleplay.

Which are related to the mechanics. I mean, you can roleplay as someone with the strength of Hercules even with a 6 strength, but the mechanics won't back you up. Somewhat similarly, roleplaying as someone that always steps on people's toes is more or less independent of one's Charisma score. High charisma people are quite capable of regularly pissing everyone off...in fact they are really more capable at it.

Serpentine
2011-08-31, 11:44 PM
Ability scores represent the person's natural base characteristics. Skill ranks represent their training.
To combine our examples: a character whose slightly low Charisma represents their tendency to just accidentally rub people the wrong way but who has several ranks in Diplomacy has learned to use his words and reasoning to maneuver people past his slightly grating personality to actually listen to what he has to say.
That is one way to roleplay it. I'm sure there's plenty of others.

Berenger
2011-09-01, 09:36 AM
I'm going to play a palace guard / life guard with a lifelong training to talk only when asked, maintaining an expressionless face in almost any situation and remaining in the background as discretely as possibly in order to not interfere with the social life of the protected nobles, 16 hours a day. Since the most important social skills for that profession are not charisma based in the system in question (intelligence for etiquette, willpower for intimidate), would a charisma score of 6 (or even 4?) be justified by those characteristics alone? Or could a low charisma actually be an asset instead of a flaw for a person in such a profession?

Serpentine
2011-09-01, 11:15 AM
It could be justified. Particularly if he's internalised the training to put the needs and safety of the nobility above his own. And yes, if you take the "bland, unobtrusive, unnoticable, unremarkable" angle of low Charisma, it could arguably be a boon in that occupation - for mechanical representation, it will probably require just spending of skill points and/or negotiation with the DM. Maybe you could see if you can use a Hide check to just be unnoticable without actively trying not to be seen, for example.

Karoht
2011-09-06, 12:24 PM
Here is how a friend of mine plays it.
The lower a Charisma past 8, the more likely a character is to put a foot square into their mouth when they talk.

IE-Nice girl walks up. More likely to mention that she should shave her arm hair, less likely to say something nice to her.

If a bad thing can be said, a lower charisma makes you more likely to say it.