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slachance6
2016-11-25, 11:15 PM
Warning: wall of text ahead. Please bear with me.

At this point, any mention of the relationship or lack thereof between the Charisma stat and physical attractiveness opens up a can of worms. It's a hotly debated subject that's been around since the early days of D&D and is approaching the level of the alignment debate, so this post or thread probably isn't going to change anything. I just want to give my seemingly logical opinion and see what other people think. Overall, I believe that Charisma is best off as written and intended: an abstract amalgamation of multiple factors, with physical attractiveness being only one of these factors.

First of all, I think that people who do claim that Charisma is only a measure of physical appearance are not nearly as common as people think. In my experience, these people are usually new players that can understand the truth once it is explained to them. While those who claim that charisma has nothing to do with physical appearance are not nearly as wrong (in my opinion), they are far more common and more difficult to persuade. So here are a few of this group's common arguments and my counter-arguments as to why physical attractiveness represents one factor in the broad abstraction of Charisma.

The definition of Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness! Yes it does; the Oxford Dictionary defines it as "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others". And yes, your preferred dictionary or personal definition may differ, but so does D&D's version. If you look up "beholder" or "monk" in a dictionary it won't exactly coincide with D&D's version. Attractiveness is included in the umbrella that is Charisma because it doesn't belong anywhere else.

Charisma is a mental stat, not a physical one! Yes, it is overall influenced by mental factors more so than physical factors, but that doesn't mean that it can't have some physical components. Dexterity is a physical stat, even though hand-eye coordination and reflexes could be considered mental. And Perception could be considered physical, even though it keys off of a mental stat, Wisdom.

There are plenty of ugly monsters with high Charisma scores! Physical attractiveness is to Charisma as a square is to a rectangle. If you are physically attractive, you (probably) have high Charisma, but if you have high Charisma, you aren't necessarily physically attractive. I have yet to find a creature that is described as physically appealing that does not have a high Charisma score. Of course, it is possible to be attractive and have a low overall Charisma score if your social skills are truly terrible.

Physical beauty is too subjective to quantify! It's no more subjective than any other part of Charisma. Just as I might not find a certain type of look particularly appealing, I might not be convinced by a certain type of leader or entertained by a certain type of personality that everyone else seems to like. That's what dice rolls are for. If a celebrity that everyone else finds attractive or funny or entertaining isn't that to you, they still have a high Charisma score. They just failed their check against you.

Physical attraction is too trivial to be mechanically represented! To be fair, this is probably the strongest argument against attractiveness being related to Charisma, as genuine persuasion and inspiration gets you further than good looks in the long term. But it is true that physical and sexual attraction does play a significant part in most peoples' motivations, and attractive people do usually have an easier time getting their way. Look at the amount of time people spend talking about how good-looking other people are, how they go out of their way to impress people that they are attracted to, and heck, even the amount of time D&D players spend debating this topic! And in a world less advanced and sophisticated than out modern world (i.e. most D&D settings), this is even more true, since people are more desiring of carnal pleasures. In addition, the vast majority of modern celebrities, who are well-liked and therefore generally have high Charisma, are conventionally handsome or beautiful. Yes, there are plenty of unattractive but charismatic people out there, but if they looked better, their Charisma score would be even higher because more people would initially pay attention to them.

Things like sorcerer spellcasting have no reason to be governed by how pretty you are! Some arguments like this are relatively fair, although people still need to remember that physical appearance stands among many other factors, some of which could logically improve spellcasting. An even more interesting way to fix this, though, is to say that a high Charisma score is a by-product of sorcerous power, not the other way around. It could be defined as a constant, minor aura of enchantment that could even be flavored as supernatural beauty.

So, yeah, the Charisma stat has something, but not nothing and not everything, to do with physical attractiveness. I personally think that it's better off left as an abstraction, as it was written and intended. There are a couple of logical flaws, such as the fact that someone who is attractive should have an easier time dealing with people that are attracted to his/her sex. This could warrant a minor house rule of some kind; I actually made one for Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ty9h?My-Solution-to-the-Attractiveness-Issue-with#1) and posted it over on the Paizo forums, but since then I think I don't need to bother unless a debate arises around my table.

However, I think that adding a seventh stat is a terrible idea. I admire systems like GURPS that explicitly separate charisma and appearance and account for both mechanically, but trying to add something like that to D&D would be very clunky and completely unnecessary. First of all, if it's treated like the other six ability scores, it would be a universal dump stat, and players would have to envision ugly characters for the price of being optimized. Even if it is determined in a different way, justifying appearance it as an entire ability score would be very difficult, and it's not worth designing an intricate set of homebrew rules if it's better off included in the "Charisma" umbrella.

Congratulations for reading this far. What did you think of this overly long analysis? Those of you who still say that Charisma has nothing to do with appearance, what arguments did I miss? Do you have any house rules or other opinions in place?

Green Elf
2016-11-25, 11:28 PM
So, yeah, the Charisma stat has something, but not nothing and not everything, to do with physical attractiveness. I personally think that it's better off left as an abstraction, as it was written and intended. There are a couple of logical flaws, such as the fact that someone who is attractive should have an easier time dealing with people that are attracted to his/her sex. This could warrant a minor house rule of some kind; I actually made one for Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ty9h?My-Solution-to-the-Attractiveness-Issue-with#1) and posted it over on the Paizo forums, but since then I think I don't need to bother unless a debate arises around my table.

Congratulations for reading this far. What did you think of this overly long analysis? Those of you who still say that Charisma has nothing to do with appearance, what arguments did I miss? Do you have any house rules or other opinions in place?

I completely agree although something like an old ugly cleric probably wouldn't get any more followers of her had a better physical appearance. Also, I completely agree with it being a wall of text and it's probably the last post on the first page.

MarkVIIIMarc
2016-11-25, 11:34 PM
"the Charisma stat has something, but not nothing and not everything, to do with physical attractiveness. I personally think that it's better off left as an abstraction, as it was written and intended"

This I agree with. Using only 6 stats you are going to have some overlap.

The game makes several statements regarding force of personality. In real life I will say it is easier for a somewhat attractive person to gather followers.

I would think a butt repulsive Bard would have to overcome his/her physical appearance to woo a crowd but the CHA score for spellcasting is probably not affected much by her/his ugliness.

Amaril
2016-11-26, 12:13 AM
I do like the idea of a sorcerer's innate magic giving them an aura of enchantment that can manifest as physical beauty. One other explanation I've thought of for the "being pretty makes you good at magic" phenomenon is that sorcery is powered largely by self-confidence, and pretty people can have an easier time being confident in themselves (assuming they have high enough Wisdom to know how attractive they are).

JeenLeen
2016-11-26, 12:24 AM
I think the D&D 3.5 PHB refers to Charisma as primarily "force of personality" and conception of self as opposed to other beings. IIRC, all creatures have a Charisma score of at least 1, since otherwise they would not be able to differentiate between themselves and other beings or objects.

If that is taken as the base, and appearance just added as an additional factor, I think players can understand better what Charisma means in the context of a given game. (Of course, here I'm using 3.5 D&D, so the definition may differ game to game/edition.) I like adding the interpretation to Charisma -- although I believe this is an addition -- the concept that it mainly impacts one's beauty based on how one carries oneself: the degree of confidence, one's pose and posture, and how one relates to others. (This is mainly lifted from old World of Darkness and Scion.) Such might make players who argue that Charisma has no attachment to attractiveness more willing to accept attractiveness as one aspect.

Definitely agree that adding a 7th stat just clutters things up. I prefer it (house rules) to have players just say how pretty or not the character is, and it impacts little. They still to roll well to meaningfully impact others (Persuasion rolls, or whatever, governed by Charisma), so it makes something that should be fairly unimportant mechanically unimportant. Though this is probably too much in the "Physical attraction is too trivial to be mechanically represented!" camp for your tastes.

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-26, 12:47 AM
I always considered the idea that player characters looked however they liked overall.

If they had a low charisma, it could be explained by them being clumsy with their words and always saying the wrong thing, or being overall very meek. Think Simon Tam on Firefly. He was clumsy with his words, couldn't bluff to save his life, and constantly said the wrong thing to Kaylee, but as far as looks goes he was clearly quite attractive.

I have played in games where attractiveness was a stat, but the problem is that you then have a seventh stat, and it could easily be a dump stat if you count it with the rest. It discourages a character who is min maxing from even interacting with people in general if they are going to get a negative initial interaction. That's why we rolled the stat separately in our game, as opposed to rolling it with the rest of the stats.

Mastikator
2016-11-26, 01:12 AM
Unless you need to create an abstraction for physical attractiveness it is automatically fluff. It makes a great deal of sense to think that charisma and physical attractiveness are related but it's either unnecessary or should be explicitly stipulated. You should only model things that actually benefit from being modeled in the first place. This is why I think there should be fewer stats, and the remaining ones should be more specific.

Ravens_cry
2016-11-26, 04:39 AM
The way I see it, the player and (in games they have a say) GM decides what kind of mix their character has, because, for better or for worse, people are more likely to believe, follow, and listen more to people they consider to be physically attractive*. It isn't the whole picture, but it is part of it. So a character might use their exceptional beauty as a 'crutch' , or they might be a complete mug who, nonetheless, has a tongue that can follow a corkscrew, or somewhere in-between.
*My theory is that way back in Ye Olde Paleolithic people who were attractive were more likely to be well fed and free of debilitating disease, and therefore were a) good potential breeding partners and b)were knowledgeable in things that mattered, or had connections to those who did, and therefore were worth listening to.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-26, 04:51 AM
How do you even represent a subjective trait with an objective number?

If a person with 18 charisma in one culture goes to a different culture with completely different standards of beauty does their charisma score change? If you're talking to a person in the same culture who happens to value physical traits that differ from the cultural norm does your charisma score temporarily shift?

Anonymouswizard
2016-11-26, 06:00 AM
I always considered the idea that player characters looked however they liked overall.

If they had a low charisma, it could be explained by them being clumsy with their words and always saying the wrong thing, or being overall very meek. Think Simon Tam on Firefly. He was clumsy with his words, couldn't bluff to save his life, and constantly said the wrong thing to Kaylee, but as far as looks goes he was clearly quite attractive.

I agree with this. Because honestly, at the end of the day about 80% of the characters players make are the same level of 'attractive but not overly so' in my experience, with maybe the outlier who is an absolute stunner about once in a group. My current group has a character who assumes a generically attractive human form, one who goes from 'fairly attractive geek' to 'fairly attractive mountain of muscle' upon using his powers, my generically robotic robot, and one particularly attractive character (who gets extra bonuses when interacting with people specifically attracted to four armed purple chicks).

If looks need to be modelled I prefer to do it with feats/traits/aspects/whatever. In Chronicles of Darkness I would take the Striking Looks merit, in the Mistborn Adventure Game everyone gets something distinctive about their looks or mannerisms as a trait, and in Savage Worlds Attractive and Very Attractive are edges.


I have played in games where attractiveness was a stat, but the problem is that you then have a seventh stat, and it could easily be a dump stat if you count it with the rest. It discourages a character who is min maxing from even interacting with people in general if they are going to get a negative initial interaction. That's why we rolled the stat separately in our game, as opposed to rolling it with the rest of the stats.

Honestly, when I played GURPS nobody bought up Appearance even though it wasn't a full stat, but nobody dropped it either (our games include a lot of interacting with people). The problem was that, with all the other social skill boosts in the game, it just became redundant when it only affected about half the characters we met at full power. Sure, we'll stack Charisma until we're in the low teens, it's a mere five points per bonus rank in all our social skills (which adds up to so many saved points in our games that I generally put all my XP towards it), but physical appearance cost almost as much for half the benefit, there was no logical reason to buy it up.

PersonMan
2016-11-26, 06:19 AM
How do you even represent a subjective trait with an objective number?

If a person with 18 charisma in one culture goes to a different culture with completely different standards of beauty does their charisma score change? If you're talking to a person in the same culture who happens to value physical traits that differ from the cultural norm does your charisma score temporarily shift?

Couldn't you say the same about behavior, force of personality, etc. though?

"What if your assertive confident type goes to a culture where being assertive and confident is seen as rude? Does their score temporarily shift?"

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-26, 06:39 AM
Couldn't you say the same about behavior, force of personality, etc. though?

"What if your assertive confident type goes to a culture where being assertive and confident is seen as rude? Does their score temporarily shift?"

You can look at it as being able to fit in well with whatever the expected successful behaviour is. Sure there might be a transition period but if you spend enough time in that culture the high charisma person would probably have an easier time adapting to it.

PersonMan
2016-11-26, 07:16 AM
You can look at it as being able to fit in well with whatever the expected successful behaviour is. Sure there might be a transition period but if you spend enough time in that culture the high charisma person would probably have an easier time adapting to it.

So if you're in Culture A, and a man from Culture B, which you've never even heard of approaches you - do you have a lower Charisma then? You haven't had a chance to 'fit in'.

If you've just arrived in Culture B, do you have a lower Charisma until you learn to 'fit in'?

What if you don't want to fit in? If you're in a kobold den and don't want to learn kobold etiquette, is your Charisma lower?

Koo Rehtorb
2016-11-26, 07:32 AM
So if you're in Culture A, and a man from Culture B, which you've never even heard of approaches you - do you have a lower Charisma then? You haven't had a chance to 'fit in'.

If you've just arrived in Culture B, do you have a lower Charisma until you learn to 'fit in'?

What if you don't want to fit in? If you're in a kobold den and don't want to learn kobold etiquette, is your Charisma lower?

Charisma isn't the "everyone loves you no matter what you do" stat. In the case of totally alien cultures charisma can be represented as your ability to downplay your cultural ignorances and get along with them anyway. You can certainly choose not to exercise it, just like someone with high con can choose not to run everywhere all the time. But yes, if a 3 cha and an 18 cha character who both speak kobold try to make nice with a den of kobolds the 18 cha guy will probably have better results, all other things being equal.

Both the 3 and 18 charisma people can certainly have social troubles in foreign cultures, but all other things being equal the 18 cha person should make a much better job of it because "the ability to develop and use social skills" extends beyond cultural norms whereas physical attractiveness doesn't.

Cluedrew
2016-11-26, 08:17 AM
One definition of Charisma that I liked for this context is that charisma is the "otherness" you can see in a person. Or put a different way it is the undefinable trait you can notice but never put your finger on. Its almost like magic.

Anyways, I once had a character who's pseudo-charisma stat (not D&D) I described as reputation. In other words it was mostly due to the character's reputation they had built up as part of their backstory and not their own people skills. To me stats describe how able a character is in an area (because that's what the numbers are used for) and although this usually flows from certain character traits it is does not always flow from the same ones. So separating charisma from people skills as well, in a rare corner case.

Anonymouswizard
2016-11-26, 08:19 AM
So if you're in Culture A, and a man from Culture B, which you've never even heard of approaches you - do you have a lower Charisma then? You haven't had a chance to 'fit in'.

If you've just arrived in Culture B, do you have a lower Charisma until you learn to 'fit in'?

What if you don't want to fit in? If you're in a kobold den and don't want to learn kobold etiquette, is your Charisma lower?

Situational modifiers. Meet someone from an unfamiliar culture with different rules of etiquette? -2 modifier. Go to their culture without learning the rules? -2 modifier. Learn the rules but decide you don't want to follow them? -2 modifier.

Conversely, them finding you attractive is worth a +2 modifier. Flattery may also be worth one.

The standard 3.5 +2/-2 modifier is incredibly useful, especially once you allow stacking. So you go to talk to a kobold in the den of kobolds, but you only have a shaky grasp of their language, are ignorant of their culture, and you killed the chief's brother? that's a (-2)+(-2)+(-2)=-6 modifier to your roll due to all these circumstances that 'lower' your charisma while applied.

Yes, I know it's not technically what you mean, but if we assume the Charisma reflects a character's ability to get along with people in their home culture we can just start using cross-cultural modifiers.

slachance6
2016-11-26, 08:39 AM
You can look at it as being able to fit in well with whatever the expected successful behaviour is. Sure there might be a transition period but if you spend enough time in that culture the high charisma person would probably have an easier time adapting to it.

And even then, I don't think you necessary need to "fit in" to be charismatic in a foreign environment. People are naturally curious of outsiders, so if this outsider seems comely or trustworthy rather than suspicious, he or she will attract positive attention and probably won't have much of a problem interacting in an unknown environment. Yes, there are some exceptions, but this is probably true in most civilized cultures.

lelrekt2142
2016-11-26, 08:48 AM
I
Honestly, when I played GURPS nobody bought up Appearance even though it wasn't a full stat, but nobody dropped it either (our games include a lot of interacting with people). The problem was that, with all the other social skill boosts in the game, it just became redundant when it only affected about half the characters we met at full power. Sure, we'll stack Charisma until we're in the low teens, it's a mere five points per bonus rank in all our social skills (which adds up to so many saved points in our games that I generally put all my XP towards it), but physical appearance cost almost as much for half the benefit, there was no logical reason to buy it up.

Ehh... I don't know about this. Very Handsome/Beautiful costs about the same as Charisma 3, and the former gives a +6/+2 bonus depending on whether the person is attracted to your sex while the latter gives only a flat +3. Yes, Charisma boosts a few more skills, but once you take into account that someone who took a good appearance is probably going to be interacting with the opposite gender and using Sex Appeal more often, I think it's balanced enough.

Besides, I'm not saying you're playing the game wrong, but I personally don't really see why people play optimization-heavy GURPS at all. I love the system to death, but it's not exceptionally well-balanced. The strength of at least its character creation system is that you can stat up any character you can imagine with extreme accuracy to what you visualized. If you imagined your character as attractive, then take an Attractiveness advantage. The basic level is only 4 points. When I run games, I don't even set a strict point limit; I just set a ballpark and make sure no character will completely outshine another.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-26, 10:44 AM
How do you even represent a subjective trait with an objective number?

If a person with 18 charisma in one culture goes to a different culture with completely different standards of beauty does their charisma score change? If you're talking to a person in the same culture who happens to value physical traits that differ from the cultural norm does your charisma score temporarily shift?

Interestingly enough, this was modeled in earlier editions of D&D. Dwarves and Half-orcs, notably, had caps on their charisma, but it was noted that those caps did not apply to members of their own race... so, if you rolled an 18 Charisma for your half-orc, you'd actually have a 12, but your orc and half-orc henchmen would consider you to have an 18. That meant you could have 5 non-orcish henchmen, and they'd have no adjustments to their loyalty, but on top of that, you could have 10 orcish henchmen, who'd get a +40% loyalty adjustment. In fact, given that you also got a +35% reaction adjustment from orcs and half-orcs, you might find yourself with 15 henchmen of that nature, all of whom would be very loyal.

Of course, Hackmaster has an explicit "Looks" stat, which directly interacts with Charisma. At character creation, Looks adds +/-6 points to your Charisma. After character creation, modifications to your Looks score has a 1:1 effect on your Charisma. Gain a point of Looks? You gain a point of Charisma. Lose a point of Looks? You lose a point of Charisma. The rationale is that pretty people get taken better in a lot of things... you might actually have the personality of Mud, but if you're pretty, people listen to you and like you more.

Ravens_cry
2016-11-26, 03:56 PM
Unearthed Arcana in AD&D (first edition at least, never seen UA 2nd edition) had an optional comeliness stat. It was . . . wrong, oh so very wrong. For example, you could be soooo ugly, that evil people would be attracted to you. Because evil people are well known for not being judgemental about personal appearance.

The Insanity
2016-11-26, 06:42 PM
First off, Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness because neither polymorphing nor body swaping changes your Charisma.
Second off, attractiveness doesn't come from Charisma. It's the other way around, attractiveness makes you more likely to be charismatic.

Squiddish
2016-11-26, 07:39 PM
First off, Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness because neither polymorphing nor body swaping changes your Charisma.
Second off, attractiveness doesn't come from Charisma. It's the other way around, attractiveness makes you more likely to be charismatic.

You just contradicted yourself.

The Insanity
2016-11-26, 09:43 PM
I don't see a contradiction.

Martin Greywolf
2016-11-27, 04:20 AM
1) This doesn't belong in generic RPG subthread, as it is a DnD-centric thing. Other games (FATE, for one) handle this way, way better.

2) Appearance can't be a stat by normal definition

You can't add it to normal 6 stats because it messes up normal mechanics something fierce, and compensating for it is vastly more complex than people assume. You have 6 stats, your roll for them and assign rolls - adding one stat that mechanically does very little makes average of the 6 useful stats better. Same with point buy, give more points out and people WILL put them into something that benefits them from mechanical standpoint.

If you make attractiveness useful, you need to overhaul a lot of bonuses to skills and class features, and most of them won't be that easy to shoehorn into attractiveness (casting levels, paladin bonuses, etc).

So no, you can't make this into a stat.

3) Pseudostats are bad

If you make it a stat you roll for outside of normal ones, then why? It's just... it adds unnecessary bookkeeping, it clutters the rules (this is a stat, but not really) and so on.

Another problem is that players often play to get wish fulfilment, and banning them from looking good is... not a great idea. Some don't really care, and for those, this stat may as well not exist, so it's, again, not necessary.

4) There are better ways to do this

If someone wants to play pretty or ugly person, just use free feat to cover it. You don't even have to write it up all that well, just +2/-2 to rolls where applicable (pretty rogue seducing a clueless guard - yes; busty chainmail-bikini-clad woman in culture that has feudal Japanese beauty standards - no). That way you can adjudicate on a case-to-case basis and still have a mechanical effect, and it is handled by mechanic that is already present.

veti
2016-11-27, 03:08 PM
Self-confidence is an important part of charisma, regardless of context.

Someone who is considered attractive within their "home" culture is likely to grow up with greater self-confidence, than someone who is considered ugly or deformed.

Ergo, there is a positive connection between the character's charisma and their appearance as judged by their home culture, i.e. the culture in which they grew up.

KnightOfV
2016-11-27, 03:46 PM
Always found physical attractiveness to be a fluff choice, not a game mechanic. Like hair color, or weight. A Charismatic character CAN be attractive, or not, but either way people are wired to like confidence and social power even over physical appearance. An uncharasmatic character can get unwanted attention from their looks as they don't have the force of personality to control social interactions. Paladins, Sorcerers, and Dragons all command respect and awe from mortals, monsters, and gods=high CHA. Handsome but personality-lacking elf fighters and beautiful tavern maids just get a lot of annoying people of the opposite sex bothering them all the time=low CHA.

Attractive character with low Charisma: "I try to get information from the guard." He wants to take you home and have your children, and he is flirting with you non-stop... also he refuses to tell you anything about his boss.

Unattractive character with high Charisma: "I try to get information from the guard." You talk with an air of authority and professionalism directing the conversation where you want, and before the guard even realizes it, he's let it slip that there are rumors that his boss has connections with the assassins' guild"


Attractive character with low Charisma: "I enter the tavern." The women are all swooning at the sight of you, whispering and winking at you, but the tavern keeper rolls his eyes at 'the pretty boy' and ignores you when you ask for a drink. When you actually try flirting with a girl, you get laughed at for your awkward pickup lines and rejected.

Unattractive character with high Charisma: "I enter the tavern." There is a pause as you walk in as everyone stops what they are doing to watch you enter wondering who you are. The tavern keeper thinks you have the air of someone important, and hands you his finest ale, 'compliments of the house.' When you flirt with the prettiest girl in the bar, she feels a deep connection and talks to you all night.

Stormwalker
2016-11-27, 06:38 PM
As I see it, your Charisma score is the sum total of your physical attractiveness and your force of personality. How to divide up those two factors is solely up to the player of the character in question, as it's basically the fluff to go with the game mechanics of your attribute.

Joe the Rat
2016-11-28, 12:18 PM
Having a high charisma can make you more likeable, if you wish.
Having a high charisma can make you the center of attention, if you wish.
Having a high charisma can make you more feared, or hated, if you wish.
Having a high charisma can make you blend into a crowd, if you wish.

Low charisma can have these things happen, but you have less control over the outcomes. High Charisma Fugly? Fear and avoidance is easy, but you can turn on the charm and be engaging. Low Charisma Hottie? You can get a lot of attention, probably more than you want, and not necessarily the kind that you want, and you don't really know how to use it to your advantage.

Charisma is the ability to influence others, and control how you are seen.

Attractiveness feeds into the first impression, which is a big deal. Putting points into Sartiorial Awareness can help quite a bit.


First off, Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness because neither polymorphing nor body swaping changes your Charisma.
Second off, attractiveness doesn't come from Charisma. It's the other way around, attractiveness makes you more likely to be charismatic.


You just contradicted yourself.


I don't see a contradiction.

The first statement says Charisma and Attractiveness are unrelated, as changing appearance does not change Charisma. No association.
The second statement says Attractiveness contributes to Charisma, meaning that changing appearance would change Charisma. A causal association.

Max_Killjoy
2016-11-28, 12:42 PM
I'd surmise that the real reason Sorcerers are "Powered by Charisma" is that Intelligence and Wisdom were already taken.

Hawkstar
2016-11-28, 01:43 PM
Couldn't you say the same about behavior, force of personality, etc. though?

"What if your assertive confident type goes to a culture where being assertive and confident is seen as rude? Does their score temporarily shift?"Even complete jerks can have high charisma. It's all about the style, baby.

People get the relationship between Charisma and Appearance backward.

The Insanity
2016-11-28, 01:58 PM
The second statement says Attractiveness contributes to Charisma, meaning that changing appearance would change Charisma. A causal association.
That's not what I said. What I said is that attractiveness can cause higher Charisma.

Joe the Rat
2016-11-28, 02:33 PM
Yes, a causal association. which directly contradicts the first statement (shape doesn't matter).

The Insanity
2016-11-29, 02:08 AM
You're right. I communicated that poorly. Just ignore the second statement.

LibraryOgre
2016-11-29, 11:56 AM
1) This doesn't belong in generic RPG subthread, as it is a DnD-centric thing. Other games (FATE, for one) handle this way, way better.

Yes, but it applies across multiple editions of D&D, and to several D&D offshoots.


2) Appearance can't be a stat by normal definition

You can't add it to normal 6 stats because it messes up normal mechanics something fierce, and compensating for it is vastly more complex than people assume. You have 6 stats, your roll for them and assign rolls - adding one stat that mechanically does very little makes average of the 6 useful stats better. Same with point buy, give more points out and people WILL put them into something that benefits them from mechanical standpoint.

If you make attractiveness useful, you need to overhaul a lot of bonuses to skills and class features, and most of them won't be that easy to shoehorn into attractiveness (casting levels, paladin bonuses, etc).

So no, you can't make this into a stat.

Disagree, because other games have done it. Again, I point to Hackmaster. Looks provides a direct modifier to Charisma at character creation, as well as modifiers to Honor and Fame (i.e. if you're pretty, people know about you and respond to you more positively; really ugly can also get you a bit of early Fame). Looks also plays a part in social skills, being a relevant ability in two different skills. OWoD includes Appearance as one of the nine attributes, to be freely matched with your skills as the situation warrants. Palladium's Physical Beauty stat doesn't do much, but that's because none of their stats do much, and what PB's Charm/Impress percentage does isn't defined. Ever. In like 30 years. Heck, Skills and Powers for 2e broke Charisma into Leadership and Appearance... Leadership affected your Maximum number of Henchman and your Loyalty modifier, while Appearance was for your Reaction adjustment. Pretty but low Leadership? You'll do well in casual encounters, but have few long-term allies, and they'll be less loyal. High Leadership, low Appearance? You don't make a good first impression, but you have close allies who are loyal to you.

Your "You can't have Looks as a stat because you have to change too much" only applies if you're adding Looks as a post-facto addition to the game. If you design the game to include it, then it's a lot less of a problem.



3) Pseudostats are bad

If you make it a stat you roll for outside of normal ones, then why? It's just... it adds unnecessary bookkeeping, it clutters the rules (this is a stat, but not really) and so on.

Another problem is that players often play to get wish fulfilment, and banning them from looking good is... not a great idea. Some don't really care, and for those, this stat may as well not exist, so it's, again, not necessary.

I'd reference the Attractive/Very Attractive Edge from Savage Worlds. IF you have the Attractive edge, you get a +2 to the pseudo-stat Charisma, which plays directly into related skill rolls. You're not banned from being attractive... you can even describe yourself as pretty or handsome or whatever. But if you want those to have a game effect, you take the Edge to get that effect.



4) There are better ways to do this

If someone wants to play pretty or ugly person, just use free feat to cover it. You don't even have to write it up all that well, just +2/-2 to rolls where applicable (pretty rogue seducing a clueless guard - yes; busty chainmail-bikini-clad woman in culture that has feudal Japanese beauty standards - no). That way you can adjudicate on a case-to-case basis and still have a mechanical effect, and it is handled by mechanic that is already present.

Which is a workable solution in 3.x, and is similar to stuff that's been done in Fallout... a perk that gives you a bonus to interaction with certain people. But AD&D Charisma explicitly includes physical attractiveness as part of the consideration in every edition I'm familiar with. It's not the only component, but it is a component.

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-29, 01:19 PM
I'd reference the Attractive/Very Attractive Edge from Savage Worlds. IF you have the Attractive edge, you get a +2 to the pseudo-stat Charisma, which plays directly into related skill rolls. You're not banned from being attractive... you can even describe yourself as pretty or handsome or whatever. But if you want those to have a game effect, you take the Edge to get that effect.


This is the sort of thing that works better in my opinion. Generally a persons looks don't matter too much for a world like a D&D game unless they are excessively attractive or excessively ugly, so adding traits for those two are a much simpler and less game affecting addition than adding a stat, and thus a spectrum.

The traits list for Pathfinder adds "Charming" which adds the effect you would expect for being particularly attractive. In Deadlands there was a Perk called "Purty" which had a similar effect, while having a drawback called "Ugly as sin".

A feat or trait is a lot less of a commitment towards editing the game system than a whole new stat.

Knaight
2016-11-29, 02:00 PM
Your "You can't have Looks as a stat because you have to change too much" only applies if you're adding Looks as a post-facto addition to the game. If you design the game to include it, then it's a lot less of a problem.

Well yeah. You're also outside the situation of having a standard six, normal mechanics, etc. at that point anyways, so it no longer applies. Within the context of default attributes though there are relatively few games which make it easy to just add one without worrying about it. Fudge is the only one that comes to mind, and that's because it was deliberately designed without a default such that any set could be plugged in.

Moving back to the modification case, it's a fair amount of work for fairly little return. There's also the small matter of it not even being one of the more egregious ways traits were condensed into attributes. Wisdom covering perception is a much bigger oddity, and that's before getting into the physical stats.

The Fury
2016-11-30, 06:57 PM
There have been a few characters I've encountered that were exceptionally rude or otherwise unpleasant. When I reacted unfavorably in character, their players were quick to point out "My character has a high Charisma! You're inclined to like them!"

Considering everything, the characters being really good-looking is the only way I could mentally justify their high Charisma.

Max_Killjoy
2016-11-30, 07:10 PM
There have been a few characters I've encountered that were exceptionally rude or otherwise unpleasant. When I reacted unfavorably in character, their players were quick to point out "My character has a high Charisma! You're inclined to like them!"

Considering everything, the characters being really good-looking is the only way I could mentally justify their high Charisma.


Sounds like you've encountered what are, to speak plainly, bad players.

The Fury
2016-11-30, 07:23 PM
Sounds like you've encountered what are, to speak plainly, bad players.

If you decide you want to play tabletop RPGs, bad players are an occupational hazard.

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-01, 11:26 AM
There have been a few characters I've encountered that were exceptionally rude or otherwise unpleasant. When I reacted unfavorably in character, their players were quick to point out "My character has a high Charisma! You're inclined to like them!"

Considering everything, the characters being really good-looking is the only way I could mentally justify their high Charisma.

Just because someone has high charisma, doesn't make them likeable necessarily. What's more, if the person with high charisma is not making any sort of EFFORT to be likeable, they aren't going to be likeable. Even if they are trying to be likeable, if they aren't "aiming" for certain people it can backfire. Trying to make yourself likeable to a elf won't win you points with the orc sitting nearby.

Hunter Noventa
2016-12-01, 01:20 PM
The one time we tried out some kind of Comliness stat in 3.5, we had it as a derived stat. That is, it was the average of your best physical stat (that being the one that would most represent your body type generally) and your Charisma (there's is an aspect of knowing how to present yourself as attractive that's a mental base) and the bonus it provided only really affected social rolls with those who would find your race/gender combo attractive.

It wasn't bad, but it didn't feel like it added much of anything to the game.

wumpus
2016-12-01, 03:29 PM
Except this isn't only breaking Charisma vs. looks. If you only have 6 attributes, the rules are going to lump *everything* into one of those 6 attributes. Does strength refer to single rep strength or to "power produced over the course of a day"? Answer: both. And clearly spelled out in the encumbrance rules, regardless of the issue that maximizing one limits your abilities in the other (which certainly isn't true with charisma).

What "intelligence" means is equally questionable. Traveller broke out "intelligence" and "education" (citizens of the Galactic Empire tend to be better educated that those from the Sword Coast). But Traveller doesn't bother with wisdom.

So you are pretty much stuck with trying to remember how you defined each attribute and playing the game accordingly, or lumping them all together. And while I've seen rules state that various scores may imply characters are good at some 'attribute' tasks and poorly at others, expect any "attribute based roll" to cover all possible attribute traits.

So high charisma characters "look good". Part of this might not be due to physical characteristics matching racial ideals, but simply the mind sorting the high charisma character to those who do look good thanks to the personal presence. But in any roll about looks, you are going to either use the charisma score or have to kludge up a "comeliness trait".

Luccan
2016-12-02, 01:10 AM
Pretty much agree. Definitely don't set apart Charisma and physical attractiveness as separate stats for D&D. If you do that, you might as well make a Perception stat and put dexterity's effect on aiming and Wisdom's effect on listening and spotting into it. Also, just because your wise doesn't mean you have a lot of willpower. Now we need a Will stat, though its only purpose will be being a Will save. Come to think, just because you can take more punches doesn't mean you're less predisposed to illness, so now that needs to be separate from Consitution. And are intelligence and how much your character knows really the same... And so on.

This is why we have skills, separate save scores for different classes and racial bonuses to certain things. The attributes have to be rolled together, otherwise you'll have a hundred stats that'll be a pain to keep track of. So yeah, maybe your scarred, gruff rogue has an insane amount of personal magnetism. Maybe your sorcerer's a stupid jerk, but he's pretty and knows how to talk to people. Abe Lincoln was considered ugly, yet many people thought he was incredible to listen to and found him very charming. Some even thought his looks gave him more "character" rather than just making him a person they wanted to avoid. Its actually pretty cool to be able to define a number of different characteristics with a stat

Dellis
2016-12-02, 02:28 AM
How do you even represent a subjective trait with an objective number?

If a person with 18 charisma in one culture goes to a different culture with completely different standards of beauty does their charisma score change? If you're talking to a person in the same culture who happens to value physical traits that differ from the cultural norm does your charisma score temporarily shift?


Couldn't you say the same about behavior, force of personality, etc. though?

"What if your assertive confident type goes to a culture where being assertive and confident is seen as rude? Does their score temporarily shift?"


You can look at it as being able to fit in well with whatever the expected successful behaviour is. Sure there might be a transition period but if you spend enough time in that culture the high charisma person would probably have an easier time adapting to it.


So if you're in Culture A, and a man from Culture B, which you've never even heard of approaches you - do you have a lower Charisma then? You haven't had a chance to 'fit in'.

If you've just arrived in Culture B, do you have a lower Charisma until you learn to 'fit in'?

What if you don't want to fit in? If you're in a kobold den and don't want to learn kobold etiquette, is your Charisma lower?

I'd represent all those situations as maluses to social interaction rolls, not as charisma drains. Sure, if we say beauty is a part of charisma, that part of charisma goes away no ifs and no buts if you're speaking to, let's say, aboleths, which might justify a Charisma loss (depending on how important is beauty to that character's Charisma, being it in hypothesis a concurrence of multiple factors). That's not in the rules though, so I'd say malus to the roll, and justify simply positing that a character with a high Charisma mandatorily has all the sleeve of different factors to the max, so speaking with someone who isn't attracted to him physically isn't that much of a loss to his charisma score that it justifies charisma loss, since he doesn't lose, let's say, his ability to enchant with words said aboleth. Simply put, there would be no characters with high charisma due to beauty alone.

Or, if that seems convoluted or too restrictive to you, you might simply say that Charisma represents your ability to attract the other's attention, distinguish yourself and interact with others IN NORMAL CONDITIONS, with people who might appreciate your traits and of your same race and who have your same societal norms. Going outside those bounds (speaking with aboleths) SHOULD make your charisma drop for the purposes of that interaction, but due to various system headaches if that were to happen, the game chooses to represent it with maluses to the roll.

(I know, the correct wording is "mali" to the roll, but I'm going for clarity here.)

Knaight
2016-12-02, 02:44 AM
This is why we have skills, separate save scores for different classes and racial bonuses to certain things. The attributes have to be rolled together, otherwise you'll have a hundred stats that'll be a pain to keep track of. So yeah, maybe your scarred, gruff rogue has an insane amount of personal magnetism. Maybe your sorcerer's a stupid jerk, but he's pretty and knows how to talk to people. Abe Lincoln was considered ugly, yet many people thought he was incredible to listen to and found him very charming. Some even thought his looks gave him more "character" rather than just making him a person they wanted to avoid. Its actually pretty cool to be able to define a number of different characteristics with a stat

If attributes are in use then they are going to have to be conglomerates of traits. With that said there's no reason to think that the current set of conglomerates is necessarily the best for the job*. Even for the physical stats its a bit odd - strength covering both capacity to exert strength on the outside world in absolute terms and capacity to move in difficult ways is bizarre, and leads to having to constantly give skill bonuses around to cover things like how while smaller creatures are generally weaker they aren't worse climbers or jumpers (and vice versa for larger ones). Meanwhile dexterity also covers some of the moving in difficult ways, along with fine motor skills and reflexes. Constitution covers stamina, wound resistance, and general health, which have not a lot to do with each other. Keeping three attributes these could easily be compiled into something like Brawn (the parts of strength involving exerting strength on the outside world, wound resistance, poison resistance), Athleticism (the parts of strength involving movement, stamina, disease resistance, the parts of dexterity involving gross motor skills), and Coordination (reflexes, fine motor skills). The exact same argument about how you could justify different combinations of linked traits apply here, the exact same bit about how it's cool to be able to define a number of different characteristics with a stat apply here, etc. Much the same thing could be done with the mental stats, and I'd argue they need it more.


*Things like the focus of the game, the assumed range of characters, the milieu of the setting, and others are all really relevant to how these are made. While D&D likes to pretend to be generic it's pretty specialized towards fantasy games that follow a party of adventurers who may or may not have some number of followers and who dramatically grow in personal power at their various specialized roles as explorers who get in a lot of fights while navigating a lot of hostile territory. The set of attributes relevant to this are going to be somewhat different than the set of attributes relevant to a game about space colonists trying to protect and grow their society on a planet that's only marginally suited to earth life. The whole idea of a single best set of attributes can be written off entirely, and it's probably best to explicitly note that head of time.

Martin Greywolf
2016-12-02, 10:41 AM
If you're adding appearance to already-existing system, I stand by what I said: too much effort, and there are better ways to do it.

If you're designing a game system from scratch around it, and want to make it part of your stats, then why not, go nuts. But. Mechanics of your world aren't without meaning, and you really need to think about what they say about your game. Making appearance a major stat makes it clear that how you look is very important in your setting, and ugly people are objectively worse than pretty people.

Now, that doesn't make for a bad system by itself, but you need to be aware of it, or you'll end up with FATAL - well, maybe not quite that badly, but there will be unfortunate implications all over your system. Even what skills have attractiveness and what skills have charisma as their main stat can be a bit questionable.

One last thing to consider - unlike any other stat, appearance can't be increased with just pure effort. You can get stronger (pushups), tougher (pushups in winter) or more charismatic (pushups... actually no, maybe attend a seminar on public speaking instead?), but for appearance? You kinda need at least some make-up at best (plastic surgery or polymorph at worst) to change that.

Segev
2016-12-02, 11:04 AM
I think it sufficient to say that Charisma can be due (at least in part) to being physically attractive, but need not.

In a game I ran, a player used a wish to "be prettier than [her] (half-fey templated) sisters." (She lacked the template due to taking more after her dad.) Mainly because the party was taking too long and starting to annoy the efreeti bound to grant them their wishes, so she used up the last one on something selfish to put an end to it. The efreeti, grateful to have the task over with, granted it straight-forwardly: she became quite beautiful. Mechanically, I ruled this was a +1 inherent bonus to Charisma. It seemed easiest and was on the list of "safe" wishes, and fit both letter and spirit of her wish.

lelrekt2142
2016-12-06, 05:01 PM
There have been a few characters I've encountered that were exceptionally rude or otherwise unpleasant. When I reacted unfavorably in character, their players were quick to point out "My character has a high Charisma! You're inclined to like them!"

Yeah, another big problem is when charismatic PCs can be played by uncharismatic players, or vice versa. But that's a different problem altogether, and I don't really see how it could possibly be solved in the context of a tabletop RPG.

Wisdom
2016-12-06, 06:05 PM
The way I see it, physical attractiveness is to charisma as rose is to flower.

An example is that cats are really cute, and radiate charisma. However, dogs are also cute, and when you look at dogs and how they express themselves you can notice how they radiate charisma and personality and are adorable.

Charisma, then, is a force of personality that radiates outward, and can even be noticed in their appearance.
You "can't quite put your finger on it" but it's there...

Wardog
2016-12-17, 04:41 PM
The definition of Charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness! Yes it does; the Oxford Dictionary defines it as "compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others".

I'm possibly being overly pedantic here, but its worth noting that "attractive" doesn't necessarily mean "physically attractive / good looking". Someone can have an attractive personality, for example.

Segev
2016-12-18, 09:39 PM
I'm possibly being overly pedantic here, but its worth noting that "attractive" doesn't necessarily mean "physically attractive / good looking". Someone can have an attractive personality, for example.

"Let me guess; you have a great personality."

(I'm now trying to remember where that quote came from. The guy saying it was definitely being a jerk.)

hifidelity2
2016-12-19, 06:32 AM
At this point, any mention of the relationship or lack thereof between the Charisma stat and physical attractiveness opens up a can of worms. It's a hotly debated subject that's been around since the early days of D&D a

So, yeah, the Charisma stat has something, but not nothing and not everything, to do with physical attractiveness. I personally think that it's better off left as an abstraction, as it was written and intended. There are a couple of logical flaws, such as the fact that someone who is attractive should have an easier time dealing with people that are attracted to his/her sex. This could warrant a minor house rule of some kind; I actually made one for Pathfinder (http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ty9h?My-Solution-to-the-Attractiveness-Issue-with#1) and posted it over on the Paizo forums, but since then I think I don't need to bother unless a debate arises around my table.



I agree – you can after all have the very attractive person who has the charisma of a brick wall (the “Classic” airhead blond who while attractive bores you senseless inside 10 mins). Having said that they will get the attention / served 1st at the Bar etc and people will be willing to give them time and will probably be more easily influenced by them






However, I think that adding a seventh stat is a terrible idea. I admire systems like GURPS that explicitly separate charisma and appearance and account for both mechanically, but trying to add something like that to D&D would be very clunky and completely unnecessary. First of all, if it's treated like the other six ability scores, it would be a universal dump stat, and players would have to envision ugly characters for the price of being optimized. Even if it is determined in a different way, justifying appearance it as an entire ability score would be very difficult, and it's not worth designing an intricate set of homebrew rules if it's better off included in the "Charisma" umbrella.


I have played (and DM’ed) AD&D with the Comeliness stat - so the 7th stat. If / when the party have used it as a dump stat when they are doing social interactions I have the NPCs react more negatively (modified by Charisma). The group I play with do very few pure dungeon crawls so know the value of this stat.

With GURPs it is used when rolling for reaction. I had a PC with a character with a high Charisma who got a scar down his face after a battle (not enough healing readily available and it healing like that) I ruled that it made him look Dashing to the ladies and a seasoned veteran esp when round other fighters. If he had not had points in Charisma then I might have dropped his appearance as it would have been an “ugly” scar

RazorChain
2016-12-19, 08:58 AM
Gurps does it like this

Appearance gives reaction bonus or penalties

Charisma gives reaction bonus

Various advantages give reaction bonus (oh what a lovely voice)

Varies disadadvantages give reaction penalties or bonuses (Example odious personal habit: constant burping gives penalties or honesty gives bonus when people know about it)

Status or Rank gives penalties or bonuses (get out of my way beggar)

Social Stigma gives penalties (hide your valuables, the gypsies are coming to town)

Oh then at last there is reputation that might be negative or positive and affects people's reaction.


So if you are a butt ugly, gypsie beggar with bad hygiene that grabs at people's clothes while you ask them for money in your whiny voice then you are going to have one hell of a reaction penalty.

wumpus
2016-12-19, 11:44 AM
I suspect it all comes down to the game being played. Are you using the rules to model the character (in which case charisma and physical attractiveness might not be identical) or modeling the character around the rules (in which they are: if the rules don't have a comliness stat they will of course use the charisma stat).

While having "the character" being the template sounds preferred, it does take more work and the player had better accept some 'old school' rule adjusting basing just which "sub stat" is being rolled at and adding small bonus/penalty each roll. I'd be surprised if you let any stat get too out of whack (although a high intelligence barbarian [presumably a character with an uncivilized background that might not have any levels in "barbarian"] would have zero bonuses in "knowledge rolls" (exception: any barbarian, intelligent or not will get huge ones for specific nature/survival in nature rolls).

3.x already has enough modifications to each roll, do you really want any more?

[in computer science it is said that any problem can be fixed by adding another layer of indirection [debugging that extra complexity is an exersize for the reader]. In 3.x it seems that any issue with the rules (with the exception of caster/melee power imbalance) can be fixed with yet another die modification. Eventually the perfect game takes an infinite time to compute all the modifications for a single roll.]

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-20, 03:14 PM
3.x already has enough modifications to each roll, do you really want any more?


I like this. I will use it sometime I think.

hifidelity2
2016-12-21, 07:37 AM
One last thing to consider - unlike any other stat, appearance can't be increased with just pure effort. You can get stronger (pushups), tougher (pushups in winter) or more charismatic (pushups... actually no, maybe attend a seminar on public speaking instead?), but for appearance? You kinda need at least some make-up at best (plastic surgery or polymorph at worst) to change that.

I would disagree

By doing the push-ups etc I might go from Fat to Fit (and if you take the norms in todays society I would then become more attractive)
GURPS has a seduction skill and we uue the Acting skill to apply make-up - both of which can (temporarily) increase you appearance

Stealth Marmot
2016-12-21, 08:09 AM
One last thing to consider - unlike any other stat, appearance can't be increased with just pure effort. You can get stronger (pushups), tougher (pushups in winter) or more charismatic (pushups... actually no, maybe attend a seminar on public speaking instead?), but for appearance? You kinda need at least some make-up at best (plastic surgery or polymorph at worst) to change that.
As was mentioned before, fitness could add to appearance, but I think that appearance increases could also result from more incidental increases as opposed to intended increases. Some people age well. Maybe they lose a little weight or fill out a bit more, maybe they get a good tan or even get a haircut that works better for them.

I still don't agree that appearance as a stat is necessary, or particularly useful once you add in some trait options, but the idea of changing appearance scores over time is not hard for me to contemplate.