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Neon Knight
2007-08-19, 11:10 AM
So. A common definition of Charisma is "force of personality".

Does "force of personality" equate to free will and individuality? If so, do low charisma types tend towards lawful? High charisma towards chaotic?

Green Bean
2007-08-19, 11:17 AM
I wouldn't say that force of personality and free will are related. Lawful people can and do have very strong personalities. You can believe quite passionately in a system (or lack of system) if you believe it was right. If I had to make a generalization, I'd say that high Charisma folks are more likely to be on the extreme ends of any given alignment.

TheOOB
2007-08-19, 11:21 AM
Nope, Cha has no association with any alignment. Just take the paladin and bard, one traditionally lawful, one traditionally chaotic, yet both typically possess insane Cha scores. Law and Chaos don't represent individuality, a chaotic person doesn't necessary only care about themselves, but rather they tend to focus on the here and now, and are more likely to ignore something that they cannot currently see, while a lawful person tends to focus more on a wide scale in the long term, often at the expense of adaptability here and now.

Stephen_E
2007-08-19, 11:33 AM
So. A common definition of Charisma is "force of personality".

Does "force of personality" equate to free will and individuality? If so, do low charisma types tend towards lawful? High charisma towards chaotic?

High Charisma tends to equate to a strong sense of self (I say tends. Charisma is probably the most complex of attreibutes) and the ability to project that sense of self. This doesn't directly equate to Chaos. A person of high charisma with the belief in the importance of society over the individual is lawful regardless of their strong sense of self.

I'd also note that free will and indivuality doesn't directly connect to chaos.

Force of personality equates to your ability to your ability to overawe or surplant, even if only temporarily, the beliefs/views of those of lessor force of personality.

Thus while there is no noticable connection between Charisma and whether you're lawful or chaotic, a high charasma person would have a good chance of convincing others to subsume their own alignment and beliefs to his to some degree.

Particuly if the low charisma represents a poor sense of self. Sergeant Bothari from the Barrayar series by Lois Bujold would be a good example of this.

Stephen

bosssmiley
2007-08-19, 11:35 AM
Does "force of personality" equate to free will and individuality? If so, do low charisma types tend towards lawful? High charisma towards chaotic?

What? No! How do you even make this connection? :smallconfused:

Charisma = force of personality. Personal magnetism. The ability to lead and persuade. It doesn't depend on being lawful, chaotic, good or evil.

High charisma & lawful: Katsumoto in "Last Samurai", Patton as played by George C. Scott, Shackleton as played by Kenneth Brannagh, Lawrence of Arabia, Alexander or Caesar.
High charisma & chaotic: V, Robin Hood (the Errol Flynn version), Cap'n Jack Sparrow, Tyler Durden, Seth Gekko in "Dusk 'til Dawn".
High charisma and evil: any 'breath-taking b*st*rd' archvillain you care to think of...

PirateMonk
2007-08-19, 11:35 AM
Nope, Cha has no association with any alignment. Just take the paladin and bard, one traditionally lawful, one traditionally chaotic, yet both typically possess insane Cha scores. Law and Chaos don't represent individuality, a chaotic person doesn't necessary only care about themselves, but rather they tend to focus on the here and now, and are more likely to ignore something that they cannot currently see, while a lawful person tends to focus more on a wide scale in the long term, often at the expense of adaptability here and now.

Of course, chaotic people may object to authority figures telling them that they can't do what they think is best here and now, while Lawfuls see that in the long term having authority figures is a good thing, and there's a good long-term reason why the chaotic person shouldn't do that.

Stephen_E
2007-08-19, 09:36 PM
Of course, chaotic people may object to authority figures telling them that they can't do what they think is best here and now, while Lawfuls see that in the long term having authority figures is a good thing, and there's a good long-term reason why the chaotic person shouldn't do that.

I think you're confusing leadership and authority/orders.
A chaotic may not be thrilled about following orders in principle, but they're just as happy to follow a charismatic leader as your lawful person.

Stephen