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mrguymiah
2018-01-09, 01:06 AM
Beauteous Heroes (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cYtblxMwvBgzD4LZt_lOm_sEfjeIcBdv)

The Purpose
Beauteous Heroes is an attempt to solve the issue of just how attractive characters are, mechanically speaking. It takes the emphasis off of Charisma as the singular deciding factor and introduces a more fleshed out and realized method of determing both their level of attractiveness and the kind of beauty it represents.

NOTE: Although Appearance and Sex are related, Beauteous Heroes does not contain sexual content of any kind.

I would love to get feedback and people's thoughts in general. This is my first time homebrewing an entire subsystem, even if it is only a half dozen pages, so please hit me with your hardest so I can make it better.

Edit List:

Misspelled "Voluminous". Corrected in WiP version.

aimlessPolymath
2018-01-09, 01:48 AM
First thought as I read:
Body Alteration should have a chance of penalizing failure- ditto makeup. :P

Also, there's a typo in "Appearance traits" on p.4- the last sentence of the paragraph cuts off.

khadgar567
2018-01-09, 01:57 AM
do you know how many times this tried and failed. at least dozen we dont need separate score for how sexy your character is. we need to way to show how stupid the wizard is. and you need to find a better idea

mrguymiah
2018-01-09, 03:52 AM
First thought as I read:
Body Alteration should have a chance of penalizing failure- ditto makeup. :P

Also, there's a typo in "Appearance traits" on p.4- the last sentence of the paragraph cuts off.

My apologies for the delayed response! I really didn't expect anyone to reply this late at night.

I'll ponder how to fit in a failure chance. Not sure it'd fit in the rules very well as they stand. As for the cut off, I might've already fixed it, cause I'm not seeing it on my version.

nonsi
2018-01-13, 01:11 AM
.

While I agree with khadgar567 that Appearance has been attempted many times before and failed, I don't agree that there's no hope of ever integrating the notion into RPG.

Appearance doesn't have to be a regular ability score. It could be a stat that poses a positive/negative synergy to Charisma-based or Dexterity-based activities.
Problem is, who'd ever wanna have a built-in negative modifier to things, and what might offset such penalties to give an incentive for adopting an additional set of rules - and a complicated one to.

rferries
2018-01-13, 02:26 AM
What does "beauty" cover that isn't already covered by Charisma, other than sex appeal?

Charisma already encompasses diplomacy, magnetic personality, etc - hence a hideous mind flayer can still have a high Charisma score. The only thing that such a mind flayer lacks is physical beauty (by human standards at least).

My point is, unless you're playing the Book of Unlawful Carnal Knowledge or a similar sex-themed variant you should be able to use Charisma instead of a narrow Appearance stat.

Could you cite some examples of how beauty would be used, when Charisma wouldn't suffice? I imagine they'd mainly be about seduction, and even then it's often argued that an ugly yet high-Charisma character should be able to seduce people through humour, charm, etc.

JNAProductions
2018-01-13, 09:37 PM
I mean, this isn't INHERENTLY a bad idea. It's easy to do poorly, especially because what's beautiful to an elf is probably butt-ugly to an orc, but I don't see anything wrong with trying.

That being said, I'll echo what was said earlier-what's there to GAIN from this?

Debihuman
2018-01-16, 08:22 AM
If you must, just use the old Comeliness stat. It’s basically a substat of Charisma. BTW, the rules state that you just pick how attractive your character is. Whether or not anyone else finds you attractive depends on their preferences.