Charisma

[Kallias]

I'd like to see a short tag before every description of a PC when you "look" at them.

For Example, Kallias' description is this:


This strapping, handsome man, is in his forties and above average height
for a human male, standing 6 feet 4 inches tall (1.93 meters). His soft angled face
is topped by coal black hair, kept quite close to his scalp as tended to regularly.
His big brown eyes frame a classical nose which is splashed with barely visible
freckles. The jaw of the man is pronounced, though not exceptionally strong,
carrying deep dimples that dig into his cheeks when speaking or smiling. His even,
sun starched tan is in appealing contrast with his pearl white teeth and coal
black beard, which is trim enough to see his olive skin beneath. No longer
retaining the slender cut of youth, he is without doubt a grown man, weighing in the
range of 224 pounds (16 stone). At the tip of his chin, short grey stubble seems
to be in the genesis of overpowering the black.
---------------

My proposal would be:


[CHA 8]
This strapping, handsome man, is in his forties and above average height
for a human male, standing 6 feet 4 inches tall (1.93 meters). His soft angled face
is topped by coal black hair, kept quite close to his scalp as tended to regularly.
His big brown eyes frame a classical nose which is splashed with barely visible
freckles. The jaw of the man is pronounced, though not exceptionally strong,
carrying deep dimples that dig into his cheeks when speaking or smiling. His even,
sun starched tan is in appealing contrast with his pearl white teeth and coal
black beard, which is trim enough to see his olive skin beneath. No longer
retaining the slender cut of youth, he is without doubt a grown man, weighing in the
range of 224 pounds (16 stone). At the tip of his chin, short grey stubble seems
to be in the genesis of overpowering the black.
---------------------

I've been reading lately that people seem to be struggling for a way to make Charisma matter. In DnD Cha is 100% a dump stat for all except sorcerers and paladins. It makes sense to be a dump stat, especially since the only interactions are through RP with eachother, as opposed to with a DM. A DM would typically take into account a character's charisma when generating spontaneous roleplay with NPC's - why should a PC not be granted that same privilege since no DM's exist in standard play?

What this would do is create an atmosphere where a PC would be able to know, mechanically, how strong of presence another PC has, and can choose to act accordingly. If there is a real emphasis in making CHA matter, I promise it will have an affect on incoming characters decision to train up charisma, since this game is primarily social.



Tyson

[Rhangalas]

Charisma already has many incentives to put points into it, but the only problem I see with allowing other characters to see your ability score for charisma is that players tend to interpret what charisma is in different ways. It could possibly lead to an influx of complaints or 'osay' arguments, due to a player who doesn't agree with how you play charisma being able to see your score.

- So-and-so used handsome as an adjective, but their charisma score is only 10.
- So-and-so completely ignored my PC's massive 18 charisma in their RP with them.
- So-and-so is playing a confident leader, but they have low charisma. It's cheating!

So... I'm not for it or against it, really. I'd just hate to see it become a straight-jacket statistic where you are expected to play it a specific way down to every single point you put into it.

[Tamryn]

I don't like the idea of being "forced" to react to a character based on their stats. If a PC is physically attractive, their charisma should be appropriate for their description, and good RP requires that characters react to that as and when appropriate. In the same way, if a PC is a paladin with a strong force of personality, then their player should RP them being charismatic. If they can't, then they can't.

Paladin exclaims "We must at once venture into the dark cave and slay the foul beast!"
Tess says "I think I'd rather just sit here and listen to the bard play a bit longer."
Paladin says, OOC, "Well actually, I have 18 charisma, so your character would want to do what I say."

Edit: so, basically I agree with what Rhangalas says.

Also, I'm not really sure how to interpret the charisma stat in this way. Say you have 16 charisma: do I need to read your description and decide that, for example, you're kind of ugly and covered in scars, so maybe only 6 of your chr points went into your desc, and you have 10 points of 'personality' chr that I need to incorporate into my RP with you, even if you just come across as pompous and annoying...?

[Kallias]

It would never be forced - just shown. There is no opposed check forcing anything. I personally would welcome being able to change how my PC's interact with others based on their play and supplemented by what I would then know to be mechanically true about the player character.

Supplemented, not enforced.

Charisma is, by far, the most readily apparent attribute in dungeons and dragons. The reason this is the case, is because the attribute is specifically designed to be felt by those around them, as opposed to being an impact to only the individual.

Surely no one would call foul someone describing their character as good looking or a good leader with a charisma of 12. How good looking? They're good looking...a charisma 12 good looking. Are there different kinds of leaders besides the inspirational leaders, of course, tacticians/logicians/servant leadership/divinators.

The only thing this would provide, is another tool for a player to use when making an in character decision. A tool that should be readily available to the player, because the charisma stat is 100% meant to be apparent to all who are witness to it...not tangible to the character, but should be used as reference to the player (just as a DM would in p&p).

Edit: As a general rule, charisma affects almost all aspects equally...you'll find that a high charisma ugly character is nigh impossible to find, but I'm sure they exist specifically to be the exception . The idea of breaking up the points into appearance/magnetism/leadership is a carry over from old DnD editions - with current rules it's the modifier for charisma based skills...if the inspirational speech sucks, it sucks, but it sucks +3. Appearance is linked directly to Charisma, there is no skill for there to be a modifier adjustment, so it's straight attribute level. Can a 10 be pretty, sure, but it's an average pretty. Can a male fighter have masculine features that aren't classically good looking, but still be attractive due to physique - of course...but if you want to look as handsome as a cartoon pilot, you better invest the points.

Tyson

[Vibius]

Perhaps it could be added an additional line to the consider command, so you only use it if you really want.

XXXX looks <sentence defining the difference of your charisma and the mob/pc with whom you are comparing>
XXXX would make a great teacher for you!
It would take a bit of luck..

ie.

XXXX looks fascinating to you!
XXXX looks as about as charismatic as you!
XXXX looks repulsive to you!
...

[Kallias]

I like where you're going with it - but that would be what Tammy was talking about, a mechanical forced feel.

If the echo says repulsive or fascinating, then, if you're an extremely black and white I don't understand how to differentiate from intent and mechanics, it would be forced upon you because the echo tells you how to feel.

I like the idea of it being a witnessed number. The number doesn't have any IC demands, but allows the player to interpret how the attribute would work from PC to PC.

Anyone who doesn't see Charisma as a dump stat, in this medium, is nuts. The reason it's a dump stat is because there is almost no mechanical aspect of the stat in combat (lay on hands and the extra spells for bards is about it). Charisma is interaction...mundane interaction in this game is with stock NPC's with static quests, Charisma means nothing in this except for the select handful of quests that require it to trigger. Complex social interaction is with other player's or a DM during a roleplay, during a complex social interaction Charisma score should be a known quality...one to supplement, not to dominate.


Tyson

[Rhangalas]

XXXX looks <sentence defining the difference of your charisma and the mob/pc with whom you are comparing>

XXXX looks fascinating to you!
XXXX looks as about as charismatic as you!
XXXX looks repulsive to you!
...

Eh... I would definitely be against this, because then interaction RP would begin to boil down to scenarios such as:

*Newbie compares charisma with Vibius.*

Vibius looks repulsive to Newbie.
Newbie uses a stock emote to relay disgust.
Newbie walks <direction>.

AND

*Newbie compares charisma with Vibius.*

Vibius looks fascinating to Newbie.
Newbie misconstrues 'fascinating' and starts poking and prodding Vibius like a science experiment.

In closing, I would very much prefer a character's opinions of another to come from the impression the character makes in their RP with them, not have a command that generalizes everything based on the mathematical difference between one attribute.

[Vibius]

One of the aspects of charisma is the ability to lead.

Perhaps certain church/guild/organization ranks could only be achieved if you have a minimum charisma.

[Tamryn]

Dump stat?

Tamryn, level 47 fighter: STR: 14, DEX: 18, CON: 18, INT: 12, WIS: 10, CHR: 16

If I wanted a mechanically powerful character, you can be sure int, wis and chr would all be 8, and str, dex and con would all be 20. Why didn't I do that? Because those stats wouldn't fit who the character is.

If we have people with "beautiful" adjectives and CHR 10, or whose description says they're slender and dainty when they have STR 20, that's something staff should deal with, as they're clearly not playing their character.

If someone wants to create a muscle-bound barbarian with half a brain and the charisma of a slug, then sure, charisma is going to be a dump stat; because that's who that character is. If they do that, though, then I'd expect them to RP that character.

[Vibius]

In closing, I would very much prefer a character's opinions of another to come from the impression the character makes in their RP with them, not have a command that generalizes everything based on the mathematical difference between one attribute.

That is fine, as long they RP their charisma accordingly, if we only had a means to discern that our master diplomat/manipulator had in fact average or below average charisma.

Perhaps certain skills could be added to the characters if they have enough charisma, skills that would have mechanical effects.

ie; diplomacy; target character can't initiate combat against you,.
intimidate; target character gets a small penalty to hit/saves.
bluff; you deny dexterity armor class to target character and becomes susceptible to sneak attack as well.

[Xryon]

Please no. As an orc player, I have enough dislike for the charisma requirements already in place; adding even more sounds... just awful.

[Kallias]

Dump stat?

Mechanically, it absolutely is.

While you as a player decided to go this route, is fantastic, it's certainly a mechanical disadvantage...so why not receive a "soft" (meaning no mechanics attached) social advantage, showing such charisma to other players who are inclined to roleplay that intended plus. If people choose to ignore, that's fine too - it's not proposed with the intention of forcing anything, just in offering the information.

My whole purpose of this proposal is to aid in the spirit of the game's attributes. I've got 7,297 hours logged into this ridiculous hobby, I can assure you, the imms are far too busy to go around being the attribute police.


Tyson

[Amalia]

I'd like to throw in one more "yay" for Charisma being given more of a role in some way. I, for one, would LIKE to be able to take other characters' charisma into account when interacting, and not just their player's charisma.

To be completely blunt: I have dumped buku points (17-18) into CHA on multiple characters, with no mechanical benefit, because it is appropriate to what I intend to do. Whether it's a drop-dead gorgeous sun elf who somehow manages to be charming despite her thinly-veiled racism or an everyman who uses her social presence to influence people to like her and then immediately forget her (a la Ocean's 11), I felt a high score in that category would be appropriate, so I pursued that instead of something that would give me a mechanical advantage.

I don't know how common it is to play a high CHA without raising the stat, but even if it never happened, people would still have different interpretations of how to RP it properly. Maybe other folks are doing with a 15 what I feel requires an 18. If the game doesn't treat characters differently based on their CHA, and players don't have the opportunity to do so, then it really is pretty worthless. And much as I stand by my decision to invest in it anyway, that kind of rankles.

That said, if CHA is made public, I'm still going to avoid like the plague those people who I don't enjoy RPing with - because this is a game, which I am here to have fun with first and foremost. Likewise, I'll still spend time with people whose company I enjoy - even if their characters are repugnant. I just won't be all googly-eyed and impressed with how charming they are. They can be "that" friend.

[Rhangalas]

Rhangalas has a charisma score of 10. If you have ever roleplayed with him, you will notice it after prolonged interaction, but it isn't blatantly obvious from the start. Therein lies the rub. You see, if I take that score literally, then he has average charisma. By all accounts, he should be the 'average joe' in most social situations, but I don't play him that way, because I don't base him off of that score alone. There are underlying factors to why he is the way he is. With a solely charisma based system, I could just say, "Well, he's completely normal based on charisma, so I can play him with way more attraction than I do."

I would hate for world RP to become the DM checking everyones charisma score and then going, "Woah, you are a putrid slime monster compared to this bard. She hates you and everything about you."

Also, social interaction is more than just charisma. Manipulation can be achieved by the foulest looking creature alive, by using INT to outwit them, by using STR to cow them, or by using CON to look so tough and badass that they just don't want to disagree out of sheer fear.

EDIT:
Currently, with charisma, you get decreased shop prices, the ability to sometimes haggle for even lower price, decreased training prices, if your class is charisma based you get to play that class and get bonus spells for that class, overall you get more experience from activities that grant it, there are some quests that will only activate based on charisma score, it is required to teach, and some spells will only succeed if you have higher charisma than your target. I don't see where this 'dump stat' mentality is coming from.

[Kallias]

Everything you said is true, and in no way would be hindered by someone seeing the Charisma score.

If you wish to smote pumping your muscles to remind the player what the PC looks like, or smote about how weathered and leathery it's skin is - knock yourself out. It doesn't alter the exchange at all seeing the CHA.

It's a soft reminder - not a slap in the face. If the player is playing someone as overly charismatic but used it as a dump stat, I wouldn't ever suggest ruining their fun by using it as leverage against them...but I do think the player knowing the stat is visible may remind them that investing up to where they believe character should be, in their eyes, is a sound move.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Many are attracted to power, physical prowess, or wealth...Charisma is simply a representation of being aesthetically pleasing. To many people, especially some of the gamers I use to game with, interacting with someone overally aesthetically pleasing could lead to avoidance.

I can't stress my main point, charisma is intended to be felt in all interactions, granting all to see the stat allows the player to understand and adjust accordingly, if they choose to reward a player for investing in the attribute...if the speech sucks, or their interpretation of beauty is a little strange (Drew), ignore it.

100% soft tool.


Tyson


EDIT: It's a dump stat because it's mechanical use in the PC's combat power is heavily diminished compared to other stats. It's important in other mediums due to making the ease of noncombative resolutions much easier...this does not exist in nearly all quests. It's a complex attribute that is incredibly powerful or incredibly useless depending on the DM in question. In this medium, it is the primary dump stat.

[Dranso]

I'd like to add that Charisma used to be (not sure if it still is) a defining factor in whether or not a character would be given a quest by a npc. Especially for a lot of higher level quests. That is why I always thought it was a good idea to make sure that my characters had some charisma points. If this is still the case I don't really see the need to fiddle with the stat more than it already has been in the past.

[Kallias]

I'd like to add that Charisma used to be (not sure if it still is) a defining factor in whether or not a character would be given a quest by a npc. Especially for a lot of higher level quests. That is why I always thought it was a good idea to make sure that my characters had some charisma points. If this is still the case I don't really see the need to fiddle with the stat more than it already has been in the past.

This carried way more weight when glory could buy feats/attributes. As it stands now, equipment can be purchased and glory does nothing.

[Hrosskell]

I'm not sure about that last bit--having 4 well-established characters from the Glory for Stat days, I know that I spent my glory on charisma/wisdom just to do more quests. Even now, you want those stats so that you get more tickets in the lottery of RMI distribution--more chances to find items you need, or someone else wants, and most times those things can't be bought for coin.

From playing a char with high Charisma and being friends with a few toons/players with low Charisma, I can tell you that charisma does in fact have a very few subtle, yet powerful perks, some of which are drastic power leaps over a +1 to damage.

As for whether or not I agree with the idea of my stats being shown to another player? Eh, nah. I'd rather not. Personality is int/wis/cha combined, and I think how those things play and tie into each other are way too intangible (because our own perceptions are too heavily involved, thus evoking our own Personality Triangle of Ability Scores) to just throw into a ruleset. Leave it up to the players to play what they will with some minor policing from the people who do those things.

[Diritas]

That is fine, as long they RP their charisma accordingly, if we only had a means to discern that our master diplomat/manipulator had in fact average or below average charisma.

Diplomat/manipulator here. Character is meant to appear moderately attractive however I've given him 10 Charisma. This is because the character is played with the idea that he would have fair diplomacy/intimidate and strong bluff skills yet he would have no natural aptitude for any. If you strip the skills he's learned, he is simply a snakish, cruel, arrogant, racist and mean-spirited person who gives people a slimy feeling just by talking to them. In Canon, a person with no natural affinity for people-handling can learn those traits/skills. Charisma is a lot of things to me. A horrendously fat and ugly person with a hugely commanding bellow could have a strong charisma simply because something about his voice makes people listen. The angelically beautiful woman with the nice eyes might have 8 charisma simply because they give you "the no feeling". That 4 year old could be the cutest charisma 14 kid until he opens his mouth to scream or kicks you in the shin. To me, appearance, while a facet of it, has little to do with Charisma. I also feel that it should be left to the player how they care to play their character. Allowing other characters to see your charisma stat is liable only to result in petty OOC judgments on things that people will only have a fraction of the information of.

In short, I oppose the idea as we all have different opinions on what Charisma really reflects and the result of showing that score will only be petty OOC squabbling.(IMO)

Sorry if this is a horrible jumble of text. I'm at work typing away while the boss is looking in the other direction.

[Kallias]

In current edition appearance is straight Charisma. It is the only stat associated with aesthetic appearance.

Would it change anyone's mind if like minded players, of my camp, just decided to place that text in the first line? This would make it nonmandatory and also require zero extra effort by support staff.

Incredibly easy option. Would this offend people to the point of being a distraction?

Tyson