Charisma in the D&D Game (article)

Dinkeldog said:

Hong, I think where appearance comes into play is that objectively attractive people tend to develop a better sense of self-confidence.

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Oh, I'm not saying that appearance doesn't have anything to do with self-confidence. I'm saying that the D&D Charisma stat takes in many things, and appearance is only a miniscule component.

I'm afraid I didn't make my point as clearly as I would have like to.

I would have thought that you would either say:

High charisma people find others react well to them, low charisma people find that others react poorly to them

- or -

High charisma people are good at influencing others, low charisma people are bad at influencing others.

i.e. comparing the high and low stats on the same scale. The original statement that jarred was the equivalent of saying "high charisma people find others react well to them, low charisma people are bad at influencing others" - comparisons that are based on different continuums (continua? I digress).

I agree that it would have been good to have officially completely divorced appearance from charisma, and just leave that as a descriptive role playing issue. As hong says, the actual contribution is miniscule, yet as it stands people still misintepret charisma as appearance all the time! Doh!


One of my personal beefs (and I accept that it is only personal) is when low charisma is used as an excuse to be gruff and surly. To my mind that is an easy way out, as the low attribute is actually used as a bonus, an excuse for the character to behave unacceptably. In my campaigns I enforce the low charisma as low personality types. If someone wants to be gruff and rude, then they need a high charisma. Low charisma people are less secure, less self-confident.

Cheers

Plane Sailing said:

i.e. comparing the high and low stats on the same scale. The original statement that jarred was the equivalent of saying "high charisma people find others react well to them, low charisma people are bad at influencing others" - comparisons that are based on different continuums (continua? I digress).

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I don't think that's identical, I think it's opposite.

When I read it, I assumed this was an intentional dichotomy. I thought it was intended to advocate that high charisma people still have to make an effort to get good reactions , while a low charisma person automatically gets poor reactions, and has to work to avoid doing so (i.e. low Cha, high Diplomacy).

. . . . . . . -- Eric

edit: typo

re: attractiveness

When discussing 'attractiveness' and 'ability to influence people' you have to remember a few things

1- Attractiveness is subjective . Trelinda the elven enchantress with clean, graceful limbs, and delicate features may be attractive to elves and humans, but she'd probably earn a space in the roasting pot when encountering Throknar the Bugbear. Throknar may have a Mrs. Throknar at home and several little Throknars and Throknara's at home. Mrs. Throknar, may have broad shoulders, a square chin and excessively hairy legs, and it may send all the bugbear teens into a hormonal craze.

2- Looks don't really influence people as much as you may think. Looks count a great deal when trying to influence people in minor decisions. Case in point, would you rather take excercise tips from young, sultry, culture-icon Britney Spears or from a morbidly obese truck driver named Tiny who wears his greasy, torn, t-shirt for days on end? Looks matter there. Now, let's tackle a more important issue as an example. Would you rather elect Bunny the amiable, extroverted, and ridiculously good-looking cheerleader to LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD or a fug-ugly, 50 year old man who acts with quiet confidence and has an unspoken air of authority?

I agree with divorcing 'comeliness' from charisma because if anything, 'comeliness' should be derived from a combination of the 3 physical stats and then have the DM adjucate according to each interaction.

regards,
-s

Attractiveness can be even more easily observed than that. Even I think the Pictures of Mialee make her look alien and scrawny (No offense, my dear) While Lidda is a more attractive figure. And neither one can really relate their "looks" to charisma - both are equally poor in that stat. Hennet, by contrast, looks like he stopped somewhere between the Goth Craze and the regular clientelle of the Blue Oyster bar from Police academy; yet he has a 15 CHA! He must REALLY know how to influence people!

I don't have a problem with CHA as written; new DM's need to keep specific examples in mind when talking to players about charisma and why it 'seems' so arbitrary in D&D - it really isn't.

And YES, Hill Giants DO have a 7 Charisma. It was a typo.

You know, it's at times like this that the 2nd edition Player's Option: Skills & Powers approach really looks good. They divided the basic six ability scores into twelve. Charisma broke down into Appearance and Leadership.

Now, this wasn't an original concept. Plenty of other RPGs had these as separate stats, but it allowed for a bit more complexity to the character. Now, I used the term Influence rather than Leadership, since the trait need not be used solely in a leadership situation.

But this was useful for characters that might look good, but lack personality. Or for guys like Schicklegruber (that little jerk with the toothbrush moustache from WWII), that looked like a bad cross between Moe Howard and Charlie Chaplin, yet managed to sway a nation (sadly, into war and attempted genocide).

I personally enjoyed playing Booger, the World's Ugliest Hobbit. Not much to look at, but a fair amount of personality (that's him in the picture).

As a DM, I try to keep in mind that a collection of stats for a character need not represent some holistic world-view philosophy about the human condition.

Stats are just that: stats. They affect certain game mechanics, and that's all they do. Whether that 14 CHA can be explained by piercing eyes, stylish hair, a silky voice, or by being just plain nice, is really up to the person playing that character. The end result is the same:

CHA-based skill checks and "reaction rolls" are modified by the Charisma bonus.

What more, really, do you need?

In my campaigns, any time I need an NPC to make some decision based on their mood, I will probably simply call for the appropriate skill check, apply the CHA modifier, and go with the result.

You just bribed the barman to give you dirt on the local sherriff? Roll a Gather Information check. Simple.

Sometimes, if I'm not in the mood to roll dice, I'll simply play the barman's response without rolling.

But I'll do the same thing for other attributes. You lift the big sack. You drink the mug of ale without getting drunk. You successfully jump up the ledge. Usually, I'll roll, but sometimes I won't. The same is true for "social" interactions.

STR governs how much damage you do in combat, and how much weight you can carry. Well, even someone who's thin and wiry can lift heavy loads, using the right posture, and maybe a warrior is better at finding the chinks in the armor than in muscling the blade through. So what? A STR 16 means +3. Let the player describe exactly how that +3 bonus comes about.

If your DM ignores the effects of Charisma, that's the DM's problem, not the rules. The rules clearly state what Charisma is used for.

Hong: I'm fine with the high Charisma characters with a low-median Comeliness. High Charisma characters will tend to be more attractive that less charasmatic people, but that's not what really bothers me. What bothers me is the fallback of someone playing their character as the epitome of physical beauty (tall, rippling wall of pure manly muscle, or well-endowed, lean, porn-actress types) while not "wasting" a good stat on Cha. That habit tends to come with people who also say "it should be all about how you role-play it, not what the dice say", effectively preventing Charisma from having any real effect in gameplay. It's nothing major, but to me "really hot but bitchy/without much personality" calls for a minimum of 10 Cha. It's more of an anti-munchkin reflex than anything, really.

Plane Sailing: Gruff and surly as a way of explaining low Charisma is fine. Just so long as they live with the fact that people won't like them for it, and will tend to avoid dealing with them as often as they can. Of course, gruff and surly + low Charisma tends to equal whiny more often than not...

Rampant insanity: re: point 2, 18 Charisma does not automatically make you a perky young member of the pep squad. The "fug-ugly, 50 year old man who acts with quiet confidence and has an unspoken air of authority" sounds quite charasmatic there. And I think you're overestimating the voting public here. Both Clinton and Dubya won largely because of personal charisma.

Besides, like I said to Hong, this is not my problem. I agree that Charisma should be a measure of how well you can make other people do what you want, be it via manipulation skills, sheer force of personality, or whatever. I just hold to the fact that people are more likely to do things for good looking people than for plain or unattractive people. This is part of what makes up statistical Cha, and as such should be rolled into it. You'll probably end up with people who's Comliness scores are higher than their total Charisma scores, I don't mind this, but I do mind the fact that if a supermodel-looking character with a 3 Cha on their character sheet smiles at a local and asks them something, with no prior contact, what the NPC will most likely do is totally at odds with what the player has on their character sheet, and that's what I want to cut back. Well, that and the occasional munchkin tendency, but the latter is easy to deal with.

And just to reiterate for everyone. Charisma is about how well you can influence other people's reactions. Good looks make it more likely that you'll have a favorable reaction (all else being equal). If you look at it that way, I think it fits in as an element of Charisma pretty well.

OK, I'll plop this thought in here:

D&D screwed up.

They should have only had 5 stats:
combine WIS and CHA and it makes a lot more sense (if I worked it out, I'm sure i could make that clear, to myself at least)

What about (N)PCs affecting PCs?

I am curious how you handle this. How do you introduce Cha into interactions with the PCs (asside from what the article says)? This is especially annoying with things like Intimidate - the local brute, that would intimidate the PCs (most often rightly so!) has no affect at all on the PCs. I am not saying I favor making the PCs act according to the rolls, but some middle ground perhaps?
For example, Ars Magica has Personally Traits. If someone attempts to scare you, you roll Brave against his Intimidating (or something like that), and if you fail - you ARE scared. You may still act however you want to, but you FEEL scared, and should represent it.
I don't think this particular solution will work well for most campaigns, but still...

Also - what are your views on the notorious Intimidation issue? That is, that people of high Str (and Con to some degree) tend to be scarier?