jessemock said:
Yes; and what I'm getting at is that this application of Appearance implies that natural, purely physical Beauty is something a character with a high Appearance score may not have: Appearance, in other words, may already be a disguise.
As to the question of personality traits, behaviours, etc.--indeed; that's definitely a part of any disguise, and this, in some way justifies the use of Charisma as the key ability for the skill, but there remain a couple of difficulties:
1) This suggests that a person with a strong, charismatic persona is always a good actor.
That is true, although that is currently how it stands in the Core Rules (
I'm always got my eye out for an improvement, of course). Of course, the Core Rules also indicate that someone with a strong, charismatic persona is also a better juggler, so go figure.
(Did that change it 3.5... Books not with me...)
2) This suggests that it's more important to act like an orc than to look like one. An elf with no cosmetic training, perhaps even with no cosmetics, can waltz into an orc camp, growl around, eat something raw, punch a couple of guys, and get away with it (cultural problem, too: she can do this, because, among elves, she's known for her extraordinary wry wit--wha?).
Actually, no. Not having any cosmetics, there's no call for a Disguise check at all. I might call for a Bluff check to convince the orcs that the character is a deranged, decadent elf with bad manners.
Unless you want to recognise that Ms. Spear's look lies decidedly on the wrong side of natural. We may even take this a bit further and (strange turn for an internet discussion) actually suggest that certain aspects of Ms. Spear's assets have been enhanced by precisely the same prosthetic means one would use to replicate, say, the odd mass of an orc.
Good point. Not being a Spears fan and not following the media of fandome, I had to do a little searching to see that you are correct. At the same time, it is her Appearance and stardome, not her force of personality, that seems to make her an idol for many teen girls (and an unmentionable fantasy for teen boys).
In short, try for a moment to consider that one arrives at one's appearance through Work and that it's not too crazy to suppose that creating one kind of beauty isn't too far from creating another.
Got a point there...
I'll consider this and take it to my players.
This is also another effect that the BoEF has applied to Appearance, except that they continue with the D&D/Tolkienesque tradition of identifying culture with race.
Which, of course, fairly matches the Core Rules and several published settings... It seems that only Humans can produce multiple cultures without undergoing a serious change in physiology and psychology for their troubles (although, admittedly, Sovereign Stone and Nyambe both offer a number of divergent Human subraces). The BoEF generally had to stick to the generalized Core standards in that regard, for 2 primary reasons: (1) Every cultural reference available in the d20 industry is PI which they can't make references to without permission/licensing and (2) they don't have their own setting to make such references to. Of course, if they did have their own setting and made references to it, or made references (with permission) to other settings, the information would be generally unused by the main body of readers (useful mostly to those playing those settings and to those inspired by what they've read). In that regard, they did what they had to do, which is fine. I'm sure we'll see addendums to the BoEF in any future setting-based material VP releases (if any, can only hope), and other companies are free to make addendums to their settings applying the OGC material (which we may or may not see, again, can only hope).
Myself, I'd be interested to see developments of reaction tables based on appearance and then on charisma. Appearance would determine the intial reaction and Charisma would either profit from or have to overcome these first impressions.
Yep, which is one of the reasons I kept the Option rules for Subabilities, because Appearance and Leadership did indeed make such a seperation (I renamed Leadership to Magnetism to avoid confusion with one's 3E/d20 Leadership score... I also renamed Balance to Agility to avoid confusion with the Skill, but that's another discussion).
