Appearence and Player Shallowness

[Inez Hull]

With the semester coming to a close, I find that I have enough time to devote actual thought to these sorts of things,

Or to restart that fine little PbP you had running

 

[Reprisal]

Or to restart that fine little PbP you had running

*embarrassed*

Sadly, it's only a few weeks' reprieve from the rigours of fourth year studies... my Spring semester will be much easier, but I won't know if I can commit to running another campaign until I get the course outlines on the first day.

Good to see you, though, Inez. Very good,

- Rep.

 

[Zad]

So- thoughts and ideas? Or am I just wasting my time?

Honestly? I think you're wasting your time. The biggest reason is that I think you're trying to fix something that just isn't broken.

If it has no in-game effect, then it's a waste to consider it. The game has enough little numbers to keep track of that do matter - there's no need to add more that don't. I'm pretty sure you're not tracking character shoe size either, and that's about what it amounts to. Worse than if you were tracking it, you're opening it up for them to spend stat points on shoe size.

If people are inclined to "blow points" into the useless statistic, then that's kinda silly. But if you make a house rule that opens up that behaviour, then all you're really doing is lowering your campaign from a 28 point buy to a 26 point buy or whatever. If you want to lower the power in your world, just do so. You don't have to contrive an excuse. If you don't want to lower the power, then why add in a meaningless stat?

So basically, you are creating work and dropping stats and in return you're gaining nothing useful for the DM, the players, or the fun of the game.

Just my two bits.

 

[AeroDm]

Honestly? I think you're wasting your time. The biggest reason is that I think you're trying to fix something that just isn't broken.

If it has no in-game effect, then it's a waste to consider it. The game has enough little numbers to keep track of that do matter - there's no need to add more that don't.

If people are inclined to "blow points" into the useless statistic, then that's kinda silly. But if you make a house rule that opens up that behaviour, then all you're really doing is lowering your campaign from a 28 point buy to a 26 point buy or whatever. If you want to lower the power in your world, just do so. You don't have to contrive an excuse. If you don't want to lower the power, then why add in a meaningless stat?

Yeah, that is sort of how I felt about it too, ironically enough. However, a few points of note: 1) i increased the point value of the game so the default score could be obtained without a loss of points. Likewise, people could choose to be ugly/attractive at a gain/loss to their other stats which 'matter.' The corresponding ugly/attractive would make an appearence in game-play via RP and such. 2) It really isn't increasing work at all. It is a stat that will so rarely come up (hence your/our rationale for calling it worthless...) that its increase on any workload is negligible. 3) The original post was half-joke and the rest just for fun. I still think I'll do it just because it'll be enjoyable to watch people try and scrape their appearence higher.

Finally, for my personal group this is perfect. They need things to cling onto to get a feeling for their character, to feel superior over the world, et al. We are immature but we have fun.

As for beauty being subjective, my girlfriend bought a video from TLC on the Human Face hosted by John Cleese. In it they looked at a study done by a facial reconstruction group who had 20+ pictures of women and then had them ranked in order of appearence. They went to all different cultures across the world and the results came back that almost everyone ranked them in the _same_ order. Granted we are dealing with humans looking at humans, but that is still a compelling arguement.

 

[Seonaid]

Sex also plays a role when dealing with appearance, so add another +2 when dealing with someone with the attractive sex (I do allow room for homosexuality, I am open minded).

This should only be applied, though, if some sort of sexual encounter is implied or desired. I think the +2 is a bit much for the cute elven girl asking the married human male for directions, for example. Then again, I'm a little shaky on math, etc., so maybe the +2 isn't as great of an advantage as I think it is.

They went to all different cultures across the world and the results came back that almost everyone ranked them in the _same_ order.

Well, it's been proven that what humans (and other animals) find attractive is symmetry, so no matter the specific features of a certain person (hair color, etc.), faces that are more symmetrical are more attractive in general. In-game, this would apply to Reprisal's idea of ranking general racial Attractiveness and personal Attraction/Attractivity.

 

[Zad]

1) i increased the point value of the game so the default score could be obtained without a loss of points. Likewise, people could choose to be ugly/attractive at a gain/loss to their other stats which 'matter.'

Yep, that's why it's a neutral change unless players sink points into it, which your experience seems to suggest they do. The idea of getting a few points from it by sinking it is of course true, but again I was going off your experience indicating they didn't do that.

2) It really isn't increasing work at all. It is a stat that will so rarely come up (hence your/our rationale for calling it worthless...)

Actually my rationale for calling it that was when you said My solution was to add a 7th stat that has ZERO game purpose. I read a lot into that - if you say it has zero game purpose, then to me it has zero purpose - i.e. reactions to people would still occur based on charisma rather than this "attractiveness" stat.

3) The original post was half-joke and the rest just for fun. I still think I'll do it just because it'll be enjoyable to watch people try and scrape their appearence higher.

It's all about fun. Heck if you can't watch your players scramble once in a while what fun is it being a DM?

 

[Trainz]

This should only be applied, though, if some sort of sexual encounter is implied or desired. I think the +2 is a bit much for the cute elven girl asking the married human male for directions, for example. Then again, I'm a little shaky on math, etc., so maybe the +2 isn't as great of an advantage as I think it is.

Even though I'm with the same girl for the past 9 years and we have two kids, and even though there's no way in hell I might cheat on her, I tend to pay a little more attention when a good looking member of the opposite sex asks me for directions, even when sex isn't an issue.

So yeah, I do feel it should have some impact. And as you implied in your last phrase, it isn't such a great advantage. It only amounts to a +1 on the diplomacy check to change the original attitude.

 

[Seonaid]

Ok, maybe it's a "guy thing" since I don't feel the same , but how would you do it for people who are suspicious of what they are attracted to (and there's a fair number of them)? Simple inversion? -2 instead of +2?

 

[silentspace]

My solution was to add a 7th stat that has ZERO game purpose

Don't be a hater! What do you have against beautiful people?

 

[Seonaid]

What do you have against beautiful people?

::resists urge to say something tasteless::