Appearence and Player Shallowness

[AeroDm]

I conducted a mini-test within my gaming group and found some excellent results that made the evil inside me smile.

I was reading some thread on the Wizards board while ENworld was under super lag about Charisma and how having it be appearence ruins it. The arguements were fairly interesting and got me to thinking about how often we have players with low charisma's declare themselves to have whatever trait they want at a trade off of a trait they don't want (attractive but shy, persuasive but ugly, etc) and how this is annoying.

My solution was to add a 7th stat that has ZERO game purpose, that I coined 'appearence' for the now. We use point buy stat generation, so by adding in 2 pts to all totals, the average Appearence of 10 can be bought without changing anything- and thus not affecting game balance. Additionally, I'd allow them to add their charisma modifier to this 'stat.' To this end, people with high charisma's are more attractive by force of personality alone, which is quite true in the real world.

Because Appearence has no in-game affect, I was suprised to find that most people (munchkins included) said that they would have a minimum of 14 even unto sacking other stats. Based solely on the fact that this stat, which serves no other purpose, is a tangible representation of how attractive they are, they would sack out their meta stats.

As a total aside- the other reason I really liked this was the fact that we use lower point buys (25-28 range). I use these same points for NPCs, so when an 'attractive young maiden' comes along, I like for her to be able to have a high appearence without being weak, frail, unwise, dumb, et al. In our low stat games an 18 is the peak of human perfection, so a 16 appearence and 14 charisma can get you to a 'total' of 18.

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

 

[MarauderX]

It's a nice touch if you are using the Book of Erotic Fantasy or something. Since you made the stat equal to the other abilities, you put a lot of weight on how the characters portray themselves without saying/doing a thing. It's very rat-bastardly if they don't know it doesn't mean a thing. I think I like it.
I would keep it and have them make some fake checks every once in a while to keep them up on it. Add in prestidigitation for make-up bonuses to their looks, and you will have a pretty bunch of super models that will get their butts handed to them by a pack of ogres. Do it a few times and they will try to apply more to their physical stats once again, and when they win a big fight have them enjoy their good looks with a parade through the city.
Oh- don't forget to add in the doubts about their sexual preference if they are too pretty. That's always fun.

 

[Xeriar]

It's a nice touch if you are using the Book of Erotic Fantasy or something. Since you made the stat equal to the other abilities, you put a lot of weight on how the characters portray themselves without saying/doing a thing. It's very rat-bastardly if they don't know it doesn't mean a thing. I think I like it.
I would keep it and have them make some fake checks every once in a while to keep them up on it. Add in prestidigitation for make-up bonuses to their looks, and you will have a pretty bunch of super models that will get their butts handed to them by a pack of ogres. Do it a few times and they will try to apply more to their physical stats once again, and when they win a big fight have them enjoy their good looks with a parade through the city.
Oh- don't forget to add in the doubts about their sexual preference if they are too pretty. That's always fun.

For appearance, I add con and cha modifiers. Gives a good general idea.

However lately I've been thinking about it being cha plus highest physical stat.

 

[AeroDm]

Unfortunately I already told them that it would have no game use other than what they can try to RP themselves into/out of based on appearence. Even so, it already would be one of the most desireable stats by them (hence the thread title). Then again, I must admit that I'd sack out a bit for it too...

I thought about including physical stats but was then deterred. I know that my friends and I look for _very_ different things in females and physical stats represent much of that difference. Same with intelligence, some people like 'em dumb. However, I've never heard anyone say that they wanted someone with less personality (referring to 'good' personality that cha represents, not 'annoying' personality), so I left cha in.

 

[DreamChaser]

If it has no game effect then it shouldn't exist as a stat. Stats exist for no other reason than game effect.

Plus

Appearance is so subjective that assigning a number to it seems counter-intuitive. I have never (even back in 2e days) applied "beauty" or "ugliness" to charisma. Bearing, poise, heck maybe even grooming habits but not any "raw" appearance trait.

I know that technically this is a house rule but then this is the place for those things.

If you stop and think about all the "beautiful" famous people you can think of, I doubt many of you would agree with calling ALL of them beautiful. There may be some you think are plain, homely, or even ugly.

Down with Appearance/Comeliness!

DC

 

[Trainz]

Appearance is so subjective that assigning a number to it seems counter-intuitive.

Oh am I ever taking you on this.

There is no subjectivity in this at all. EVERYONE will agree that the one on the left has a better appearance. One might argue that the one on the left has an horrible personality and the one on the right be a great people person, but this is why the original poster suggested that Charisma directly modify the appearance score.

Which I think is brilliant, IMNSHO.

 

[Kemrain]

But apperance varies so much. If you just crawled your way out of the blackwood swamp, covered in muck, grime and drying blood from the trolls you valiantly slew, even if you're a prettyboy, people are gonna balk at the sigh of you.

Then again, the daughter of the local pigfarmer is used to seeing men covered in crap, and might take a liking to ya.

It's so subjective that it's not even funny... What a Dwarf finds attractive would make a Human wince, and you know it!

- Kemrain the Very, Very Dirty.

 

[aurance]

I don't think having such tradeoffs as "attractive but shy, persuasive but ugly" is annoying at all. A character can describe himself however he wants, but if you have a -2 modifier you may be attractive but it's dwarfed by the party-stopping shyness. Likewise, persuasive but have ooze coming out of your pores. That's not necessarily a bad thing. As long as you apply the penalty in all situations that warrant it, and tailor NPC reactions around it, the flavor-based penalty sidestepping becomes pretty futile.

 

[Reprisal]

Long, Long Reply

I'm not familiar with this Book of Erotic Fantasy beyond what people have been saying about it here and on "those other boards." So, I'm not up on how they treat appearance as an additional Ability Score, but here's my off-the-cuff take on it...

If we assume that Appearance is heavily-weighted in the subjective direction even though there will be some objective commonalities between various definitions of beauty like healthiness, fitness and symmetry, then what we need to do is quantify the subjective aspects until it meshes well enough with the rules.

I suggest we start with keying Appearance to a specific race: human, elf, dwarf, gnome, orc, and what-have-you. At that point, we can then set up some arbitrary rules that make some sort of sense. At this point, I figure we should take a look at the NPC attitude stuff on pg. 72 of the PHB v3.5 and try to have Appearance have some effect on starting NPC attitudes.

As an example, take a human female with an Appearance score of 13. We'll say that her player has keyed her Appearance to the default for her race, humans. Now, when she encounters human NPCs who are attracted to human females, she'll benefit from an automatic upgrade in the Initial Attitude of that NPC.

If the NPC would normally be Indifferent, he is now Friendly. The rule would be that for every point of modifier, the Initial Attitude of an NPC is upgraded or downgraded accordingly -- or just upgraded if you're more into that.

If this human female were to venture into the forest and start interacting with elves, then her appearance would have to be more exceptional to affect most elven men, who are likely to have keyed their desires to elven females. As a result, this PC would need to have an Appearance of 14 or 15 (+2 modifier) to have the same effect she would have on human males. The same would hold true for dwarves, orcs, or whatever.

This means, of course, that every character in the world will need two new characteristics: (1) what race's sense of beauty they try to emulate, and (2) what they find attractive themselves. These two things are generally the same, a human female would key her sense of beauty to the human ideal and would likewise be attracted to other humans -- regardless of gender preference, that's just another complexity added in later.

What's flawed with this system? It's inherently limited to racial ideals of beauty and it doesn't cover enough ground to allow for a universal or relativist definition of beauty.

It's simple, however. The idea that each race has its own definition of beauty allows for quicker mechanics. Elves tend to favour elves, humans favour humans, and so-on and so-forth... But being able to key a character's Appearance to a particular racial ideal should help forge a degree of diversity. If a half-elven girl is raised among elves, she may key her aesthetic efforts and personal preference to the elven ideal of beauty rather than the human ideal.

I guess you could give Appearance two-related values: Personal Sense and Social Sense or inner and outer senses of beauty.

Calder Ross, Human Aristocrat 1/ Sorcerer 5 / Ranger 1, Neutral-Good.

Calder was born and lived near a forest, and though he was raised to emulate the masculine, human ideal of beauty (handsomeness) by his family and community, his limited contact with the wood elves of the forest during his early adolescence fostered an interest in wood elven females that would culminate in a full-blown preference over his own race. As a result, Calder dresses and acts like a human, but pines for elven companionship.

• Strength: 10 (+0)
• Dexterity: 11 (+0)
• Constitution: 12 (+1)
• Intelligence: 13 (+1)
• Wisdom: 15 (+2)
• Charisma: 19 (+4)
• Appearance: 12 (+1)
• - Personal: Human Male (What he thinks he should look like...)
• - Social: Elven Female (What he thinks his mate should look like...)

As an NPC, Calder would react well to female characters who try to personally emulate the elven aesthetic. For him, every positive point of Appearance's modifier would upgrade his Initial Attitude toward any given elven female, or human female trying to emulate an elven female. A human, gnome or dwarf would have to be more exceptional to affect him in the same way.

Apperance could be used with skills if they're modified to use "Either Charisma or Appearance" for certain applications -- think Bluff for Seduction, Gather Information (Chatting someone up at the bar for the secret codes to the nuclear Golem) or even just Diplomacy.

In the end, I think quantifying Appearance is important for how NPCs initially react to any given character. The problem is that if we make it an Ability Score, it needs to be at least as useful as Charisma.

I think, now that I've gone through the casually analytical motions, that it would be best to determine Appearance like a statistic, but not one that has any mechanical CharGen costs or benefits.

You could, instead, include questions like these in a character questionaire:

"If we were using Comeliness or Appearance as a seventh Ability Score, what would it be?"

"If we think of each race having their own distinct ideals of beauty, then what racial ideal would your character attempt to emulate for himself or herself? For his or her prospective mate?"

And that would say a lot about any given character, at least when ideas of aesthetics come into play.

*shrug*

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

- Rep.

 

[Trainz]

Very good analysis Reprisal. And I will build the following based on that:

For starters, lets follow canon knowledge about appearance values, like Lord of the Rings (which, although some would like to deny it, greatly influences D&D standards).

Elves are fascinating to humans and hobbits (halflings). Although gnomes aren't portrayed in LotR, I would assume that being somewhat fearie themselves, they would also view elves in a good light.

Thus, elves would have a +2 appearance score when relating to humans, halflings, and gnomes. Elves aren't more impressed by other elves because they're used to hang out with other elves. The same thing would happen with half-elves, but to a lesser degree, thus only +1 in regard to humans, halflings, and gnomes (one is tempted to include dwarves as well when one considers Gimli's reaction to Galadriel, but in general, it is well known that dwarves couldn't care less when it comes to elves).

As for the other races, I would say they have no bonuses or penalties when interacting with their own race, or a -2 penalty when dealing with other races (except as noted above). Half-orcs would have a -4 flat penalty with other races, none with their own race.

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).

I would generate the appearance stat outside the normal stat generation system, modified by charisma. I would roll 4d6, whatever the stat generation system, because appearance is a roleplaying issue, not affected by the power level of any given campaign.

Once the stat is determined, it could have many effects:

First, appearance helps in changing an NPC's attitude, according to the Diplomacy skill (Player's Handbook p.71-72, check sidebar page 72). Add (or substract) the appearance modifier to the diplomacy skill check when trying to change an NPC's attitude.

For example, lets take an elven maiden trying to change the attitude of an indifferent human guard. She has 5 ranks of diplomacy, a charisma score of 13 (thus a total diplomacy skill of 6), and 12 appearance. She is an elf, thus has a +2 appearance towards the human. Furthermore, the human guard is sexually attracted to females, for another +2 appearance. Her total +4 appearance gives her an appearance of 16 for this encounter, thus a +3 modifier. Her diplomacy score (+6) thus becomes +9 (there's a good chance the human guard will become friendly towards the cute elven maiden).

Secondly, we could create a system to determine if sexual intercourse is desired from an NPC. Without going into detail like the Book of Erotic Fantasy does, you could just determine if a PC is succesful or not in trying to get a good evening's fun with the serving girl (IMC, we do not want to go into further detail. A simple success or failure is all we are really interested in).

I propose the following system to resolve such an encounter:

First step, First Contact: The target of the PC's desire might be interested at first sight. Make an opposed check, taking the inquiring PC's appearance modifier opposed by the "target's" wisdom modifier. If it is successful by more than 5, the "target" is readilly interested right away, do not go to development. If it is succesful by 5 or lower, go to development. If it is failed, well that's that. If it is failed by 5 or more, the target takes offense, and will take steps to strike back at that offense (from a simple wine glass to the face to a more involved expulsion by the bouncers of the establishment...).

Second step, Development: O.k., the "target" has noticed you, even finds you attractive, now lets see if you can "sweet-talk" or convince the "target" to go further. Make an opposed check, taking the inquiring PC's charisma modifier opposed by the "target's" intelligence modifier. If it is succesful by more than 5, the target is interested by more than one evening's pleasure and may become a love partner for a long time (maybe leading to a weding). If it is succesful by 5 or lower, the "target" is willing for an evening's pleasure. If it is failed, well that's that. If it is failed by 5 or more, the target finds you so boring that he-she destroys the inquiring character's confidence, so that any other such ability checks (for the sexual intercourse charisma opposed check) suffer a -4 penalty for the next 1d4 days.

I would also give a -2 to +2 modifier to the Development check depending on the player's role-playing of the verbal exchange if there is any (according to the DM's best friend situational modifier rule in the books). If the player refuses to role-play the exchange, just give it a -2. If the player is very crude in role-playing the exchange ("Hey babe, how would you like to have sex with the greatest hero around ?"), give it a -4 (yes, this still may lead in a success, but in real life, it does happen... *sigh*).

Anyways, all this is some top-of-my-head musings of how an appearance score could be used... make of that what you will.