Beauty in D&D

[kenobi65]

Gamers, would you spend a few bucks commissioning an artist to illustrate a favorite character of yours?

Probably, if it was an artist whose style I like, and who seems to have a reasonable grasp of the proportions of the human(oid) body.

 

[iwatt]

IMO, Charisma is a combination of looks and personality. Which is greater depends on the player's version of their character...

Exactly...

In a game I play in my Cha 16 dwarf pally is a natural leader. He ain't pretty though.

In the same game, the Cha 19 Aasimar Cleric is just plain handsome. You know, the goddess pageant judge kind of handsome . Although he's the face man he's not the definite leader.

The Cha 5 Tiefling is probably the ugliest creature in the planet. This was decided since the character comes up with good ideas and we had to justify why we would keep someone so disagreeable arround us. It's OK though, since he's usually hiding , so we don't have to look at him much.



On a side note, in 2e my Cha 7 War Cleric got raised to 18 Cha thanks to a deck of many things. I decided to play him as a guy who was unaware of how good looking he'd become, and slowly had him come to grips with the new leadership position his good looks brought him. He was a fun character. By the end of the campaign he was always taking his shirt off whenerver possible and taking midnight swims to get the female bards attention

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

Who's the prettiest PC in the party?

Ranger, I just wanted to say that you are very pretty and I don't care what fusangite, Hammerhead, Mouseferatu or PirateCat say.

That established, in a previous game the fact that the DM’s wife was running the best looking PC was a running gag – we all had fun with it. However, in the current campaign it has never been an issue – all the players are males, running male PCs. That some of the PCs are ugly has been brought up – one is a Githyanki, another a Half-Orc – but who is all smoldering handsomness has never come up.

 

[RangerWickett]

I had a race of monsters, each of which represented some aspect of thought or nature, and if you killed one, you gained its power. Well, the 8 Charisma introverted Elf ranger/barbarian, who never told anyone what her backstory was, killed Beauty. She got a Nymph's blinding beauty ability, but her low Charisma made the power pretty puny. I think being gorgeous actually made her even more introverted. And introverted barbarians are hard to roleplay, so the game got a little awkward.

But awkwardness has nothing to do with chainmail bikinis, as professionally-made ones simply do not chafe. *wink*

By the way, E.N. Armoury - Chainmail Bikinis is now officially on sale!

 

[sniffles]

I like tying charisma directly to appearence. I am actually confused why anyone wouldn't at least _link_ the two together. Considering all of the threads about how Charisma needs to be made more important and considering how vane most people are about how their character looks... tying Cha to physical looks seems like a good first step.

I beg to differ. I don't think Cha and appearance have that much connection. My example for this with my fellow players is usually to point out that Hitler had a high Cha in D&D terms. But I don't think many people would describe him as physically attractive.

My fiancee was playing a character with a low Cha for a while. He described her as stunningly attractive but when she opened her mouth it was like listening to Fran Drescher.

I would agree to the idea that a very high Cha signifies physical attractiveness. I'm in a campaign now where 3 of the PCs have a Cha of 18 or higher. I'd say they're all pretty good-looking as well as charming and personable.

 

[Templetroll]

I let people pick how they look in my game.



Yah, sometimes realism just isn't to great. How many ugly people do you think Michelangelo painted, besides realism is watching a 007 movie and seeing James Bond get shot by the first guard that catches him sneaking in somewhere.

Rodin sculpted great works of people who were 'ugly'.

Man With A Broken Nose

 

[jmucchiello]

Would you ever allow a chainmail bikini in your game?

I wouldn't care about a character wearing one. But if you mean like this*. No, I wouldn't want any of the (all) guys I play with wearing that stuff.

* Not a work friendly link but technically nothing wrong with the place....