D&D (2024) Change in Charisma Description

[Scott Christian]

I think most intelligent races pass judgement on trustworthiness by how someone looks, especially on first contact, so "appearance" is a pretty critical contribution to Charisma, but in no way does it need to be "attractive". Healthy, distinctive, imposing, calming, "cool", etc. are all fine in my book.

How about universal appeal?

 

[ECMO3]

I know... I know... We've been down this road before. But please hear me out: Charisma should include beauty. Right now it's "confidence, eloquence, leadership" and "... your ability to interact effectively with others. It includes such factors as confidence and eloquence, and it can represent a charming or commanding personality." Beauty needs to be included. Here's why.

• Deception, performance, persuasion, and yes, even intimidation deals with a character's looks. There is a reason performers look the way they do. Many, if not most that do well, are very good looking. Sting could not be Sting without his looks. The same is true for Tina Turner, Cher, or many other famous artists. And are there ones that aren't? Sure. But they are far outweighed by the ones that stand out from the crowd. One only needs to look at the recent Therenos scandal to understand that it wouldn't have worked if it was run by someone that looked like a normal person. Performance is a no brainer, as that is half the sales of a performance. Persuasion, same thing. I mean, advertising uses looks, especially sexy looks, to convince people to buy things. And looks, particularly beauty, is paramount to true intimidation. The old Greek stories, Roman stories, and pretty much every ancient culture's stories laid the groundwork for this.
• Another reason is that there is nothing on the sheet to measure beauty. Yet, beauty is one of the very first things anyone sees in a person. A tall, dark and handsome guy walks into the room and people stare. A lady with perfect features walks into the room and people stare. It seems silly to not have it listed on the character sheet somewhere since it is so (soooooo) prevalent among all societies across the world. And before anyone starts talking about beauty norms changing, please let's discuss. Because it leads to the third reason. The one that is most important. The one that is the glue to this entire claim.
• D&D, being a different universe, must have created a different norm for beauty. I mean, if you have elephant people, turtle people, cat people, dragon people, merfolk people, silver skinned people, orange skinned people, green skinned people, robot people, demon people, devil people, bearded women, etc. AND, all these people manage to live together, side by side, with nary a remark about how ugly the others are, then it stands to reason that they have a universal definition of beauty. One that translates across species. Of all the adventure paths and NPCs created by WotC, there is never a character that spouts stuff like: "Those dwarven women are hideous. Kissin' a scratchy beard - gross!" Never a disparaging remark about tails, horns, scales, or cloven feet. So they must have a universal view of beauty. Which, in my opinion, sounds kind of nice.

There you go. Charisma should include beauty. It's just a beauty we have a hard time wrapping our head around.

Beauty should be like height, weight or hair color. It should not be tied to your ability scores IMO. You choose how beautiful your character is when you make them and based on the artwork or token you select to depict them. It also should have nothing directly related to skill checks, although you can include a thematic element. Give him or her advantage on persuasion if trying to seduce someone, just like you might give your 8-foot Barbarian advantage on intimidation based on height. In either case though it is the charisma that determines the success. Your 8-charisma beauty just fails awfully at trying to flirt with a low roll.

There are plenty of people out there that are prettier than Sting, Cher or Tina Turner who are not famous artists. It is not beauty that made them famous, and I would argue Kenny Rogers and Garth Brooks were/are not particularly good looking, while Mick Jagger, Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson are downright "ugly" based on most peoples opinion of looks.

A Charismatic person would know how to cash in that beauty and become famous, or alternatively cash in on looking old and wise, or cash in on .....

 

[ECMO3]

And again, to reiterate, it could be one of the characteristics. Not the characteristic, but one. Because, in the end, beauty is an important part of social interaction. To have all these species that follow all sorts of cultural norms that we follow, but exclude this one, seems silly.

Sure, but so is height, weight, age, physique, gender, skin color, race (the real term, not the D&D one), religion, profession, dress, sexual preference, wealth, marital status, nationality.....

All these things affect social interactions, most of them objectively more than beauty does. Should they all be rolled into your Charisma score ... or perhaps another ability?

 

[James Gasik]

How about universal appeal?

Which brings us back to Elves.

 

[Clint_L]

How is "beauty," in the context of physical attractiveness, even a meaningful trait in a fantasy world with untold numbers of sentient beings? Can any proponent of adding it to charisma explain that? I'd be fascinated to see a good argument.

 

[Scribe]

How is "beauty," in the context of universal physical attractiveness, even a meaningful trait in a fantasy world with untold numbers of sentient beings? Can any proponent of adding it to charisma explain that? I'd be fascinated to see a good argument.

Force of personality, is similarly meaningless, when we are talking about various different species.

Then again, there is always the X of Many Hats.

 

[Jahydin]

How about universal appeal?

I think all of those things hold universal appeal across the intelligent races.

A well groomed dwarven beard, a badass scar across the chest, striking eyes, fey-like beauty. All of those could be descriptors for a high Charisma that gives a bonus to social checks in my game.

Just a hot-tempered, rude, sloth-y, unkempt, "sketchy", diseased, absent minded, etc. would universally be descriptors for lower Charisma characters.

But just as others have mentioned, there are infinite combinations of "non-appearance" traits that could balance all of these out and justify a higher/lower score than expected.

I'm guessing that a lot of folks who are opposed to this idea hate the fact that people are judged by their appearance and civility in real life maybe? I like to roleplay in worlds that are far from my idealized society, but I understand those that use it to escape into a world that is much more friendlier and forgiving then our current one.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because just as there are apparently DM's who straight jacket players with Alignment, straight jacket players with ASI, is it such a stretch to imagine there are the same terrible DM's who upon receiving a players description of Charisma being based on their characters looks, look up the PHB description of Charisma, and veto it?

Since Charisma isn’t related to a character’s looks, the DM should have no grounds on which to say the character can’t look the way the player wants them to based on their Charisma score. Indeed, avoiding the risk of a DM using a character’s Charisma score as a straightjacket to restrict the character’s description is exactly the reason Charisma shouldn’t mention being related to appearance.

 

[Scribe]

Since Charisma isn’t related to a character’s looks, the DM should have no grounds on which to say the character can’t look the way the player wants them to based on their Charisma score. Indeed, avoiding the risk of a DM using a character’s Charisma score as a straightjacket to restrict the character’s description is exactly the reason Charisma shouldn’t mention being related to appearance.

Its ok, we wont agree.

 

[BookTenTiger]

After 13 pages of arguments I still have a gut reaction to tying Charisma to appearance... It's just gross and unnecessary. I'm glad it left the game in 4e and I don't ever want it back.