comeliness

[Moon_Goddess]

HA! We kobolds know all you fuzzy mammels are ugly beyond belief. Quit trying to delude yourselfs. You don't even understand true scaley beauty.

 

[Umbran]

Surprised about the breasts, though. I would think that males would prefer the breasts of young women, not old (and infertile) ones. Oh well, perhaps those are unsuccessful cultures.

Actually, just about any woman who hasn't had the benefit of artificial support from early puberty on tends to end up pendulous by the time she matures, especially if the woman is active. Breast tissue simply doesn't have much structural support in it. The shape Americans and Europeans are used to is not the natural norm, but a result of good clothing.

 

[S'mon]

I thought shiny white teeth were a show of health - look, I can eat well and take care of my teeth, I have lots of resources/enough health to bear children.]

Well, we British... we like clean, healthy teeth. But too big, shiny, too blindingly white and unnaturally straight can seem very 'fake' and thus unattractive. The American ideal of tooth-related beauty is an extreme one to us. Likewise Americans often find our frequently uneven and often slightly yellowish British teeth unattractive!

]

Surprised about the breasts, though. I would think that males would prefer the breasts of young women, not old (and infertile) ones. Oh well, perhaps those are unsuccessful cultures.

I was thinking specifically about an African tribe I read about where the ideal of beauty - in young, healthy women - is long pendulous breasts. Mind you, I do find what appears to be one current American ideal of beauty - unhealthily skinny with stuck-on spherical artificial breasts - very unattractive. This pathological attachment to extreme thinness is a recent phenomenon, though (last 10 years or so), that will hopefully pass. I think Europeans in general - even Brits - prefer a more 'natural' look than the current US ideal.

 

[alsih2o]

my problem with assuming comeliness is a part of charisma is that i assume both mother teresa and gahndi had high cha scores...

i try to think of it as a general physical likeableness, with a neg aspect across races....


but cool to hear all the opinions!

 

[Humanophile]

There've been studies that show that rough ideas of what is attractive are fairly universal. While there's plenty of room for individual taste, I think that the average intelligent creature you deal with would, for example, find a more symetrical form more aesthetically appealing, and as such would have better reactions to them. It might not be an "I want to fill them with babies" reaction, but even individuals you wouldn't consider sex with (relatives, members of the same sex if you're heterosexual, etc.) are more likely to get a good reaction if they are attractive and more likely to get indifferent to bad ones if they're not. So while, say, a mind flayer would look for strong, healthy bodies for propogation and highly intelligent/strong minds for feeding, they'd still have a preference for physically attractive individuals as slaves. And even a kobold or a gnoll would react more favorably to the character in a peaceful, social situation. But that's all a side-topic to the comeliness issue.

Where it ties in to comeliness/charisma, though, comes with the basic fact that Charisma is your ability to get a favorable/preferred response from other individuals, and that good looks tend to enhance that ability. Comeliness without a modifier attached is just wasted space on a character sheet, and comeliness with a modifier is probably a source of double jeapordy in social dealings. (Social specialists get double their bonus, most other characters get double the penalties.) And if you tack Comeliness on as a roll after stats are placed/assigned, you risk sticking characters looking a certain way despite the plans of the player. (If you let comeliness be rolled/allocated at the same time as the other stats, though, you give most players an extra dump stat.)

So to me, all that seems like a lot more hassle than letting the character describe how they look, eyeballing it to make sure it's not too good for their Charisma score, and letting them play it that way.

 

[alsih2o]

well, as i stumble out of the corner, reeling from the power of humanophiles argument, i cede-"no mas"


that was about exactly what i was looking for, thanks.

 

[tsadkiel]

. . . and there is not a man with a heartbeat that doesn't think Marilyn Monroe is beautiful.

I don't think she's beautiful - she's been dead for decades, after all.

Now in her prime, yes. But not now.

 

[rounser]

There've been studies that show that rough ideas of what is attractive are fairly universal. While there's plenty of room for individual taste, I think that the average intelligent creature you deal with would, for example, find a more symetrical form more aesthetically appealing, and as such would have better reactions to them.

I assume that you're referring to the "beauty mask", which is sort of a composite average of faces. The idea is that further your face deviates from it, the less likely you are to be beautiful. Not to disparage those studies, but I doubt they are universal in the sense of worldwide, otherwise the beauty mask shown would look decidedly less caucasian than it does (look at the eyes, nose and mouth). And no, I don't believe that the caucasian look is somehow prettier than alternatives, so I doubt that can be used as an explanation. I may be wrong - perhaps they took a great range of faces from a lot of different cultures - but I severely doubt it.

Symmetry though, is a biggie and a pretty universal measurement of beauty, as you point out.

 

[Frosty]

Actually, while I might agree that Marilyn Monroe was pretty, she was not what I have ever thought of as Beautiful. I prefer brunettes myself, preferably with a latin look.

Beauty is really in the eye of the beholder

We share the same taste Wicht. I do fancy brunettes better. Still, there is no denying the beauty of Marilyn. By the same token I guess we both find Carl Lewis beautiful too even though we don't want to marry him.

There can be a difference in appreciation between chocolate and vanilla but they are both tasty.

In D&D-terms I would say that comeliness is universal but that you might find an elven make-up that gives a +2 cultural bonus among elves or a human lip-plate of attractiveness +4 among humans.

 

[I'm A Banana]

HOLY CRAP!

Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder?!

QUICK, my allies! To arms! We must rescue this more-or-less metaphorical essence fro the eyes of the tyrant!

Wiataminute....which eye?

WHICH EYE IS IT IN, DANGNABBIT!?

(Sorry, someone had to do it....

On a side note, Cha is basically beauty + likability. Describe your character however you want. Old or young, fugly or fubeautiful, your Cha gives the reaction.)