Ronseur, I was talking mostly about things like symetry, youth, health, and general traits like that. I agree that things like a beauty mask in D&D would be as hopelessly flawed as they are as a universal determinator here, but some things do make other creatures find you more attractive, even if it only means that, say, the beholder would prefer to petrify you and keep the statue instead of disentigrating you.
And Al...
Al said:
Humanophile's arguments are generally sound, but lack the appropriate analysis to substantiate them. Whilst I agree with his first paragraph about the nature of beauty, I would take issue about the game mechanic effect, or lack thereof.
Perhaps, but then so do a lot of items on the character sheet. These mysterious entries for 'Personality' and 'Background' seem to have no real game-mechanic or modifier attached. Are they a waste on the character sheet? In my group, appearance is purely for descriptive and roleplaying purposes: in a roleplaying game, not everything has to have a modifier to be significant.
Well, the only concrete, numerical terms on your character sheet that don't have very real game mechanical effects are age, weight, and height. (Alignment too, maybe, but that does have very tangible-in game effects if you're playing by the literal rules, and if not, well, you've seen the number of people on here who think that a concrete system of morality and personality is bad game design.) Having an appearance written down on your character sheet is clearly an important role-playing consideration; if your elves are african-black and racist, while your PC's are your typical bunch of midwestern caucasians, it's going to have a game effect. But your skin tone is "pale", "dark", "swarthy", "tan", "pasty", or "fair", not Skin Tone: 5. It's about description here, not applying game effects, and almost all the time, things only need to be quantified if there is some concrete game effect to it.
Although I guess when I'm talking rhetorically, I can come off somewhat hypocritically; to clear things up, in theory everyone does have a Skin Tone stat, a Comeliness stat, a Shoe Size stat, and so on. So I might refer to "high Comeliness, middling Charisma" characters. It's just that in most of these cases, it's far, far wiser to let the player have what she wants, so long as it doesn't overly conflict with something concrete and mechanical she wrote before. The character has "hair to the small of her back", instead of having to roll a Hair Length score and managing to roll a 14. And unless she has a kit/prestige class/culture/what have you that insists that all members (or at least all female members) shave themselves totally hairless, I don't see a problem here.
Not necessarily. If comeliness is linked to Charisma, then you could use that instead or as an alternative: a la 2e Skills and Powers, comeliness can give the initial reaction and then Charisma alters it for better or worse. Conversely, if comeliness is independent, the problem of double jeopardy is circumvented altogether.
I'll give Skills&Powers this; at least when it made you roll differently for first impressions vs. public speaking, they also made you roll differently to lift the statue and to keep it out of the way while your comrades worked. But that way lies too much micromanagement and too many dump stats. (Be honest here, S&P users; who ever used that system for anything other than an free effective +2 to all stats?) While most Comliness systems I've seen either ignore what it means, give it another modifier to lump with Charisma bonuses (or sometimes a charm %, which is the same idea with 100% more silliness), or make it one of those stats for "real roleplayers" to take. So again, does it do nothing (in which case what's the point of making characters have a concrete score in it, especially when many uses of appearance are highly subjective), or it does something, making it corrolary to Charisma in some way or another (be it replacing it at times or adding to it).
Perhaps, but if you force the players to roll statistics, they may not generate the character they necessarily envision (strong, agile, intelligent, charismatic etc.). They may want different stats in order to make the character what they feel like. It's the DM's call: if it's that big a deal to the player he may give him a break (so long as it doesn't start a torrent) but if not then there's no real additional problem- you won't necessarily always roll exactly the character one envisages, unless you have an unlimited point buy.
Depends on how much you want to fine-tune it. I like playing intelligent scholar/wizard types. As such, while I may not be able to pick my stats as finely as I could if I could just pull them out of thin air, you know that my best stats are going into Intelligence, Constitution, and Dexterity. Again, unless you go 3d6, 6 times in order (or heck, even 4d6, drop lowest, six times in order), people are going to adjust their scores to a general archetype and play that way. Even social/charisma focused characters like bards, paladins, and sorcerers. So are you saying that Comeliness should be rolled with all of these scores (in which case, almost every character will now have two dump stats; look at iconic Charismas if you don't believe me), or will it be rolled seperately? Even if Comliness is linked to Charisma, I see it as being more invasive to the player's mental image than settling for a 16 strength when they saw themselves as solid 18 Strength types. And while this may make more of your high-Charisma characters Ghandis and Mother Teresas than supermodels, I don't see the advantage as being really that worth pursuing.
And if you like point buy like many people seem to... well, that's just all the same ideas, but worse.
Again, I'm afraid, a bald assertion. My group has adopted the Charisma + 3d6 with little other effect than roleplaying purposes. It's quick, simple and just adds a little flavour to the game- and there hasn't been a single complaint.
First, what your group likes may be very different than what other people like. Your group may have fun coming to the table and making up characters based on what the dice give them, while I'm unabashedly a point buy fan. Your group may like trying their best to make a good story from random elements. Your group may just be quieter or not care as much about how invasive that can be. So congrats to you, but this is one of those places where a house rule is best left at the table.
Second, while you may be thinking "hmm, I wonder how attractive my character should be", and decide to roll dice for it, there's no need to keep that number (which both of us have to admit is a little too concrete for something that becomes highly subjective when you get to the fine points), why not just throw 3d6, average that with your Charisma, decide how attractive your character is from that, and then toss out the numerical value of the score? As I said above, attractiveness is universal enough that the dwarf king would probably prefer to keep as a servant the same elf that a human would chose to bed, but if you're a high-Comeliness elf trying to seduce the dwarven jailor into letting you free, your score there's kind of useless if he thinks that a real woman should have a nice, thick beard.
