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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jonny Nexus" data-source="post: 4368203" data-attributes="member: 14664">Well we've got the one problem, that you've identified, which is whether when we are roleplaying we should use the skills/knowledge/abilities of the character, or those of the player. (You get the same conflict when the barbarian with an Int of 3 played by a nuclear physicist figures out the intellectual puzzle that will unlock the next section of the dungeon).But I think that in this case you are also hitting a second problem, which is the clash between overall charisma and verbal charisma. Roleplaying is a pastime (miniatures and battlemats aside) entirely constructed of words and speaking. i.e. It's like the radio verses TV and film.And just like radio, it only rewards verbal charisma, and ignores "presense" entirely. (Marlon Brando might have had magnificent mean and moody stage presense, but he'd probably have been pretty crap on the radio).And remember the 1960 Nixon vs Kennedy presidential debate? People watching the TV scored Kennedy the winner, but people listening on the radio scored Nixon the winner. Or in roleplaying terms, Nixon had the most charismatic player but Kennedy had the highest charisma stat. We had this problem in our game where a supposedly hugely charismatic PC of the physical magnitism kind approached an NPC in a nightclub, greeted him, sat down at a table... and then proceeded to say nothing. In real-life, or in a film, he might have looked the business. But in a radio play, or in roleplaying... it wasn't good."You spent the entire evening with him, and didn't say a word, and you're supposed to have mega-charisma? The just sat there and ignored him, so the bloke got up and left.""I was chillin' ... I wanted him to think I was cool. It's a nightclub. People don't talk in those places, they pose!"But I can see his point. Some people just have a physical presense such that they can say, "Er... excuse me, could I have the apple pie with, erm... cream please?" and they'll have people falling over them. And some people can deliver a wonderful polished statement full of prose and get beaten up for "thinking they're clever."</blockquote>

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