tall, with long flowing black hair and dark eyes.

[d4]

What's wrong with teal?

what kinda animal to you have to skin to get teal blue leather?

like many others, i prefer "interesting" characters to attractive characters.

my current character is a dwarf barbarian who is like unto the bastard child of Hagar the Horrible and the Tasmanian Devil.

 

[Kastil]

With the exception of my husband's half-orc character, I notice he makes his character 'handsome' no matter what the charisma score is. He thinks the charisma score is more about how you act towards others than beauty.

I, on the other hand, think the opposite. I once had a score of 6 to put somewhere so I went with charisma. I made a female character who had a very bad run in with a bear. She wasn't horribly deformed but she wasn't going to be the next prom queen either. I don't think I've ever done the dreamy eyes bit but it's really that roguish smile that gets them every time. ;-)

 

[barsoomcore]

what kinda animal to you have to skin to get teal blue leather?

Obviously one of these.

 

[Impeesa]

You want a real eye-opener, go read some free-form message board games some time. I even came up with a term for it, "literary munchkinism" (it encompassed some other related phenomena too). They may not be powerful - though it helps - but darn it all if they aren't the most badass thing on two legs. Tends to happen more among the younger crowd, I find. And all my female friends, but that's another story. Although.. let's look at my last few characters..

Ellis Malachy, Kinsai Seer (rolemaster) - very tall, very dark, very high appearance score. Hair in corn rows. Almost.

Arahad, High Man Bard (rolemaster) - very tall, well built, long hair, again very high appearance score. Blonde hair, blue eyes. Almost.

Karik, human ftr/bard going for DD - close-cut dark hair, medium height, very powerful build, about as far as possible from quiet and mysterious. Nowhere close.

Adal Hargrim, half-orc bard - tall, short-trimmed hair & beard, slightly graying from age. Wears spectacles. So far off it's not funny.

What is interesting, though, is how I'm an incorrigible number-monkey, yet I continue to subject myself to charismatic bards or bardly-types. Is this related? You be the judge.

--Impeesa--

 

[Pants]

What's wrong with teal?

Red's much better for leather.

 

[darkbard]

though i usually don't respond to threads that have already reached this length, i'll buck my own trend because i've something to add that hasn't been already stated....

i think the game mechanics encourage characters with idealized physical traits. though there are as many ability creation methods as there are stars in the sky, i think it's fair to assume that the standard array [15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8] is a fair [if not slightly underpowered] representation of a character's stats.

assuming that charisma, dexterity, strength and constitution are all stats that have some bearing on what a character looks like, it seems to me that even with the 4 lowest scores in these abilities, the character is still "above average". so, a character with a str 10, dex 12, con 13, chr 8 might be a fit distance runner or something similar. while an nfl lineman may be 50 or 60 pounds overweight, the nimble, hardy big guy is the the exception to the rule. similarly, a str 13, dex 8, con 10, chr 12 character may be the good-looking waiter who is an aspiring actor who thus works out all the time but just can't keep from spilling drinks on the customers.

sure, it's easy to imagine exceptions to my idea [like the overweight lineman who still has high dex and con scores], and they can exist, but the game mechanics support idealization in my opinion.

this idea, however, really speaks only to concepts of excess fat, severe frailty and similar concepts that affect how we judge a character's looks.

 

[SpringPlum]

I've seen some excellent uses of ugly, normal, and attractive characters. A friend of mine once played a cleric with a charisma of 3. His explanation was the character had leprosy. He was even dressed in the brown robes and hood of a leper. I'm told that a sea hag once took quite a fancy to him.

In our last game, our rogue-type character's greatest asset was the fact that he looked completely normal. You'd never remember him five minutes after meeting him. Which is something he used to good advantage. When all of the characters stats were being raised by supernatural means, he got quite angry that he was better looking.

In out current game, my rogue/geisha is very attractive and uses her looks as a weapon to influence people (well, men mostly) to do what she wants. Also in this game, our DM is trying out a homebrew comeliness score. Just as you can have a Hitler-type figure (charismatic but super ugly) it would be possible to have a pretty but unremarkable person. Thinks of all the cute guys and girls on college campuses. All attractive but of a cookie-cutter variety.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

I think part of the problem is that there isn't a comeliness score included on the character sheet.

All the Sorcerers, Clerics, Paladins, and Bards with high charismas automatically become beautiful people through a loose interpretation of what charisma really represented.

Obviously, Hitler was highly charismatic, but ugly as sin, so one score doesn't really work.

I think BoEF includes a new Comeliness attribute, which I imagine will be a necessity for those using such rules.

You would be correct. The Book of Erotic Fantasy does have a new stat. Its called Appearance not comliness. It gives racial averages and a breakdown of how to use the stat in your game.

I dont remember if they offer a new rolling method to account for a 7th stat however. You could just use what you do now, and roll appearance sepratly, thts what i plan to do.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Well, the majority of players in our group are women, and they say their characters are always beautiful, sexy and shapely because it's a fantasy game.

I have played characters of various appearances, ranging from handsome men/beautiful women to ugly half-ogres. But since I usually play elves, my characters are usually above average in appearance.

Once in a Cyberpunk game I played a character who was a courier. He had to be of average appearance so he could blend into the crowd and not be noticed. I've used this concept (the blending in) in D&D for some non-elf rogues.

 

[Oni]

Funnily enough I don't think I've ever really read any descriptions of handsome dwarves, and certainly none that were dreamy. People that play dwarves a lot seem to revel in making them squat, hairy, ugly, uncouth creatures, most of these people also seem to hate elves.....


You know now that I think of it, gnomes are really the race that seems to be depicted with the most variance in appearance. Everything from ugly to absurd to Gimble.