Ugly (or low Charisma) = evil?

[Darkness]

But as always CHR is not appearance.

Not solely, yes, but appearance is a part of Charisma (PHB, p.9).

 

[Henry]

One additiont thing Darkness reminded me of: If you tried to map CHA to "good or evil" it'd be all over the map. An Aboleth has a 17 CHA, but it's the most ugly evil thing next to mind flayers you can get!

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I would say that there is some correlation in regard to appearance and no correlation at all in regard to charisma scores. If you toss neutray critters in to the mix it becomes even more confusing.

 

[Calico_Jack73]

First of all, Charisma (IMHO) doesn't represent physical beauty... it is your force of personality. You can have the most attractive character in the world but have a real attitude problem that makes people dislike you. Conversely, you can have an ugly character that people just naturally feel drawn to and follow. I'm going to commit a mortal internet sin by invoking his name but Adolf Hitler is the perfect example of Charisma. Not exactly the most impressive looking man but nobody can dispute his ability to lead so many people to throw away common sense and embrace his own twisted values.

In 1E Unearthed Arcana a separate stat was created called Comeliness which was a measure of physical beauty. In my opinion it should have been kept because people keep confusing physical beauty with charisma (look up the word in a dictionary and you'll see it really has nothing to do with beauty).

 

[Voadam]

That's two out of...how many?

Yes many evil humanoids are brutish and ugly looking.

Many demons and devils are brutish and ugly looking.

Good fey are generally beautiful (nymphs, dryads, etc.)

However there are many counter current examples:

Handsome evil,

Half-fiends have a charisma bonus.

Devils are known charmers and sweet talkers unless you get the dante esque ones in the MM.

Vampires get a charisma bonus and in many traditions look beautiful

drow

Fiendish template can be applied to most anything beautiful.

Lots of trap style monsters appear as beautiful maidens to lure in prey. Hags for instance favor this tactic.

It is a truism that if you meet a beautiful damsel in distress in a dungeon it behooves you to detect evil. More often than not it is a trap, get an axe.

dragons no difference in beauty for good vs. evil.

You think hound archons are beautiful?

Celestial template can be applied to most anything ugly.

Flumphs. Lawful good.

I say again, Flumphs.

 

[John Morrow]

To what extent is it true that, in D&D at least, if something is ugly, it's probably evil? As a corollary to that, to what extent does D&D support the idea that a character who is charming, insightful, and regal is likely to be good whereas the one who is gruff, socially awkward, and smelly is likely to be evil? To what extent is this trend understandable or justifiable?

It's understandable in the sense that it's rampant in the fantasy source material (using movies as an example, take a look at Legend or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy). The idea is that Evil is an inward ugliness and that inward ugliness get's reflected as an outward ugliness. And while the movie Shrek was designed to buck this stereotype, one shouldn't fail to notice that Shrek really isn't all that ugly looking or menacing and you can't smell him in the movie theater. Had he been depicted like the CGI Golum from Lord of the Rings, audience reactions may have been different.

The real world implications of this are often troubling but it's difficult to argue that people shouldn't prefer being with people who are pleasant company to people who are unpleasant company and the responses that most people have to looks and demeanor is more viceral than intellectual. Since most games want the PCs to choose Good over Evil, it makes some sense to make Good pleasant and Evil unpleasant to simplify the moral and emotional landscape. It gives people a positive viceral reaction to Good and a negative viceral reaction to Evil. It's very similar dehumanizing the bad guys in action movies by hiding their faces behind helmets, face masks, or sun glasses so the audience doesn't feel empathy for them and vicerally react with revulsion when they are casually killed by the dozens by the hero of the movie. That's troubling in a lot of ways, too. But like the looks it, it does work.

What about good/evil outsiders? In your games, does their appearance indicate their natures? What about celestial and infernal templates and races? Would players be able to draw conclusions like: "Hm. Agile. Clever. Red eyes, smells a bit like smoke, not too good-looking. Definitely not a people person. Must be a tiefling" or "sleek and beautiful with a glow. Must be a celestial"?

In my game, the tieflings that the party has run into have been charismatic and hid their true nature well. One, in fact, was a very charismatic Bard. They've also run into some succubi, an attractive erinyes, a charismatic Glabrezu that the players thought was pretty likable, and some reasonably attractive Evil clerics. While there is the "ugly inside == ugly outside" school of thought, there is also the idea of Evil as temptation which leads to "beautiful and seductive outside but ugly inside" and I tend to play with that quite a bit, too. I've also had quite a bit of successfully both the players by confronting them with Evil characters that offer to help the party in exchange for various things.

The stereotype that I'm really trying to fight at the moment is the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" idea that all powerful people, good and bad, are either very attractive and charismatic or a bit odd looking and strange. I'm trying to make sure that I sprinkle a mix of fairly plain and unexecptional looking people into my setting, too.

If you somehow buck this trend, I'm also interested in knowing how you do it. Do you make evil characters all the more endowed with personal magnetism and social skills? Do you make your infernals as charming, socialable, and magnetic as the celestials? Do you deliberately play with the idea that you cannot judge a book by its cover?

I think that the danger of playing with the idea that you can't judge a book by its cover is that it's easy to turn that into a cliche, too, or to get too preachy. That's not to say that you shouldn't challenge stereotypes like this or that I don't. I do. But I think there needs to be more to it than a moral lesson for the players, otherwise the results are often as artificial as the stereotype that's being attacked. And to its credit, even Shrek, a movie that's all about playing with the idea of judging books by their cover, still played to the fact that the preference for attractive people doesn't necessarily disappear even when people know better in the sequel.

 

[Afrodyte]

I think that the danger of playing with the idea that you can't judge a book by its cover is that it's easy to turn that into a cliche, too, or to get too preachy. That's not to say that you shouldn't challenge stereotypes like this or that I don't. I do. But I think there needs to be more to it than a moral lesson for the players, otherwise the results are often as artificial as the stereotype that's being attacked.

I don't think we need to assume the opposite extreme to challenge a particular preconception or trend. I believe it goes without saying that veering into the "everything is completely the opposite of what it looks like" would be a juvenile approach to the dilemma. What I was proposing (but probably failed to communicate) was to encourage a bit more complexity, or at least not to hinder it. In some cases what you see is what you get. In other cases nothing is as it seems. In most cases it's a lot of both. The challenge for the characters (and perhaps their players) is to judge each situation on its own merits and then take appropriate action.

The funny thing about Darkness in Legend is that I don't think he's portrayed as monstrous in the sense of him being a big, strong, brainless brute. If you look at it (especially the director's cut of the film), he's a rather majestic and elegant character. The contrast with his grotesque appearance (and I could argue that description) is more intriguing than jarring. He has several qualities that some people I know would find irresistable. In a way this does argue against my original point (which I'm OK with), and this brings to mind that it is not the presence of a correlation between evil and ugliness, but failure to make evil subtle, pervasive, and tempting as well as repulsive that doesn't agree with me.

Now, if all you want to do is kick monster butt (which is fine by me; it's good to know what you want), none of this applies.

 

[MoonZar]

To what extent is it true that, in D&D at least, if something is ugly, it's probably evil? As a corollary to that, to what extent does D&D support the idea that a character who is charming, insightful, and regal is likely to be good whereas the one who is gruff, socially awkward, and smelly is likely to be evil? To what extent is this trend understandable or justifiable? What about good/evil outsiders? In your games, does their appearance indicate their natures? What about celestial and infernal templates and races? Would players be able to draw conclusions like: "Hm. Agile. Clever. Red eyes, smells a bit like smoke, not too good-looking. Definitely not a people person. Must be a tiefling" or "sleek and beautiful with a glow. Must be a celestial"?

If you somehow buck this trend, I'm also interested in knowing how you do it. Do you make evil characters all the more endowed with personal magnetism and social skills? Do you make your infernals as charming, socialable, and magnetic as the celestials? Do you deliberately play with the idea that you cannot judge a book by its cover?

Everything above does not apply to illithids because the idea of brain-eating, squid-faced aliens is strangely appropriate.

I use both aspect, some of the most evil order of my world is an assasin guild who accept only ladies who have 16 of charisma and greater, you should never judge a book by his cover.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Will-o-wisp - Glowing ball of graceful light that lures adventurers to doom.

Gosh, I just had a mental image...

"Lantern archons appear as floating balls of light that glow about as brightly as a torch."

"Will-o’-wisps can be yellow, white, green, or blue. They are easily mistaken for lanterns, especially in the foggy marshes and swamps where they reside. A will-o’-wisp’s body is a globe of spongy material about 1 foot across and weighing about 3 pounds, and its glowing body sheds as much light as a torch."

"Hi! I'm a lantern archon - Heironeous sent me. Don't go that way - go this way!"

-Hyp.

 

[MoonZar]

Gosh, I just had a mental image...

"Lantern archons appear as floating balls of light that glow about as brightly as a torch."

"Will-o’-wisps can be yellow, white, green, or blue. They are easily mistaken for lanterns, especially in the foggy marshes and swamps where they reside. A will-o’-wisp’s body is a globe of spongy material about 1 foot across and weighing about 3 pounds, and its glowing body sheds as much light as a torch."

"Hi! I'm a lantern archon - Heironeous sent me. Don't go that way - go this way!"

-Hyp.

Man this trully evil hehehehe