Extremely Attractive, Low Charisma

[Kriegos]

Charisma isn't necessarily physical looks and assuming so is a bit of a common mistake people have been making in D and D for decades.

You can have a slovenly, unfit person who just happens to have raw personality and convincing way about them that I'd totally class as high charisma. And vice versa.

Completely agree! However, there is an arguably equally common mistake on the flip side of this: Saying that Charisma has nothing to do with looks.

It doesn’t *have* to, no, but it’s literally in the description of the stat in the player handbook. Looks are defined as one of the factors that contribute to someone’s overall charisma. You can be ugly, or even just nondescriptly normal, and be charismatic. By definition of the stat, you would be more charismatic if you were good looking, too.

I can appreciate the viewpoints that what we call charisma today doesn’t tie to personal beauty. There are countless examples of charismatic people in the world that aren’t lookers. I do not contest this at all. I also don’t contest that reality has no orcs, wizards, or dragons.

We’re playing a game with those things, though. The rules define these things, and we all use that definition to play. Therefore, in our game, “Strength measures your character’s muscle and physical power... Strength also limits the amount of equipment your character can carry.” And “Constitution represents your character’s health and stamina.”

In the exact same way, “Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting.”
Thats straight from the 3.5 player handbook.

It leaves plenty of room for a nuance, and for give and take in what makes the actual total score. However, saying it doesn’t mean any part of the above means that you’re not playing the same game we all agreed to play.

Granted, Arelith has a lot of custom rules. Enough so that there is a full wiki page so a person can read up on them all. Ability score changes and definitions aren’t among them. Therefore, anything below a 10 in a stat is below average, and means the sum of what makes up that stat should be below average. Anything higher than 10 is above average, and the sum of what makes up that stat needs to be above average. That’s the game. That’s what we decided to play together.

To me, redefining one of the core character attributes and insisting everyone roll with your definition is akin to rolling an elf, giving it a bowl cut, and insisting everyone call you a Vulcan. It’s an extreme example, I know, but the point is simple: That’s not the game we’re playing.

PS:

This thread has inspired me to make my Hobgoblin unnaturally beautiful.

I so badly want this to be true, and can not wait to run into Fabgoblio.

[Kriegos]

I wish it was modified stat that was shown on examine. You could have +12 cha on your pc specifically worn for social events, making your modified cha 20, but all anyone sees is cha 8.

I absolutely second this. (Third? Fourth?)
Yes. Yes please to this idea.

[Beard Master Flex]

Just in case anyone was curious this was an approved suggestion from almost a year ago - that being said it hasn't been taken on by any developers.

viewtopic.php?f=51&t=25114&p=201168&hil ... ne#p201168

[Tyrantos]

PS:

This thread has inspired me to make my Hobgoblin unnaturally beautiful.

I so badly want this to be true, and can not wait to run into Fabgoblio.

He is already real.

[Kriegos]

He is already real.

You just made my day.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

I wish it was modified stat that was shown on examine. You could have +12 cha on your pc specifically worn for social events, making your modified cha 20, but all anyone sees is cha 8.

This is a bummer. I've actually spent gold on gearing for charisma stuff for the sole purpose of meetings, debates, ect, and had no idea no one knew but me

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

In the exact same way, “Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness. This ability represents actual strength of personality, not merely how one is perceived by others in a social setting.”
Thats straight from the 3.5 player handbook.

Here's why the people who wrote that handbook, and the nwn handbook, and probably every d&d handbook ever written that touches on what charisma means are wrong.

Looks affecting charisma has a limited shelf life. Lets say you are a guy who just met two girls. One is smoking hot on the level of sports illustrated swim suit models, the other is just cute. The smoking hot one has the personality of a card board cut out, and the cute one is self confident, funny, and intelligent enough to engage in a conversation about anything. Unless you are one of the low wisdom superficial dudes running around in the world that thinks having the smoking hot girl standing next to you is better for you then the cute one, you are obviously going to gravitate toward the cute one even though initially you couldn't take your eyes off the hot one. And even if you are one of those dudes, its likely more about how you feel they affect your own perceived charisma then having anything to do with theirs. I'm not saying this to be woke, I am one of the least politically correct human beings you can find on this planet and now that the great pumpkin is floating into the abyss off the coast of Florida the purity police mob on the left is really putting my liberalism to the test. No, I am saying this for purely selfish reasons. I would rather be with someone I have fun with and respect as long as I am attracted to them on some level physically then someone who is hotter but does nothing for me mentally. And this just touches on the limited affect looks have on charisma at all, because I am certain no matter how hot you find someone its going to take a lot more then their looks to get you to follow them into battle, or give them a position of power, or even take what they say seriously. And those are the important aspects of charisma everywhere, including (and perhaps especially in) this game.

As a side note, I am fairly confident that writing how hot your character is on your description has a serious adverse affect on you the player's charisma score, and those who go into excruciating detail about it should consider the point that most people don't read more then a few lines before closing the tab no matter what you wrote a blessing . But that wasn't the point being made in this thread. It was a thread about how 8 charisma characters can't be physically attractive, and I am certain that's not true.

[chris a gogo]

It's very simple really.

Charisma measures physical looks and self confidence and all the skills that come from that.

If you character has 8 charisma then they are not the perfect man/woman they are not charming neither do they turn heads when they walk into a room.
At best they can be okay looking but nothing special and they certainly should manage to offend at least one person they meet with there lack of social skill and empathy.
Don't forget these people are not average neither are they just below average that would be 9 at 8 there are some serious flaws with them, ive never met a beautiful character with 8 charisma that portrayed there total lack of charm or any major social flaw that should shine through there RP.

A player that played here told me when encountering such a character would roll a dice at home taking into account there low charisma score to see if they would treat them as a beautiful shining image of the female form, he rarely rolled a 20 to allow it.
As such we would describe them as "so and so you know the one with the face like a boot".

[Airport Proximity Jesus]

Some of my most well liked characters were those I explicitly described as having an "extremely punchable face" or being so scarred and burnt that they needed a staff to walk upright.

You can do a LOT with very low charisma, you just have to play it right and I always enjoy the challenge of doing so.

That being said, I'd probably give passes to races like svirfs who have negatives to charisma? As long as they rp as being weird or unlikeable or offputting in some way, a good looking svirf is fine.

[Skibbles]

A player that played here told me when encountering such a character would roll a dice at home taking into account there low charisma score to see if they would treat them as a beautiful shining image of the female form, he rarely rolled a 20 to allow it.
As such we would describe them as "so and so you know the one with the face like a boot".

This requires both metagaming and bad faith roleplay.

First: there's no way to 'take someone's CHA score into account' without knowing it out of character. Assuming a score and then rolling a dice out of game to decide if one will faithfully engage with another player is wildly poor advice.

Second: on examination, you cannot be sure that the feedback results are real due to bluffing with -mimic (where technically someone with incredibly high CHA likely stands the greatest chance of spoofing 'low', and unless they're altering their description accordingly then it's also meta gaming to assume they've somehow made themselves 'ugly' instead of a dozen other manners, quirks, or circumstances).

Third: one cannot be sure of any worn items, active spells, or miscellaneous effects that might be in play unless one is metagaming. It's super easy to achieve 20 charisma on any character in the game save for a small handful of races, and even those races can get there if they minimally invest hard stats into it.

Fourth: following such logic implies the inverse is true and that all characters with high CHA are always physically attractive and it's okay to ignore their roleplay, such as any description, extenuating circumstances, or mannerisms one might find 'unattractive', and simply refer to them as 'the hot one' simply because one finds it unconscionable to just play along.

This is God-emoting, which is a form of metagaming. If you want your character to find someone unattractive through organic roleplay that's perfectly fine, but what you appear to be suggesting is definitely not how to play with other people in good faith.

[Kriegos]

This is God-emoting, which is a form of metagaming. If you want your character to find someone unattractive through organic roleplay that's perfectly fine, but what you appear to be suggesting is definitely not how to play with other people in good faith.

That’s a lot of very firm push back against a player reacting to this, but it ignores the core issue. Someone who plays a perfectly personable character, with a solid personality, no negative mannerisms, etc. will also write that their low charisma character is drop dead gorgeous. Basically, they ignore their low charisma entirely in their RP. They emote that their low charisma doesn’t exist, and that all others must accept that.

God-emoting, in other words.

Maybe they’re bluffing it, and maybe they’re decked out in finery which isn’t (and very much should be, it’s even been accepted as a suggestion) reflected on inspection. The most likely situation, unfortunately, is that the player used it as a dump stat and is refusing to play their stats.

Assuming it means ugliness might not necessarily the best approach, granted, but I can see where people are coming from. They’re reacting to a perceived god-emote, so the reaction itself is already on unsteady ground in how to handle it. You’ve got some well reasoned thoughts on how not to react, and why. Care to give some ideas how people could react, too?

[Skibbles]

In the quote they're quite literally saying they roll a dice against a character's score, without knowing what that score is, 'to allow it,' which is frankly not their prerogative.

People can only play their own character. Never anyone elses.

As far as your question on how best to react: not everything needs an express reaction, and especially something as dull as physical appearance. Physical appearance is a bare characteristic, a wildly common trope, like an accent or style of dress. There's hardly a reason to draw a huge reaction to an Amnian accent, for example, and attractiveness hardly seems much different.

It's part of what I mean 'good faith,' and 'bad faith.' If you feel that someone isn't roll playing their stats then report it to a DM. Don't simply assume the thought process behind their character, what their stats actually are, and then proceed with 'they're doing it wrong.'

Only the DMs can investigate this accurately, and I don't know about you but I think I'd much rather a DM approach me on how I'm portraying a character (or my forum candor huehue) rather than someone take it upon themselves to tell me my own sheet and my own thought process in the character's portrayal.

Cough. I've edited like three times because I hit submit just before bed. Hopefully in time. I've also added a self-deprecating apologetic joke.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

One thing that might be of value noting is...

Paelyrion - 21 charisma: https://64.media.tumblr.com/410694b7863 ... bx_400.jpg

Pit fiend - 26 charisma:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgo ... 0810073406

Gibbering Mouther - 13 charisma:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/forgo ... 0311074124

Nalfeshnee - 20 charisma:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/68/49/7f ... 0fdcef.png


Erinyes - 20 charisma:
(Insert devil succubus image here.)

Succubus - 26 charisma
(Insert succubus image here)



A paelyrion has more charisma than an eryines, yet I doubt anyone would call them "prettier." In fact, if we treated charisma as a "Beauty stat", they'd deserve 0 cha.

Pit fiends. One could argue they're "Muscular and that's attractive", but their horrid rough scaled skin, massive evil fangs ridges and claws will make it look ugly and disgusting to most people. It has more charisma than the Erinyes whose whole purpose is to seduce mortals. And equal charisma to a succubus.

Nalfeshnee, a literal fat pig walking on 2 feet has as much charisma as an erinyes. An entity designed to seduce mortals.

And for good measure - the gibbering mouther - just so nobody can go "Body shape shaming" and whatnot. A writhing mass of flesh has 13 charisma.

That's more charisma than even players who hate dumpstats and actually allocate according to RP would dump into charisma as a martial character (12).

While the books mention charisma as an appearance stat... the monster manual (and related books) seems to strongly disagree.

So to have someone go around and see someone with "average charisma" and decide on a one-sided dice roll that the character they interact with looks like a mutiliated pile of leather is... interesting. And very encouraging from perspective of a new player, too.

[Duchess Says]

I am content to assume people just tend to be more physically attractive on the island of Arelith than they are in RL. This is not an outlandish concept. Most movies, TV, comics, especially anime and fantasy feature good-looking people even when playing undesirable. That's fine, maybe "beautiful" IRL is just common here, why not?

But end of the day if you don't like that someone wrote their character as beautiful when their charisma is low then disregard their description? Nobody has any obligation to be wowed by another character even if they have high charisma. Nobody even has obligation to +talk+ about appearance. I would probably never insult anyone's looks IG because that stuff tends to trigger RL bullying memories anyway and I don't do romance RP so I don't think I've ever even gotten into discussing looks, like at all, when I RP (clothing or decoration sure, but not their body, face etc)

[Kriegos]

While the books mention charisma as an appearance stat... the monster manual (and related books) seems to strongly disagree.

The way I see it with these things is that they mention it as an appearance, among many other things, stat.

Are your examples pretty? With the obvious exception of the gibbering mouther, I’d say no. Do they have the presence to command a room and a forceful personality? Absolutely. They dominate that space and demand others bow to their will.

Except for the gibbering mouther, which, again, gets by by being super hot.

[xanrael]

After the creation of this thread 15% more div-dips were seen so people could max their looks and AC.

On a serious note:

Nobody has any obligation to be wowed by another character even if they have high charisma.... I don't think I've ever even gotten into discussing looks, like at all, when I RP (clothing or decoration sure, but not their body, face etc)

In agreement with this. Okay someone said they're pretty, whatever. It has little bearing on my RP unless there is a distinguishing characteristic that might spark an IC question. Really the best way to present "good/unique looks" for a NWN avatar is taking advantage of all the clothing/armor options available as that is the most prominent visual present.

[AstralUniverse]

I refuse to RP that charisma has anything to do with physical body figure. It can relate to how groomed the character is and how much EFFORT they put on their attractiveness but it does not and WILL NEVER decide their body figure and if their face is 'pretty'. When people write that their character is mega super hawt or beautiful whatever, in their description, I just respect them less as players, and it has nothing to do with their charisma. I understand that RPing charisma is hard, and for some players it's impossible to RP high charisma just like for me it is impossible to RP 20+ intelligence convincingly in an english-spoken game. Such is life.

[Seven Sons of Sin]

This seems more a complaint of how people roleplay and write their character descriptions, rather than a discussion around the role of "playing your stats."

Circling back on Borin, the most attractive/beautiful/handsome characters on the server are the ones who are often the most compelling characters to be around. Its their personality.

Over the years, I've seen some pretty "ugly" characters get so much romantic attention because their being played by brilliant people.

Honestly, just avoid adjectives in your character description and make your life a lot easier.

[Skibbles]

The manuals are also a poor reference for Charisma because it also assumes that literally everyone except the few people who showed up to game night are all NPCs that can be manipulated at will with the roll of a dice.

Arelith isn't D&D. It's a persistent novel with a thousand pens all writing at the same time, and since there's a thousand protagonists, you're going to see a thousand common protagonist tropes - many of which hinge on some form of appearance which are likely attractive. Some of these story-telling elements are literally thousands of years old.

This is an astonishingly irrelevent thing to even be concerned about. I feel like some of us have never seen an attractive person in real life, because I sure don't drop my jaw and stare dumbfounded when I come across someone I find attractive - I talk to them like a normal adult about literally anything other than what they look like. Or I move on because there's no need to engage with them on the grounds of how they look.

Hot tip: Stop trying to control other people and just play the game.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Hot tip: Stop trying to control other people and just play the game.

I think this is good advice. But if you can't help yourself, at least try and focus on 8 charisma settlement leaders, or 8 charisma bad guys trying to intimidate you, or that 8 charisma charming rogue. It's not going to get you any further then complaining about what people wrote in their description, since on Arelith mechanical power is king, but at least its a complaint that makes some semblance of sense.

[Skibbles]

Hot tip: Stop trying to control other people and just play the game.

I think this is good advice. But if you can't help yourself, at least try and focus on 8 charisma settlement leaders, or 8 charisma bad guys trying to intimidate you, or that 8 charisma charming rogue. It's not going to get you any further then complaining about what people wrote in their description, since on Arelith mechanical power is king, but at least its a complaint that makes some semblance of sense.

Given that Arelith has mechanical effects both for Leadership and Intimidate I don't need to deal with the former two concerns of 8 CHA leaders and 8 CHA bad guys. Leadership directly contributes to bonus votes; ergo they must be likeable or magnetic in some fashion. Intimidate does stuff now, so they must be intimidating in some fashion.

Both these skills can be invested and itemized into literally God-tier levels (with 8 CHA being a mere -1 by the way, a whole 3% impact at max level), and then we'd all need to complain about how nobody is immediately pissing their pants because someone with 80 intimidate (or 79 with 8 CHA - the horror!) threatened them, or that nobody immediately does what a high Leadership character asks just because their presence forcefully compels everyone around them.

Again, however, I have to repeat once more that we have no idea what people's charisma/skills are in game, their itemization, nor the level of investment, and thus it is preferable to simply trust my fellow player is doing their best, of which they almost certainly are, and play accordingly.

Notice how there aren't any threads about how every big DM event attracts every player in the server, many of which assuredly have 8 WIS which clearly means they're a massive coward because WIS governs Will which is the only save that governs Fear. Instead every character shows up because it's Fun and they are a Hero. I don't feel the need to voice such a ridiculous complaint because it's just people having fun and telling their heroic or villainous stories.

There is also a huge human element to this that rarely seems mentioned. Many people enjoy playing with other characters. Maybe they like their story, or they find plenty of RP hooks around them, or dozens of other reasons. This can easily mean that someone playing a 8 CHA character winds up with a hugely magnetic presence just because people are having fun with them. It's unfair to blame someone for not roleplaying their stats just because they're fun to play with and people like to be around them.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, these threads are bottomless holes with little merit beyond telling other people how to play their way. You do you, I'll do me, and we'll meet in the middle and see what we can come up with. Any other concerns, if they really are somehow that grave, can go to a DM.

[Babylon System is the Vampire]

Hot tip: Stop trying to control other people and just play the game.

I think this is good advice. But if you can't help yourself, at least try and focus on 8 charisma settlement leaders, or 8 charisma bad guys trying to intimidate you, or that 8 charisma charming rogue. It's not going to get you any further then complaining about what people wrote in their description, since on Arelith mechanical power is king, but at least its a complaint that makes some semblance of sense.

Given that Arelith has mechanical effects both for Leadership and Intimidate I don't need to deal with the former two concerns of 8 CHA leaders and 8 CHA bad guys. Leadership directly contributes to bonus votes; ergo they must be likeable or magnetic in some fashion. Intimidate does stuff now, so they must be intimidating in some fashion.

Both these skills can be invested and itemized into literally God-tier levels (with 8 CHA being a mere -1 by the way, a whole 3% impact at max level), and then we'd all need to complain about how nobody is immediately pissing their pants because someone with 80 intimidate (or 79 with 8 CHA - the horror!) threatened them, or that nobody immediately does what a high Leadership character asks just because their presence forcefully compels everyone around them.

Again, however, I have to repeat once more that we have no idea what people's charisma/skills are in game, their itemization, nor the level of investment, and thus it is preferable to simply trust my fellow player is doing their best, of which they almost certainly are, and play accordingly.

Notice how there aren't any threads about how every big DM event attracts every player in the server, many of which assuredly have 8 WIS which clearly means they're a massive coward because WIS governs Will which is the only save that governs Fear. Instead every character shows up because it's Fun and they are a Hero. I don't feel the need to voice such a ridiculous complaint because it's just people having fun and telling their heroic or villainous stories.

There is also a huge human element to this that rarely seems mentioned. Many people enjoy playing with other characters. Maybe they like their story, or they find plenty of RP hooks around them, or dozens of other reasons. This can easily mean that someone playing a 8 CHA character winds up with a hugely magnetic presence just because people are having fun with them. It's unfair to blame someone for not roleplaying their stats just because they're fun to play with and people like to be around them.

At the end of the day, in my opinion, these threads are bottomless holes with little merit beyond telling other people how to play their way. You do you, I'll do me, and we'll meet in the middle and see what we can come up with. Any other concerns, if they really are somehow that grave, can go to a DM.

I mean, I clearly said it was a pointless conversation, just that it had more merit then this one because what people write in their description is often not even read let alone has any effect on the game. So we kind of agree. When I first started playing here charisma mattered to me even if there was no mechanical benefits, because that's the type of server I came over from. 4 years later it has been thoroughly beaten out of my mind set, not because it's right for me but because my old server is barely hanging on while arelith still has great numbers.

Do I miss a world where social stats matter as much as mechanical beneficiary ones? Absolutely. I also know it will never happen here as long as the pvp rules state that you have to face off like two samurais before engaging, meaning max power is important to winning. And at the end of the day I would rather play in a world that is bustling despite my own personal gripes here and there then a world that drives people away because other players are constantly telling them they are doing it wrong. And in that, I think you and I are very much on the same page.

[Skibbles]

Shortus Brevitius!

That explains the nagging feeling I misunderstood. My B!

I can get on board with that. Would it be great if all characters had more depth? Yes, always.

Can it be enforced across a wide range of players of varying skill? I'm not so sure.

God knows I've rolled some horrific cringe character concepts (though I will steadfastly deny and obstruct any allegations if anyone were to find out just how bad they were) when I first started playing NWN back in ye olde 56k dial-up days, and I'm thankful that I have been able to learn better not by being told what to do, but by seeing the incredible talents of other players and wanting to emulate them.

I think everyone should have this fair shot - though it all but guarantees perpetual but minor shenanigans as new players constantly join RP communities.

[Fava Beans]

i just wanted to touch in again after reading more of whats been discussed, so heres my two copper comment:

If charisma reflects ones physical appearance, then every sorcerer, bard, warlock, favored soul (or any other charisma based class) must be extremely attractive as a fact of reality. which to me is just silly.

sure it affects attractiveness, in the same sence that rippling muscles are attractive to some. or being educated is attractive to others.

[Aellowyn]

I generally pay little attention to a low Cha with high beauty description. It's a bit amusing, though understandable not wanting to be ugly. Instead I focus on the RP of the character see how they play it out. Beautiful, but offputting, ugly and charismatic...
My character may not find the person remotely attractive depending on their own ideals and outlook on beauty. Just as sometimes, you try to be offputting and clearly average, covered in horrible scars, someone still finds you beautiful and charming. Which make sense, as 9 out of 10 might find someone ugly and unpleasant, but there's someone out there that can think them perfect~

As far as playing by stats, I enjoy trying my best, as there are many different ways to implement it and adds a bit of quirk to the character.
My own low Cha, if not scarred up in some way, is then offputting in some other way, or both and likely a horrible leader.
Similarly low Wis, playing it off as often misunderstanding, oblivious or scatterbrained.
However, I would be playing these stats based on my interpretation of the average, sane, non-necromancer, non-elf, regularly bathed individual.