Extremely Attractive, Low Charisma

[Kriegos]

So I’ve noticed this trend for years, but thought it might be interesting to discuss the ongoing prevalence of low charisma characters that are, upon inspection, described as the most perfect, immaculate specimen of human/elven/(usually not)dwarven beauty.

I get that everyone at one point or another wants the perfect, charismatic hero or villain to play. I also get that physical features are not the only factor of charisma, but they are a factor in it. It’s entirely possible to have play a handsome or beautiful person that is socially off-putting. I acknowledge that. Let’s be honest, though. Your average gorgeous, low charisma character is not being played that way.

It’s so prevalent that a friend and I play a game where we send each other screenshots of descriptions and play ‘Guess the Charisma.’
Spoiler: The hotter they are, the more likely it is that it’s low.

Let me also say that this isn’t something I think should be punished, or enforced to change in any way. It’s like when I see someone haste-running through town day in and out. I wish they wouldn’t, but that’s about it.

Does it bug you, too? Let’s hear it. Think I’m nuts for caring? Dissent away. Really, I just thought it’d be interesting to float the observation, and see what others think.

[Hazard]

Physical attractiveness and low charisma is perfectly acceptable and logical.
There are plenty of uncharismatic beautiful people all over the place, IRL and in fantasy.
You have no idea the depth of a person's character or where their low charisma might be coming into play.
To me personally, physical appearance is completely detached from charisma.
Someone can have high physical traits (fit/attractive) and have 4 charisma for all I care.

[MissEvelyn]

Does it bug me? Yes, to absolutely no end. It's the same thing when you come across 8 Wisdom characters being played like extremely wise characters.

Yes, beauty is subjective and all that, and yet, there is a universally agreed upon standard, and when your character sheet straight up says "This character is attractive/beautiful/handsome/good-looking" while also showing Charisma: Low? I consider that as not describing what's actually on your character sheet. My character WILL recognize that you are not attractive. You're not even average. You are, in fact, unattractive. On the surface level, anyway. But first impressions do matter.

And for those arguing that physical appearance has nothing to do with Charisma, that's objectively wrong in this game. The NWN in-game description of Charisma states the following:

Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.

Many will argue Charisma equals confidence. To which I agree completely. But it is also generally universally agreed upon that confident (not to be confused with arrogant) people are often more attractive.

The short of my response is, I come upon attractive or beautiful or handsome described PCs all the time with a Low Charisma score, and I find it bad form. Maybe I'm among few who dislike that. Or maybe I simply have standards that may not be entirely fair to impose on others.
But my advice to everyone doing that is: Don't. There are so many other ways your character can be liked and loved. But leave the beauty descriptions to your actually attractive characters.

As with all advice, take it or leave it

[Hazard]

Does it bug me? Yes, to absolutely no end. It's the same thing when you come across 8 Wisdom characters being played like extremely wise characters.

Yes, beauty is subjective and all that, and yet, there is a universally agreed upon standard, and when your character sheet straight up says "This character is attractive/beautiful/handsome/good-looking" while also showing Charisma: Low? I consider that as not describing what's actually on your character sheet. My character WILL recognize that you are not attractive. You're not even average. You are, in fact, unattractive. On the surface level, anyway. But first impressions do matter.

And for those arguing that physical appearance has nothing to do with Charisma, that's objectively wrong in this game. The NWN in-game description of Charisma states the following:

Charisma measures a character's force of personality, persuasiveness, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.

Many will argue Charisma equals confidence. To which I agree completely. But it is also generally universally agreed upon that confident (not to be confused with arrogant) people are often more attractive.

The short of my response is, I come upon attractive or beautiful or handsome described PCs all the time with a Low Charisma score, and I find it bad form. Maybe I'm among few who dislike that. Or maybe I simply have standards that may not be entirely fair to impose on others.
But my advice to everyone doing that is: Don't. There are so many other ways your character can be liked and loved. But leave the beauty descriptions to your actually attractive characters.

As with all advice, take it or leave it

Sorry, but I strongly disagree.
Charisma does not have to be physical attractiveness.
I don't think you should be god emoting for other characters like that. If their description says they are beautiful, and you decide to interpret charisma as meaning they are ugly, you're sort of, I think, not in the spirit of roleplaying. We should have a "Yes, and.." attitude of co-operative story-telling, not a "You're doing it wrong. Let me decide for you."

It is listed as a possibility. You can have higher charisma because you are attractive, or be attractive because of higher charisma, but that is one out of many ways to represent charisma. You could be very physically attractive with 6 charisma if the character has crippling social/behavioural issues, and is a total slob or prick or really anything. D&D is a very creative medium, and you shouldn't be deciding other peoples characters for them.

I also reserve the right to play a high CHA character that is ugly.
I want a goblin bard, but I don't want a smoking hot goblin.

HOWEVER! I do agree to an extent with what you're saying.
I believe that characters who are beautiful but have low cha should really (and I mean REALLY) play up their low cha representation, whatever it is. If they're shy they should be shy to the point where it affects daily life, like a disability. If it's behavioural issues, it should be really bad. Red flag bad. It should stand out. The character sheet and attributes need to manifest in some form, in RP.

[Kriegos]

I believe that characters who are beautiful but have low cha should really (and I mean REALLY) play up their low cha representation, whatever it is. If they're shy they should be shy to the point where it affects daily life, like a disability. If it's behavioural issues, it should be really bad. Red flag bad. It should stand out. The character sheet and attributes need to manifest in some form, in RP.

And that’s really the crux of it. I agree with it not being impossible for a low charisma person to be pretty. Nor is it mandatory for a high charisma person to be. In the original post (I don’t know how to do multiple quotes, sorry!) I wrote,

“It’s entirely possible to have a handsome or beautiful person that is socially off-putting. I acknowledge that. Let’s be honest, though. Your average gorgeous, low charisma character is not being played that way.”

It’s the second part that gets me. I’m completely down for those qualifiers you write above. I hope for them, but I very seldom see them.

To clarify further, what gets my goat is that people use charisma as a dump stat, describe their character as very attractive because who doesn’t want to be, and then play them as a totally normal, personable character.

If you skew prettiness up, but have low charisma, then I think other parts of that which decides charisma (force of personality, persuasiveness, etc) should be lacking to compensate for it. If your charisma is negative, then the sum of those parts needs to be below average. That’s what the number means, after all.

One other bit that, I’ll admit, definitely skews my perception of how the stat is interpreted:
I can tell whether their charisma is low, average, or high by looking at them. In my head, that predisposes it toward things I can tell from sight: mannerisms, bearing, and physical attractiveness. That’s probably on me for approaching it that way, come to think of it, but it’s hard to think of other reasonable ways to take it. I’m definitely open for suggestions, in fact!

[TavernRoleplayer]

This is why I personally do not write down that my characters are attractive unless they do have High CHA. I do agree that it is up to the player to decide their own character's attractiveness but it would be nice that they can show a reason why they're CHA is low i.e poor manners/attitude, shyness/awkwardness or even the person might not be the smartest and it shows.

[Party in the forest at midnight]

All I will say is if people try to godmod how attractive they are onto me, I am much more inclined to ignore it. I've seen it not a whole lot on this server though thankfully. I'm glad there are no skill/stat rolls here. When people can roll [cha], it makes them behave really lazy trying to godmod people to doing their bidding.

[lakhena]

It’s hard to play low charisma in a game that rewards social interaction, especially when people aren’t willing to be ugly and others automatically assume you’re beautiful. This is especially so for female PCs.

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’ve tested this on a few PCs (not just on this server). Even with no description about my PCs’ physical traits and a visibly low charisma score and behaviors that indicate social awkwardness, the majority treat them as beautiful people. Plenty will go out of their way to comment on their good looks, even when I dress my PCs in potato sacks.

It’s uncanny. It’s like people just don’t want to believe you might have an average or ugly female.

Some of us do try.

[Kriegos]

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’ve tested this on a few PCs (not just on this server). Even with no description about my PCs’ physical traits and a visibly low charisma score and behaviors that indicate social awkwardness, the majority treat them as beautiful people. Plenty will go out of their way to comment on their good looks, even when I dress my PCs in potato sacks.

It’s uncanny. It’s like people just don’t want to believe you might have an average or ugly female.

Now that’s really interesting. Anyone else with a similar experience? You have me tempted to see if I can make a character off-putting enough to avoid this, just to see what the breaking point is.

“Skin as creamy as curdled milk, and twice as bumpy, with a breath so foul that you can smell it from a dozen paces...”

[Hazard]

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’ve tested this on a few PCs (not just on this server). Even with no description about my PCs’ physical traits and a visibly low charisma score and behaviors that indicate social awkwardness, the majority treat them as beautiful people. Plenty will go out of their way to comment on their good looks, even when I dress my PCs in potato sacks.

It’s uncanny. It’s like people just don’t want to believe you might have an average or ugly female.

Now that’s really interesting. Anyone else with a similar experience? You have me tempted to see if I can make a character off-putting enough to avoid this, just to see what the breaking point is.

“Skin as creamy as curdled milk, and twice as bumpy, with a breath so foul that you can smell it from a dozen paces...”

Yes, actually.

One of my longest played characters was a halfling druid named Magpie.
She had very low cha, and her description described her as an ugly person. Thin, dirty, gollum like hair, pale skin, feeble and decrepit.
But she was very kind and wise, with awful disgusting mannerisms like always being muddy and eating worms, chewing loudly, burping.

She was a little disgusting grot, and people found that charismatic despite it being me playing her low cha, and characters would STILL comment on her attractiveness. I guess there's just no escaping WYSIWYG, and the models all look the same.

[Flower Power]

I don't tend to pay very much attention to how hot people say their character is or is not. It just really doesn't matter to me.

If the most interesting thing about your character is that they're super attractive (or super unattractive) you've probably made a fairly dull character - intentionally or not.

But at the end of the day, someone else playing a supermodel self insert fantasy alterego really doesn't have any significant or direct impact on me or my capacity to play and enjoy the game myself so, y'know. Live and let live.

[D4wN]

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’ve tested this on a few PCs (not just on this server). Even with no description about my PCs’ physical traits and a visibly low charisma score and behaviors that indicate social awkwardness, the majority treat them as beautiful people. Plenty will go out of their way to comment on their good looks, even when I dress my PCs in potato sacks.

It’s uncanny. It’s like people just don’t want to believe you might have an average or ugly female.

Now that’s really interesting. Anyone else with a similar experience? You have me tempted to see if I can make a character off-putting enough to avoid this, just to see what the breaking point is.

“Skin as creamy as curdled milk, and twice as bumpy, with a breath so foul that you can smell it from a dozen paces...”

Yes, this has happened to low/average CHA characters of mine too. I guess it sort of proves too that CHA isn't just about looks. But if you play a low CHA character, something about you should be offputting. Whether it's manners, personality, looks, smell. Anything really. But you can't control how other players respond to your character.

[mash]

If people treat you as pretty despite your description, they most likely just haven't bothered to read yours. I know I don't, since most of them are way too long. At this point, I only open the examine window in special cases.

Otherwise, I have a long laundry list of things people don't play. Bookish wizards have the stamina to march/run over half the island and climb a tall mountain without breaking a sweat. Meek characters never fall into panic even in a dire battle (and no, it is not "roleplaying fear" to put in two emotes but still have your character act with unfailing heroism). And so on. Persistent worlds are (usually) not real world simulations (why would you need to simulate that?), but more like a Hollywood movie where every character is a main character. So is it a big surprise that most characters are more brave, resilient, and attractive than average? Eh, not really. That doesn't necessarily mean their characters have no flaws or are boring (although that is possible), they just have a different baseline of attractiveness and behavior than you would expect from real life. Which is fine.

[TheEssence]

It used to bug me when I was new on Arelith. Then I just accepted the fact that no one really roleplays those stats.
I even see the reason. The server is mechanically challenging and pvp is something that will be tossed your way sooner or later if you take part into a minimum of faction play. You have to minmax, or better, you don't HAVE to, but you likely will if you want to be competitive in the least both in PVP and PVE.
I hint my char low CHA and WIS by having her rather blunt and often 'speaking or acting before thinking', had rped her unable to speak properly and starting to lick a wall (!) for no reason once her INT was reduced to 3 by a spell.
But since most of the island CHA is set to an overall 8, I simply accept that being an 'average' without the need for the char to be especially offputting.
Of course CHA low and a description that would make Naomi Campbell jealous, makes me smile, but again I consider that part of a compromise that comes with the limitations of NWN char generation.

[Dreams]

Don’t worry about it too much. You can set an example by role playing the way you think is good, and let other people role play the way they want to.

After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

[Kuma]

my 8 cha old cripple became a HOT DAD by reputation alone
my 6 cha (4 with gear) freaky cyberwizard got a hot wife

my 30+ cha sorc got divorced by an NPC

charisma has nothing to do with physical attractiveness, i dont care what the rules say.

[Eira]

It’s an interesting phenomenon. I’ve tested this on a few PCs (not just on this server). Even with no description about my PCs’ physical traits and a visibly low charisma score and behaviors that indicate social awkwardness, the majority treat them as beautiful people. Plenty will go out of their way to comment on their good looks, even when I dress my PCs in potato sacks.

It’s uncanny. It’s like people just don’t want to believe you might have an average or ugly female.

Now that’s really interesting. Anyone else with a similar experience? You have me tempted to see if I can make a character off-putting enough to avoid this, just to see what the breaking point is.

“Skin as creamy as curdled milk, and twice as bumpy, with a breath so foul that you can smell it from a dozen paces...”

Preserver's Talona priestess literally smelled like rotting milk and other nasty stuff, and yet was treated like the hottest thing on the block

My drow has a messy scarred face, is constantly covered in grime, blood, and slime, has her hair in one big tangle, exhaustion eyes, is flat as a board and underfed, and yet... people have referred to her as beautiful and flirted with her. A lot.

Generally, I look at charisma in two ways.

1) A certain level of base attractiveness

2) Understanding of people enough to manipulate/charm/convince/intimidate

You can have someone that is beautiful, but is too blunt with their words or can't read the room or rubs people the wrong way.

You can have someone that's so intensely beautiful that they actually make others uncomfortable to be around them

Maybe someone is pretty and because of it, people talk over them or assume that they're not smart (fun fact! this happens in real life!)

Maybe someone is pretty and uses it to get people's attention long enough for them to actually get their words across.

You can have someone plain or unattractive but has experience reading others or working with them.

And you can have a balance or mix depending on the situation.

[Opustus]

I tend to RP stats myself, but if others don't I can be like "Oh well, it's a game of make-believe anyway, so might as well let others enjoy it how they want to" oor I can go "You're poophead and play in bad taste", trying to establish some standard of RP excellence based on my tastes. For the former option the total amount of energy I must exert is 0, wheras for the latter it's many many many kilocalories of brainhate and spite and calls for fairness and better RP which I don't have to spare for a game as silly and made to be enjoyed without extraneous silliness as Arelith because there are so many real problems in the world. Ugh.

Anyway, for me RPing stats is a sort of creative exercise I don't expect anyone really to make note of. As I often let the sort of build I want to play define the stats I play with, this consequently defines the nature of my character. I am dubious as to whether the way I do it is the way RP can be enjoyed to its maximum, so I'm fully open to arguments to the contrary that it might indeed be more pleasurable NOT to RP your stats than to RP them.

[Nitro]

Also, you know. Beauty isn't an objective thing. Everyone thinks different things are hot. Some people really dig scars, some find them disgusting. Some think a mole on the cheek is the hottest thing, some think its a gross malignancy. That's why basing a subjective thing like "beauty" off an absolute number is kind of a silly notion.

[Baseili]

All the various stats are collectives of related aspects, if the main stat is low all should be low. D&D is a realm of absolutes dictated by dice so if you have 8 strength you're physically weaker than average, lacking muscle, stamina and typically finding military or physically demanding things harder. Same with dex, you'd be clumsy, slightly uncoordinated and slightly off balance.

8 charisma? You might not be ugly but you're below average, you'd also lack presence with others and generally be a bit of a pushover socially. Thats not subjective that is the representation of the -1 ability score. People only ignore it because the absolute of killing things is more important than the absolute of character representation on Arelith which is unlikely to change due to the sheer size of the server, so to paraphrase Captain Barbosa; you'd best be believing in silly notions, you're in one.

[Flower Power]

my 6 cha (4 with gear) freaky cyberwizard got a hot wife

It was the shorts and sandals combination. A one-two punch, my dude.

[Curve]

This kind of talk reminds me of old church ladies harshly judging each other about the particulars of their morality or who’s dress should be one inch lower, or who had a kid out of wedlock. It’s a weirdly puritanical side of the dnd community.

Don’t worry about other people’s stats or how they roleplay them.

[Tarkus the dog]

This is why all my characters are single, I'm not gonna settle for anything less than a smiter build and those aren't popular anymore.

[LovelyLightningWitch]

What does one define as "Low charisma"?

We have to remember that the average populace ranges from 8-12, maybe 14 in a stat. Adventurers are the exceptions.

Just as it is possible to be an excellent sailing with only a modifier of 8 in profession(sailor), a skilled healer with 8 in profession(Healer)...

Someone with 12-14 strength has fairly high strength from perspective of commoners. Consider, per SRD, 12 strength is enough to lift 130 lbs over your head without staggering. 14 strength is enough to lift 175 lbs above your head without staggering. And those strength levels allow you to lift twice that while waddling around. Meaning: a 14 strength character can pick up a rock weighing 350 lbs and walk around with it (at 5 feet per 6 seconds or round) which is more than Mark Felix, one of the strongest men on Earth managed!

Someone with 12-14 charisma has fairly high charisma from perspective of commoners. Due to the abstract nature of charisma, I can't really compare it against IRL.

Someone with 12-14 intelligence is probably more than smart enough to get a PhD IRL. Consider: 14 intelligence is more than enough to understand and conceptualize the complex geometries and mathematics necessary to rip open a passageway in reality, and have it lead somewhere else within 700 feet (Dimension door is a circle 4 spell). A wizard with 14 intelligence is capable of calculating stuff every morning (while preparing their spells) that's equivalent to applied general relativity without computers


And we havn't even spoken about the availability of magical healing that eliminates scarring, disfigurement and other common causes of looking "unattractive." You don't even need magic to de-scar yourself. Elf hazel costs 5 gp, takes a DC 10 craft alchemy to make. Continuous application over a week removes disfigurements. Even assuming you use up a whole batch every day over the week, most it will take is around 35 gold to remove a large scar).

[seppuku me senpai]

Beauty is subjective and western beauty standards have been created by a toxic industry to sell products by preying on anxieties of consumers via predatory means. This industry would have you believe that in-order to be confident, charismatic, own a room, etc, you must be hot-- this is often applied to women as it tries to establish that worth and social competence is dependent on physical beauty.

Charisma is a Greek word which means Divine Grace, and via the wikipedia page, charisma is often defined as a quality of extraordinary leadership skills that can also inspire others to devote or follow them.

You don't have to be "beautiful" or super hot/fit to inspire others or be charismatic, by definition. Certainly being hot can inspire some kinds of simp-level devotion or leadership based on a cult of personality surrounding the shallowness of beauty, but the essence is your strength of personality, ability to command a room, and otherwise connect with people (be that in a good way or a bad one) is your measure of charisma.

Law cha but very conventionally attractive means you are, yes, conventionally attractive, but you lack that je ne sais quoi, or that Big personality. It could also mean you're shy, or you have a stutter, maybe you say weird inelegant things or, youre a wallflower, or maybe you're a super hot bimbo whose very attractive but also a shallow person.

In closing:
Beauty is subjective and often used to objectify people (usually women) by declaring their worth or value as a compelling presence as equivalent to physical beauty, the standards of which are unreal and determined the culture industry.
Tying beauty the quality of leadership and social presence perpetuates this notion, especially when we rank beauty as a number value not determined by meaningful character interaction.

Charisma is your strength of personality and ability to lead which is articulated through meaningful character interactions, not a handful of self-gratifying lines on your raven hair violet eyes and lilac and gooseberry perfume.