Poll of the Day > Can an ugly PC have high charisma

(+) Yeah! (+)

I want to play an orc but not if I can't seduce any elven princesses

in dnd? sure! the orc can be unbelievably charming and swoon all the princesses regardless of being an uggo

Honestly I hate the humanization of orcs, they're supposed to be twisted evil creatures

Muscles posted...

Honestly I hate the humanization of orcs, they're supposed to be twisted evil creatures

That's the idea, he needs to be as beastly and twisted as possible

some players just put all their skill points into grapple

Bligh_with_no_T posted...

That's the idea, he needs to be as beastly and twisted as possible

I don't think they should even be playable characters, just evil minions for the dark lord

It depends on what game system and ruleset you are talking about, but in general physical attractiveness is only one aspect of charisma so it should be possible to be ugly and still have a high charisma score.

Muscles posted...

Honestly I hate the humanization of orcs, they're supposed to be twisted evil creatures

Youre one of the good ones, though.

Muscles posted...

I don't think they should even be playable characters, just evil minions for the dark lord

ugh get that Tolkien shit outta here

our orcs have blue mohawks and fucking mini-bikes

Yeah, charisma is being good at social stuff, your appearance is a separate thing.

UMA is the ugliest man alive... still so charming that no one feels like killing it

Trying to remember what orcs even are supposed to look like...*does google image search*

Half way down the page: "Orc - Gasm: An Erotic Fantasy Thriller" ...

...

... okay then.

A Fallout New Vegas PC can have minimum Charisma and still succeed on all speech checks because that game is weird

Charisma doesn't have to mean attractive. Some hideous monsters have high charisma and charisma-based fear or nausea abilities for enemies that see or are near them. Being very notable or influential, positively or negatively, indicates high charisma.

Someone can be attractive but timid, soft-spoken, annoying, etc... and be low charisma.

rjsilverthorn posted...

it should be possible to be ugly and still have a high charisma score.

For example: Trump

Look at Steve Tyler or that Buschemme actor etc, charisma is more than just looks and in fact looks can only be a small part of it.

To be fair, looks matter more for females then males though as far as charisma is concerned, you can be ugly as sin but still seriously attractive and good at leading etc as a man.

If your ugly as sin as a woman though it's an uphill battle to have good charisma (still possible, just much more rare). Look at, say Ellen for instance (just first that comes to mind).....oh wait, orpah is a better example!:)

Bligh_with_no_T posted...

Can an ugly PC have high charisma

Yes. Charisma is more force of personality than appearance. The idea that Charisma relates to what you look like is more of a 1e D&D idea - it hasn't been true for a very long time.

Charisma as a stat is generally more a question of making people like you, fear you, believe you, or otherwise react to you in whatever way you want them to. It's the ability to control a conversation and get people to do what you want by words alone.

Sure, you can always say you're drop-dead gorgeous and that's part of why you're so charismatic, but you could also be a butt-ugly dude who's just really compelling in like a Charles Manson or Hitler kind of way.



Bligh_with_no_T posted...

I want to play an orc but not if I can't seduce any elven princesses

You could always "seduce" them the way most orcs do.



VampireCoyote posted...

ugh get that Tolkien shit outta here

our orcs have blue mohawks and fucking mini-bikes

Ehh, like five people in the entire world would even know what the fuck "orcs" are without Tolkien.

Almost every orc you've ever seen in any setting or work of fantasy is either a direct copy of Tolkien, a copy of one of the people copying him, a copy of a copy of a copy (etc), or is someone deliberately trying to make them different specifically to seem like they weren't copying Tolkien ("Hey, what if we made our orcs punk-rock morons who think painting something red makes it go faster?" "Hey, what if we made our orcs a metaphor for tribal cultures in conflict with more 'civilized' cultures?").

If you're playing D&D, which stole about 95% of its original ideas from Tolkien (and the other 5% from Jack Vance and Michael Moorcock), it's not necessarily a ridiculous point of view to have that the best version of most things is the one that is closest to Tolkien's original. Dragons should be greedy and hoard gold. Dwarves are grumpy, have beards, fight with axes, and write in runes. Hobbi- err, halflings are fat little gluttons who smoke and steal things. Orcs are straight up monsters. And so on.

It's also not a terrible thing to assume that certain races should be "Always Chaotic Evil", and mainly be there so that players have something to kill without feeling bad (sort of like how zombies and aliens have become the main FPS enemies of choice because shooting people is more morally questionable). So if someone thinks orcs should be tribal savages and borderline cannibals that have no redeeming qualities whatsoever and exist solely to be mook minions of the Big Bad, then that's fine.

Especially when so many people today everything needs to be a metaphor for real-world racism, so it's horrible that races in D&D have advantages and disadvantages at all - so nobody's allowed to be different while every PC is simultaneously a magical unique snowflake.

The entire point of having races at all is having different groups of people that fit different tropes. Elves are magical and lithe. Dwarves are squad and tough. Halflings are small and clever. And so on. A Dwarf Wizard probably should have a harder time using magic than an Elf. A Dwarf Rogue probably should have a harder time hiding and running than a Halfling.

If all you really want is for everyone to be exactly the same and just look different, why play races at all? Just play a game where the setting only has one race and everyone's a shapeshifter who can look like whatever the hell they want.

Muscles posted...

Honestly I hate the humanization of orcs, they're supposed to be twisted evil creatures

I agree with this, by extension I always hate the "I'm not like the other Orcs" or other evil creature trope, I dislike that WoC is making the Drow less evil and making it seem like the Evil ones are more of a minorty, they already had Seldarine Drow for the occasional "good" Drow.

I was going to make a joke about having a Vegan illithid but then I realized baldurs gate 3 already has one and the game isn't even finished yet.

@ParanoidObsessive omg PO learn to humor

Absolutely, it can also go the other way. Low charisma may not mean ugly at all. I am currently playing a warforged anthropologist. Really low Charisma, but it is mostly meant to mean that he is off-putting in social situations. A little like Dr. Brennan on Bones, high intelligence, but is so blunt that people tend to take them the wrong way.

streamofthesky posted...

Charisma doesn't have to mean attractive. Some hideous monsters have high charisma and charisma-based fear or nausea abilities for enemies that see or are near them

Yeah, but we want to seduce people not scare them

VampireCoyote posted...

@ParanoidObsessive omg PO learn to humor

Humor is inefficient. What purpose does it serve?







...also, that just happened to touch on one of my personal annoyances, so I elaborated on it. WotC's been caving in to some of the stronger (ie, fanatic) SJW sentiment on Twitter lately and have been talking about doing stuff like removing all racial bonus from the various races, essentially making race a completely cosmetic choice. Which is kind of pointless bullshit.

It's like, yes, sure, if you're talking about a rules system that says all female characters get a -2 Strength penalty and a +2 to magic because everyone knows that girls are weak and should all be magic users (like some old RP systems did), then maybe that's something you should want to change so that female players can feel comfortable playing themselves but also be a kick-ass Barbarian or noble Paladin. Likewise, if you were playing a system that gives Irish characters a bonus to their Alcohol Tolerance trait while Asian characters got a +2 bonus to Math but a -2 to their Driving skill, then sure, that shit probably shouldn't fly.

But when you're basically complaining because dwarves being short and slow is making it harder for you to make your perfect character concept, maybe you are the problem (especially when modern D&D rules don't even have most of the racial drawbacks old systems had already).

The entire point of magic races is that they HAVE pre-established aspects to their nature that make them different from humans (and desire to avoid pigeonholing humans is a large part of why humans tend to become the jack-of-all-trades race in most fantasy settings these days). The fact that certain races are going to be better at certain things than others isn't discriminatory, it's the entire point of having fantasy races at all. And "playing against type" is more fulfilling when you actually are overcoming an inherent conflict between your nature and what you choose to be.

smells like embalming fluid
nothing found in his head
18 charisma
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/3/7/AAC4lPAADVqB.jpg

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Humor is inefficient. What purpose does it serve?

...also, that just happened to touch on one of my personal annoyances, so I elaborated on it. WotC's been caving in to some of the stronger (ie, fanatic) SJW sentiment on Twitter lately and have been talking about doing stuff like removing all racial bonus from the various races, essentially making race a completely cosmetic choice. Which is kind of pointless bullshit.

It's like, yes, sure, if you're talking about a rules system that says all female characters get a -2 Strength penalty and a +2 to magic because everyone knows that girls are weak and should all be magic users (like some old RP systems did), then maybe that's something you should want to change so that female players can feel comfortable playing themselves but also be a kick-ass Barbarian or noble Paladin. Likewise, if you were playing a system that gives Irish characters a bonus to their Alcohol Tolerance trait while Asian characters got a +2 bonus to Math but a -2 to their Driving skill, then sure, that shit probably shouldn't fly.

But when you're basically complaining because dwarves being short and slow is making it harder for you to make your perfect character concept, maybe you are the problem (especially when modern D&D rules don't even have most of the racial drawbacks old systems had already).

The entire point of magic races is that they HAVE pre-established aspects to their nature that make them different from humans (and desire to avoid pigeonholing humans is a large part of why humans tend to become the jack-of-all-trades race in most fantasy settings these days). The fact that certain races are going to be better at certain things than others isn't discriminatory, it's the entire point of having fantasy races at all. And "playing against type" is more fulfilling when you actually are overcoming an inherent conflict between your nature and what you choose to be.

And all that started when some random moron on Twitter called orcs black people.

Revelation34 posted...

And all that started when some random moron on Twitter called orcs black people.

that's dumb, Orcs can range from dark olive to bright red

The sleazy car salesman trope exists, so yes.

There are elves in Orc Massage so it's totally possible.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Humor is inefficient. What purpose does it serve?

...also, that just happened to touch on one of my personal annoyances, so I elaborated on it. WotC's been caving in to some of the stronger (ie, fanatic) SJW sentiment on Twitter lately and have been talking about doing stuff like removing all racial bonus from the various races, essentially making race a completely cosmetic choice. Which is kind of pointless bullshit.

It's like, yes, sure, if you're talking about a rules system that says all female characters get a -2 Strength penalty and a +2 to magic because everyone knows that girls are weak and should all be magic users (like some old RP systems did), then maybe that's something you should want to change so that female players can feel comfortable playing themselves but also be a kick-ass Barbarian or noble Paladin. Likewise, if you were playing a system that gives Irish characters a bonus to their Alcohol Tolerance trait while Asian characters got a +2 bonus to Math but a -2 to their Driving skill, then sure, that shit probably shouldn't fly.

But when you're basically complaining because dwarves being short and slow is making it harder for you to make your perfect character concept, maybe you are the problem (especially when modern D&D rules don't even have most of the racial drawbacks old systems had already).

The entire point of magic races is that they HAVE pre-established aspects to their nature that make them different from humans (and desire to avoid pigeonholing humans is a large part of why humans tend to become the jack-of-all-trades race in most fantasy settings these days). The fact that certain races are going to be better at certain things than others isn't discriminatory, it's the entire point of having fantasy races at all. And "playing against type" is more fulfilling when you actually are overcoming an inherent conflict between your nature and what you choose to be.

Im not reading any of that

it was a damn joke, I have no problem with any kind of orcs

jfc

VampireCoyote posted...

Im not reading any of that

Its not always all about you.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Its not always all about you.

ok ok, dont lose your potato

VampireCoyote posted...

ok ok, dont lose your potato

What are one potato say other potato?

Premise ridiculous. Who have two potato?