Discussion: Roleplaying Charisma
-
Charisma seems to represent, in all its forms, your pull on the "social current". I'd expect a high charisma person to be very capable of making friends, allies, etc. as well as all of the persuasiveness, magnetism and leadership. I find one real strength of having high charisma is that you're free to make a very large and firm base of PC allies, who in turn will look out for your character a great deal. It's likely the strongest stat in CoA, simply because it allows you to extend your strength beyond your own character, to the power of many.
This is kind of lacking in large part in single player and non-rp servers thanks to limitations in the game engine, but with the dynamic nature of players roleplaying a character it works very well.
Basically, charisma's greatest strength is the support you can enlist from sources outside of yourself. I try to emphasize that most with my high (and recently extremely high, 21-22, 28+ on a good day…) charisma characters, to varying levels of success.
-
I like to think of Charisma in the following real world manner:
If you were placed in the middle of a circle of 20 people all looking for someone to lead them, how would you react?
8-10 Charisma:
11-13 Charisma:
14-16 Charisma:
17+ Charisma:
Charisma certainly influences your ability to lead, but it is not a direct measure of leadership because as has been stated, leadership depends on so many other factors.
-
According to the SRD:
Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness.
Can you circumvent a poor charisma if you want to lead? Sure, there are ways (check Moloch's post in the most recent Ask a DM question). Will you be as naturally proficient a leader without it? No- because charisma is an exact measure of your natural ability to lead, among other things. The best definition from the SRD or elsewhere is that charisma measures the force or strength of your personality, not how you are perceived in any given social situation. It is not an "external" stat like you suggest (maybe unintentionally).
-
@HarryMcScary:
It is not an "external" stat like you suggest (maybe unintentionally).
If that's in relation to my post Harry, then no, I didn't intent to imply that it was an 'external' stat. I guess I was likening Charisma to a person/character's inner sense of confidence.
The trouble is, charisma is so multi-faceted that it become difficult to define. It becomes even more difficult to define in NWN which has a 'Persuade' skill (as distinct from diplomacy) when SRD defines charisma (in part) as 'persuasiveness'.
My head hurts. I'm just going to go with "high charisma means my character is hawt!"
-
So, most dwarves are shy and introvert people. The definition of Charisma suggests that dwarves (and any other races with -2 or so charisma) cannot have natural leaders, or they will be -always- worst than their human or elf counterpart.
Charisma is the worst ability of all. It tries to involve a lot of traits. Physical attractiveness? Totaly subjective.
Personal Magnetism? How do you roleplay that?
Persuasiveness…there is a skill for it.
Force of personality. Yeah, try to "force" your opinion on others.Charisma is hard to explain, and if you ask ten players you will hear ten different answers. And none of them is reall good or bad.
-
No, statistically they will usually be worse. Not always. Pump your dwarf's charisma up to 16 at creation and you are far more charismatic than 90% of the other PCs on CoA. Are you as charismatic as a human who spent the same number of points? No, but they can't be as physically resilient as you. That's the nature of the game.
Again, look at it from the perspective of natural versus trained. Your abilities are natural. Skills are trained. A charisma of 14 gives you some natural persuasive ability. Taking skill points in persuade raises that natural ability. I don't know why everything has to be so complicated.
Yes, attractiveness is subjective to a certain extent. There are also features that are considered attractive within and across cultures. Are these defined by the dominant group? Probably. Is that fair? Probably not. Is it across the board? No. Does it mean you have to pick it apart and make it sound so much harder than it is? No.
EDIT: This discussion is part of the perennial "RPG Realism" argument. There is a continuum upon which all RPGs sit. At one end is the highly realistic game– it usually has thousands of rules to memorize, but there are very few things to fight over. At the other end is a simple game with next to no rules and a lot of leeway for storytelling. d20 falls somewhere between the two. Some things are overly simple (abilities) and some are overly complex but more realistic (think supplemental combat systems here).
With NWN, we have a solid framework to roleplay within. It's not always believable, but it works.
-
I was just mentioning how I use the extra charisma points; getting allies, friends, help from others, is normally highly dependent on your inter-personal skill and influence, hence charisma.
-
My own badass self said,
"One staple I like to associate with Charisma is:
Ability to induce reactions/emotional changes/lasting impressions in others, deliberately.
This in itself is an ambiguous statement, but I think it says it pretty well. The key word here is deliberate. Whether you do that with looks, charm, pure wit of tongue, whatever; this ability is determined by Charisma I feel. It doesn't necessarily mean well-liked; a rogue with good Charisma could very well have the ability to make himself despised, feared, and infamous with preconceived intentions, the same with a feared Tyrant."
I like it when my post is reiterated ten times over. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. :D
Then again, I probably paraphrased what other people said before me in this thread…
I think Harry's got it right there on the head, also.
One good example of this that I can think of, is TheJaggedSoul's Rexahr Rakal. That sumbitch is hideous, but still charismatic.
Addendum: In accordance with Harry, I'd like to add "Natural" to my overall statement. "Natural ability to induce reactions/emotional changes/lasting impressions in others, deliberately."
-
One of the aspects of charisma that I struggle with is Popularity.
On the face of it, Popularity should be strongly related to Charisma. However, some characters are good at their job and deliver time and time again. Therefore, they become popular. They may not have high charisma, and may not lead, but they're just so damn good at whatever it is they do, you want them there.
Popularity would therefore not always equate to charisma.
Also, how do you setup stats for someone who is chaotic in nature. Sometimes they're cheary and friendly, sometimes they jump off the deep end and scream and shout when they're pissed off.
I would say that Charisma does not equate to having friends, but is more likely to equate to being the centrepoint of a group of friends. The person that the group of friends revolves round.
-
-
One of the aspects of charisma that I struggle with is Popularity.
On the face of it, Popularity should be strongly related to Charisma. However, some characters are good at their job and deliver time and time again. Therefore, they become popular. They may not have high charisma, and may not lead, but they're just so damn good at whatever it is they do, you want them there.
Popularity would therefore not always equate to charisma.
my dwarven mage Glork had a very low 6 charisma, which i played by being grumpy insulting and in my head he was constantly muttering to himself (the most used emote he had!) despite having this low score and insulting people to their faces he was still in demand as a party member as he did what was expected of him and was reliable, both ooc and ic, which is key.
as far as having a physical description to account for a lowered/raised charisma score i think that unless you are at the extremes of the range then the description is more to add flavour than to account for that 8 charisma while you still play your charismatic self.
-
@cadiz_stoker:
As far as having a physical description to account for a lowered/raised charisma score i think that unless you are at the extremes of the range then the description is more to add flavour than to account for that 8 charisma while you still play your charismatic self.
I agree here. Having a gruesome description and lowering your charisma to accomodate this, to me, does not give you the ability to play a higher charisma score than you actually have. If you're lowering your stats for a "physical" description, I think you'd really need to give your emotes some serious flavour to accomodate this or the description just gets lost and the value of reducing stats is taken advantage of as a dumping ground for points.
-
So… basically summing it up...
Charisma measures your character's ability to make people like you through charm and/or good looks?
-
So… basically summing it up...
Charisma measures your character's ability to make people like you through charm and/or good looks?
No.
Charisma measures your character's ability to influence people through force of personality and/or charm and/or good looks .
Hitler.
didn't have charm, didnt have good looks.
Had a 22 cha, and 20 ranks in persuade and bluff -
I'd argue it was more intimidation, like Stalin. Love me or die. But yeah, Charisma is your overall ability to influence others outlooks pretty much.