Low charisma but...

[Dib Monkey]

I'm playing a character with a charisma of 6, but I've taken skills in persuade, bluff and intimidate to reflect on oratry skills and a general striving to better communication.

I am almost always polite, without trying to influence others (if anything I am a little too polite, showing my inability to speak naturally) I am rarely outspoken unless through genuine dislike of another chracter's action and attempts at humour are often clumsy (although with int 14 I allow for some wit)

In an average interaction with a group this may not come through, as being polite is all that is necessary and generally accepted during a game. Is this acceptable, or even with cha skills should I be playing it differently?

(I have spent some time thinking about this so no quick judgments, I'd like some critical advice)

[miltonyorkcastle]

There is lots of commentary to be found on what it means to have low/high charisma within this forum alone. That being said, and without having interacted much with the character, I'd wager that what you've described above is entirely within the realm of correctly playing the attribute.

My bit of reasoning is based on the notion that Charisma represents force of personality. It's what makes a person stand out (why it's associated with beauty) and pressure others (why high charisma can lend to leadership). Everyone's got some, but like any other attribute, some have more than others. Having a low charisma isn't saying that you can't pressure people, or that you don't on occasion stand out, it's saying that you stand out less often, are less likely to pressure people, than someone with an above average charisma. It does not represent an ability to pressure people or stand out, but rather a propensity to. This is the main reason charisma as an attribute often gets muddled and people argue its affects. The other attributes all represent ability (hence the name, ability attribute). Strength represents how much you can lift; Intelligence represents how well you employ logic, your level of cognition; but Charisma doesn't represent how pretty you are, but rather the likelyhood that you choose to use that beauty to a certain end. There are beautiful people who don't often stand out, just as there are ugly people that do.

From what I read above, your choice to play your character as very polite falls directly in line with how a more or less uncharismatic character might act, because it's a choice, whether deliberate or natural to the character, that means the character stands out from the crowd less, and isn't interested in pressuring the crowd.

The fact that your character has skills designed to pressure people (persuade, intimidate, etc.) represents not only that you can, but that you might be halfway decent at pressuring people. However, your character's low charisma means that you seldom employ those skills, that ability to sway someone. And that's exactly how you play your character.

Hope this helps.
-milty

[2Lewis's]

Hello,

Interesting ideas both Dib and Milty, my interpretation would be most people in the world have an average charisma. Those that have higher charisma have physical or mental or behaviorial attributes that create possive feelings. Those with lower charisma have some physical or mental or behavioral defect that creates negative feeling.

So Dib prehaps you need to think why your charecter has Charisma 6..ie not very pleasent in what ever circumstances..physical...body odour, halitosis...mental...obsessed with death...phobias...behaviorial....blood thirsy....drunkard or just plain mean. What ever....
Dib with your charecter maybe the quest for politeness is the key to your 6...prehaps way to over the top polite, inappropropriatly polite due to a childhood loathing of.........well its your charecter. I guess really you need to think out why you have a Cha of 6 that is the key and RP that.

Hope this helps

Mark

[darkstorme]

Pertinent posts have come up in the past.

If your character has a CHA of 6, he or she would have to be actively difficult to tolerate - that's what the negative modifier indicates.  Whether it be through some gaping blindspot in his social skills, some physical deformity or injury (or, as mentioned, something like halitosis) - a person with a negative CHA modifier would not only have trouble finding friends: they'd have trouble getting anyone to talk with them for ANY length of time.

One of my characters has a CHA of 8 - his face and body are crisscrossed with horrible lacerations and burns.  I expect it would be difficult for someone to look him in the face without actively steeling themselves first.  His only redeeming factor in this stat is that he appears generally courteous - and that saves him from, say, a 7.  A charisma of six is almost as unusual as a charisma of sixteen... where the latter is charming, personable, and possibly beautiful as well, the former would be socially inept, unpleasant, and quite possibly hideous.  If your character is actively taking steps to better themselves, something has to remain that creates that colossal "drag" factor.

Just my two coppers.

[lonnarin]

You don't necessarily have to leave a bad impression in order to portray a negative charisma.  It could indicate a lack of the "Force of Will" on the character's part, that they don't have the overwhealming "look at me and bask" quality about them that makes them stand out in a crowd.  Think of all the professional politicians in the house and senate that have impeccable oratary skills, can bargain a deal like none other, but are still ugly, frumpy, boring old men.  Sure they have the good manners/social skills to let them mingle in a suit-and-tie fundraiser event, just nobody really proposes a toast in their honor though.  Well-spoken does not always necessarily mean charismatic.

Low charisma with decent social skills can mean a great many of things, depending on how you want to RP it.  You could feasibly be a con artist who looks like your average joe, maybe even a little rough around the edges... "sure the guy gives me a bad feeling deep down inside, but what he's saying seems reasonable enough...".  Conversely, the negative charisma could be a result of abrasive arrogance, physical ugliness, obnoxious idealism or simply a cultural language barrier like a hard-to-understand accent or an unlucky tendancy to mix words up at innapropriate moments (fruedian slips for example).  The sky is the limit for the manner in which you can portray this.  Think of all the hot women out there with detestable social skills, ie: Paris Hilton.  Sure, she has "charisma", but once she opens her mouth I feel like plugging my ears and screaming to drown her out.  Then there are ugly people like Tom Waits who have that quality about them that just makes what they say incredibly interesting, though if they never opened their mouths, you'd likely shield your children from them when walking by at the supermarket.  Think of all the kids who did well in debate and speech classes who you just feel like hitting when they try talking to you.  

Charisma and people skills are somewhat different from eachother, sort of the nature vs nurture of social interaction.  Pretty babies can grow up to be very mean and despicable, and even ugly babies can one day hope to date hot chicks.  Ask Woody Allen.

[darkstorme]

Ah, but as has been discussed in the threads I linked to above, Charisma is best role-played as the sum of appearance and social skills.  So if you've a low charisma, and yet have decent social skills, it must be something about either your personality (overarching arrogance, despite a veneer of politeness, perhaps?) or your physical appearance/prescence that contributes to the low score.

Conversely, if a person is unattractive, their social skills must be significantly above the average to compensate.  Winston Churchill was charismatic, despite being abrasive AND largely unattractive, but that was because he was an orator virtually without peer.  But someone with average social skills who had the misfortune to suffer a childhood accident leaving them with a scar down their face and missing an eye would not have the same Charisma as their identically-minded twin, who didn't suffer the accident.

The moderating/drag effect of appearance cannot be discounted in the D&D charisma system.

[gilshem ironstone]

With low charisma and good social skills you can end up with someone like Wormtongue as well.  Everyone knows he is a snake, he looks like a wretch, but such a silky tongue.... Tough to RP, but an good challenge.

[lonnarin]

If charisma was the sum of appearance AND social skills, then why are charisma and social skills bought seperately though?  I think the base charisma stat represents personal power, inflection, spirit, hutzvah, whatever you call it, while the social skills themselves are the trained applicable knowledge to put that raw force of nature into motion.  

The difference between charisma and social skills are like the difference between muscles and boxing.  If you have good, quick, strong muscles, then you typically box better, but it's entirely possible to have somebody completely ripped, roid raging and flailing wildly to no effect vs. a fat, sweaty dude with a well-placed, perfectly timed uppercut.  Pit Butterbean against any steroid freak in the gym and you'll see what I mean.

Using a personal example, I have a pretty low dexterity in real life...  If you asked me to climb a ladder or walk a tightrope, I'd look at you funny and just sit down for a beer.  However, throw me a couple juggling balls, a skateboard or a hackysack and suddenly it seems as though I have a good natural dexterity... the balls are spinning, the kickflips are kicking and the sack doth not touch the floor for hours.  All of these dexterity-based skills that I possess however, I have trained in despite my low dex score.  Despite being able to juggle, skate and hackysack very well, I still trip over my own feet, charge straight through the screen door and flail aimlessly at fruitflies that buzz around my office.  Funny enough, even though I can do all these dexterity-based things, I still never learned how to ride a bike.  So whenever I try, I usually crash through somebody's fence and prize-winning rose bushes.  I lack the skill for it.  It's just like asking a Doctor of Biology to explain the Laws of Theromodynamics... it's not that he has a low intelligence for not knowing them, it's just not what he put his skillpoints into.

One of the things that irk me about the D&D system is how in spellcasting, one must have a minimum base attribute in a linked stat in order to even try and learn.  I for one think that's somewhat unrealistic.  There is that saying in a fortune cookie I once ate that went "When one can't count on ability, they succeed with effort".  It would be very interesting to RP a mentally challenged, half-witted wizard or a socially inept bard; in college I've met plenty of Doctors and Masters with impaired mental abilities to be certain!  Or how about crazy, incoherent, ranting preachers with zero wisdom and 100% fundamentalism?  All too many of those... but they have *faith* right?  That's just my view on it though, and me and the D&D ruleset have an ongoing feud regarding so many different things.

[Weeblie]

First of all... I know that Layo is no longer as much built on the PhB as before (actually starting to leave that). But the description of the ability score is pretty much valid yet, until another game system is implemented!

Soo... with that said, to quote PhB:

"Charisma measures a character’s force of personality, persuasiveness, personal magnetism, ability to lead, and physical attractiveness."

Social skills, beauty, shyness... all of it are mixed together in the charisma score. A highly arrogant elf, but still not too bad looking could as well have a charisma of 9 while a super handsome but oh-so-shy prince could have a score of 14. But all the factors do contribute!

Just remember that a score of 8 in an ability is not a minor penalty... It's an extremely severe one. I would say that 8 is pretty much equal to 13 (just on the opposite side of the chart) while 6 is closer to 17 (simply because the chart shouldn't be considered 100% linear... 1 is not the same as 19, as 1 is the lowest possible number you can have while there are no upper limit).

In my opinion, very rarely should someone create a character with less than 10 in charisma, as that tend to be fairly difficult to play, especially since Layo is so heavily influenced by "meeting/party with strangers".

And 8... yuk... for the sake of all the worms living in the earth... please don't even -consider- creating a charisma 8 (or lower) character described as "stunning beautiful and breathingtaking beyound imagination" as I'm sure the said character do not have the personality of a weed (love that phrase!). :p

Edit: Ugh... I just got trapped into another charisma discussion...

[Interia_Discordius]

Although there are some handsome people who have the personality of the rock. Really, personality does show on one's face...It's how people are magnetic and not. I know people who others drool over until they realize they just sit and stare at things for hours and do absolutely nothing in general and have nothing interesting to say, and when they do speak, it's a flat tone voice.

That's no fun. Low charisma, much? I think you can still be beautiful, but that's going to be one amazingly disgusting drawback either way...Just don't even give yourself the problem in the first place.

[Jearick Hgar]

personally, i look at Charisma as an average between your looks and your personallity. what i do when i make the char is look at him and give him what i think his char should be if it was jsut his looks, then give him what his char should be if it was just hi personallity. then i add together devide by two. (mathematically speaking heh) I mean not every bard is extremely good looking, and not every bard is charming either, same with sorcs.

Another way of looking at it is this: looking at a half orc, you would prolly can't see any reason to ever find one attractive. i mean seriously, they're ugly. that's why they have a -4 char, cuz they're looks (on the whole) will never be very good. But they have a mind and a personality, which means they could have a beautiful personality, and that's why you can give your orc a char of 16 or something, not because their looks can really be as good as an elves. which is another point. Inherently, all elves are good looking. I have never, for the life of me, read a bio for an elf that was just plain ugly, but they don't always have good personalities.

that point made, i also consider Wit, or cleverness, or whatever you wanna call it, in charisma. A lot of people put being clever as being smart. in my experience of life, i have seen MANY people who are smart who just couldn't be clever or witty. stick a nerd who can memorize the encyclopedia in a rap battle of have them go back and forth with someone with disses, or have them write a song, and it just wont happen most of the time.

Charisma is a whole nother side of intelligence, the brain has two kinds of smarts inside of the box smarts and outside of the box smart. not everyone is inside the box and not everyone is outside the box and not everyone is one or the other. I mean there's musicians out there who are complete dicks and look like hell who can put words together better than anyone else. Which is why the Bard is Char based, because it requires being witty to be a good char, not being intellectual.

so imo, when you make a character and try to decide what it's char should be, first look at his appearance vs his personality, average the two out into one number, then look at how clever they can be and decide if their cleverness matches the average number and add or minus accordingly.

IE: i decide my char is average looking, but has a personality that deserves a 16. so averaging that's 13. Then looking at the char i decide that he's a pretty crafty bastage, but not the craftiest. so i decide that a 14 is more fitting for his craftiness. so to me that 14 represents how creative/clever he is, how good looking he is, and how good of a personallity he has.

[Falonthas]

my new ranger has a cha of 8 but its also played on with his rp
he eats basically anything he sees as edible,kobold legs come to mind off the bat
spending most of almost all of his years with the animals growing up ,he doesnt act as city folk do
matter of fact he doesnt know what to think about cities very much except that they have streams for him to run in and pictures on the stones

is he malformed
no
is he scarred
no
tattooed yes
but his lack of social ability gives him the 8 instead of a 9 which is the bottom end of normal
hes one card short of a full deck due to his upbringing
 but in time that like many things just off the edge of norm can be shaped and remolded
but thats how we measure a character evolving and growing dont we
not just in skill and prowess,but in how they would learn as they age

[Zhofe]

I like how everyone is applying an arbitrary meaning to Charisma, without mentioning the mechanics on which ability scores work in D&D.

In D&D, you have ability scores, which represent natural talents and abilities, and skills, which represent acquired talents and abilities, and then a dice roll, which assumes a level of randomness. The average of a D20 roll is a 10, and D&D rolls often allow a person to "take 10" on a roll. I will be using that average in comparison to DCs for rolls to make a point here.

Lets first assume the case of the person with a Charisma of 6. A charisma of 6 gives a -2 modifier to all charisma based skills, such as Diplomacy, Bluff, Handle Animal, etc. Assuming the DC for a task is a 10 (meaning the average joe can do it half the time) a person with a Charisma of 6 cannot take 10 on his roll and succeed (instead garnering an 8 ) Assuming the task is "influencing a commoner" a person with a charisma of 6 will more often than not fail. A person with a charisma of 10 or better will succeed.

Now, let us take into account skill points. I will use diplomacy in this case. Assuming it is a class skill, you can put 4 skill points into diplomacy at first level. Otherwise, only 2. In the first case, a character with a charisma of 6, now gets a total of 12 when he takes the average roll on a d20. More than enough to influence a commoner.

To compare, on ability scores alone, another character would need a 14 in order to attain the same score of 12 on average.

Lets be more critical though, lets make these characters a bit more solid shall we?

Character A: Charisma 6, Diplomacy as class skill, maxing it out. Not increasing Charisma
Character B: Charisma 18, no points in diplomacy. Increasing charisma every 4 levels.

Level 1:

Character A: Diplomacy = +2
Character B: Diplomacy = +4

Level 4:
Character A: Diplomacy = +5
Character B: Diplomacy = +4

Level 8:
Character A: Diplomacy = +9
Character B: Diplomacy = +5

Level 12:
Character A: Diplomacy = +13
Character B: Diplomacy = +5

Level 16:
Character A: Diplomacy = +17
Character B: Diplomacy = +6

Level 20:
Character A: Diplomacy = +21
Character B: Diplomacy = +6

As you can see, D&D rewards personal training and change more than natural talent. Even a person with a low charisma, can become a diplomatic force. Perhaps he has a stutter, perhaps he is ugly, perhaps he just doesn't hold a floor. The point is, when it comes down to it, he is better equiped than the most personable of people who neglect proper training. It should be noted, of course, that a character would lag 8 skill points behind a person maxing out Diplomacy, with an 18 charisma. It is not that ability scores are unimportant, it is just that they can be overruled by other things.

In conclusion, if you are putting skill points into Diplomacy, (or Persuade as it is in NWN) and then being polite, likeable, and further, liked, then you are doing it absolutely right. There is nothing in the rules that says a person with a 6 charisma is not likable. Infact, I believe I just proved the rules say just the opposite.