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Dumpshock Forums _ General Gaming _ What is charisma?
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Sep 1 2008, 06:28 PM
Well, a while ago, I had started a thread where I wanted to explore what exactly the nature of "charisma" in a person is, but it got locked.
http://forums.dumpshock.com/index.php?showtopic=21044&hl=dupre
So here's attempt number two.
Lots of RPG systems have a statistic for characters which is called "charisma". Usually "charisma" impacts things like if a character can lie successfully or not, how well a character bargains with vendors, how many NPCs a character can convince to follow him/her, whether or not a character can interrogate a hostile individual, and things like that. So "charisma" is a pretty broad category to the point that it can be a bit hard (IMO) to answer the question, "what is charisma?" in a satisfying way. We can say, "this measures the personal magnetism of the character", "this measures how pretty the character is", or whatever, but these conventional definitions seems pretty vague or generic. When you think about it it's easy to describe having STR 8 well, but when you think about how electrifying in a very diverse set of ways a person can be in terms of their interpersonal interactions CHA 8 actually feels very abstract and vague to me. I think the key when we're thinking about characters is to come up with examples of people you'd call "charistmatic" in the RPG sense because this would then give concrete examples of the quality.
I'll give the example from my previous thread...
The flip side to this scintilating personality was that at times she could get very moody, which again in my experience is pretty typical for people who are extremely upbeat; oftentimes they alternate between highs and lows rather than staying closer to a moderate middle level like most people do. I knew some males who were at different times romantically involved with her and due to their position they needed to deal with her lows as well as her highs.
What I'd realized after I left college was how much I missed this female. I used to dream about her and I realized that while there are other people who might be very vivacious probably most of them wouldn't be exactly like her. I realized that I surely should have spent more time with her while I'd still had the ability to do so and for a long while afterwards I felt kind of sad and strange inside as I considered this. Anyway, this was many years ago and now I'm over it, but my point is that because of this individual's personality she was extremely charismatic and the great extent to which she was charismatic never fully dawned on me until it got to the point where I'd never see her again.
Come to think of it, perhaps in general RPG systems could be improved somehow if instead of just a generic charisma statistic there were actually several charisma sub-statistics. For example, something like the old "comliness" stat, maybe something like "commanding presence", maybe something like "empathy", things like that. Those in turn could specifically impact seperate charisma related issues like number of NPCs, diplomacy checks, or marketplace bargaining, which would all be determined by the different charisma sub-stats.
Did anyone play the old PC game, "Midwinter 2: The Flames of Freedom"? That game actually did have different aspects of charisma which the player could use in interactions with NPCs. The interactions were a bit abstracted, and the player could choose to try and convince NPCs on different bases, including IIRC on the basis of commanding authority, of lies, of sex appeal, of intimidation, and so forth. The player character had strengths that would make these approaches more or less likely to be successful depending on how the player chose to create the player character.
Posted by: Rasumichin Sep 1 2008, 08:00 PM
All types of charisma boil down to one or both of the following, both in RPGs and in RL : they make people either fear you or like you.
Posted by: BlueRondo Sep 1 2008, 11:22 PM
http://everyoneknowsbest.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/barackobamarollingstonescover.jpg
On a more serious note, I would say that one necessary (though not necessarily sufficient) quality of "charisma" is the ability to appear confident without seeming arrogant or smug. There are lots of different kinds of people who may be attractive, charming, persuasive, and/or good at getting what they want out of people, but if "self confidence" isn't one of their qualities, then I wouldn't call them "charismatic."
It's not much, but at least it's a starting point.
Posted by: Glyph Sep 2 2008, 03:47 AM
Charisma in Shadowrun incorporates looks, but it is mainly treated as a mental Attribute, representing the character's force of personality. It doesn't always have to be positive - high Charisma can also include things like fearsomely intimidating interrogators, crime bosses, and dictators.
It certainly goes beyond superficial appearance - remember that the old ork street sam, with his Charisma of 1, is described as having "charming good looks" and a "cultured accent". And there are plenty of people who are rich, beautiful, and famous, but who are also annoying and abrasive.
Posted by: MYST1C Sep 2 2008, 11:20 AM
In Cyberpunk 2020 there's no Charisma stat but instead two different stats:
- Attractiveness: Purely your physical looks. Has only two linked skills - Personal Grooming and Wardrobe & Style
- Empathy: How well you connect to other people and what impression you make on them. This stat has linked skills like e.g. Seduction, Leadership or Persuasion & Fast Talk.
Empathy is also the stat from which Humanity is derived that governs how much cyberware a character can take.
Likewise, in KULT you have Appearance (physical) and Charisma (mental).
Posted by: deek Sep 2 2008, 02:04 PM
I'd have to agree with the above. Back in 2nd Edition DnD, we always used a Comeliness stat to gauge pure physical appearance (granted, this was also the high school days where all the male PCs rolled 3d6 for penis length...) and used Charisma as leadership and connectedness with NPCs.
I like the fact that the stat is vague, though. It allows you to have a very good looking, but abrasive personality, or someone that is really ugly or reclusive, yet when s/he talks, everyone listens and gets behind what's being said.
In RL, its really just a gut instinct, and different people react differently to the same thing. I have a friend that I've known for a long time and when he talks to "new" people, I can see how they are just awestruck by what he says. Yet, I know he is full of BS when he is talking and he certainly doesn't have the same effect on me, even though he is saying the same thing.
So, defining charisma, to me, isn't so hard...its part physical appearance and part connectedness to the world's NPCs and PCs (which is often hard to role play if in real life, you don't really have the same feeling with the player). The part that I always thinks fails in games, is that having a really high charisma, shouldn't allow you to connect to everyone the same way. Not everyone thinks the same things are attractive, and not everyone is going to be swayed by the same things coming out of your mouth (or your actions).
Posted by: tete Sep 2 2008, 02:26 PM
oWOD has Appearance, Manipulation, Charisma
nWOD has Presence, Manipulation, Composure
Posted by: Blade Sep 2 2008, 03:04 PM
@deek: Well, your friend had "First Impression".
Most of the time, the rules are here to deal with this. In Shadowrun, you have a table that gives modifiers according to a few things (metatype and cyberware for example). You can easily expand it to other aspects of the character and the taste of the person he's dealing with ("talks too much", "looks too good").
Posted by: Alex Sep 3 2008, 01:03 AM
The quirky game Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura had two sats: Beauty and Charisma for the physical and mental aspects.
Personally, I have always looked at Charisma as the force of one's will over the environment around them. The stereotypical blond bimbo could well have a charisma of 1 as she has no personality of her own. It could also be that the blond "bimbo" could make an Army General fear her.
Posted by: Doctor Funkenstein Sep 3 2008, 06:56 AM
Charisma is one of those attributes that covers a range of specialties. It's not unique in that regard, either. Intelligence, Agility, even Stamina do the same thing. For instance, one character might have a high Stamina due to a healty diet and strong body, while another might have a high Stamina due to being significantly overweight. Charisma is basically the strength of your personality, whether you're using it for good or bad. A surly dwarf should (but rarely does usually to the difficulty players and even designers have in grasping this concept) have a high Charisma as much as the comely young elf or intimidating orc should.
Characters with low Charisma scores are, and more importantly should, be the quiet wallflowers that no one ever notices. The ones who couldn't get a word in edge-wise in a conversation with normal people. The ones who sit alone on the bleachers during a school dance. Pretty much the people no one respects, listens to, and/or even know exist. Hell, it even takes Charisma to be actively hated by someone; you have to make a real impression to get that kind of a response.
Unfortunately, even when it's described as such, in practice Charisma usually gets used as the good vs. evil extreme of things. Even worse, a lot of people use it as a pretty/ugly mechanic which is a personal pet peeve of mine. Some of the most charismatic people in history were ugly as hell. Winston Churchil and Adolf Hitler come immediately to mind.
Posted by: Muspellsheimr Sep 3 2008, 07:31 AM
Charisma is both the force of your personality, affecting how others respond to you, as well as your sense of self. It rarely, if ever, has anything to do with physical appearance, instead focusing on how you appear to others based on how you present yourself. People with a high Charisma often appear to be physically more attractive than they actually are, because of how they hold themselves.
Charismatic individuals have a confidence in their self & their beliefs that is often picked up on by those around them. This enables them to influence the beliefs & actions in others - they are so sure that something is right, how can they possibly be wrong?
Such individuals also have no need or desire to prove themselves to others. Because of this, they are never truly affected by peer pressure, and rarely follow trends, instead often being those who start them.
Posted by: Mercer Sep 4 2008, 06:29 AM
I've never linked Charisma to Physical Attractiveness for a few reasons, like I don't believe you're summoning ability is based on how hot someone might consider you. (Beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all.)
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Sep 4 2008, 05:34 PM
Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the other games from Eden studios have attractiveness as a (to put it in SR4 terms) positive or negative quality that comes in many levels, that can add or subtract a number of dice when appropriate. The system has attributes, but attractiveness is handled as a quality.
Posted by: Voran Sep 11 2008, 11:47 PM
I see it as your innate strength in terms of interpersonal relationships/communication. It is detached from the physical attractiveness/impressiveness/fearsome component and reflects more personality. I suppose in life its harder to parse out from actual skill in the social realm, but not always, since this innate strength can cross barriers of oral communication. A charismatic dude/girl who doesn't speak your language and can't verbally communicate with you can still be charismatic. Whereas in some ways, the more average or lesser charismatic dude/girl that relies instead on skill development in their communication abilities, can be more hampered by that barrier.
Some game systems combine charisma with sorta a willpower/force of will description too. I'm not so sure about that. As its possible (as we see in life) to have charismatic but weak willed people with sketchy character. Likewise you can have supremely willful and confident people that are really not very charismatic.
I think where we run into missteps at times, as is the case for any statted attribute, is that gamesystems have to come up with a sorta static guideline baseline for average, then it sorta makeshift extrapolates low and high ends based on that average. If we look at humans in SR, generally we see that Humans are defined as race types that have more or less static low/high ends for all attributes, across the board. Suggesting that given enough karma/development, a Human could be equally strong, intelligent, dextrous, willful, charismatic/etc across the board. I think in a way its what makes comparison to real life more difficult, as I don't think that's really the case. We all have our own individual strengths/weaknesses, to gain improvement in one area, we sorta need to specialize.
Anyhoo...for charisma...I think its best when its divorced from willpower and strength of character. You can be a vastly passionate and opinionated individual without being charismatic and/or extroverted. In life, I consider myself a specialized charismatic person. I figure I have around an average 'overall' charisma rating, but in certain areas where my interests converge, and the environment is right, I can come off really well. In other settings, public speaking, the give and take of negotiation, I do less well. In a gaming sense, this would reflect situational modifiers to my charisma attribute itself, rather than a modifier to the skill level I have. Sure ultimately like the game mechanic it applies to the total 'feat check', but I think its an important distinction.
Posted by: HappyDaze Sep 20 2008, 03:56 PM
Yes, but they also don't really have a set Attribute for social skills. Some are Intelligence, some are Perception, and some are Willpower. This may or may not work well for what your mechanics are trying to accomplish.
Posted by: Platinum Dragon Oct 1 2008, 03:40 AM
The best definition I could glean off dictionary.com, in terms of what charisma generally represents in RPGs is "personal magnetism or charm." That, essentially, is what it boils down to - how good you are at making a good impression on the people around you, via your words, body language, and demeanour. Linked in to this is confidence in what you're saying, and convincing others that you know what you're talking about; a classic example used in a D&D sourcebook somewhere (if I recall correctly) is that someone with a high charisma will generally be able to act as though they are knowledgeable in any particular field of discussion - at least until a real expert comes along. As a result, common linked skills are diplomacy / seduction / fast-talk / bluff.
Often RPGs will also throw in the added definition of 'force of personality,' by which i think they mean that you're so self-assured of your beliefs that others around you can't help but hold you in awe - this is usually used to justify more mystical aspects of the stat (sorceror spells in D&D, using it as a drain stat in SR4) and as a way to figure out how many people are willing to blindly follow you if you choose to build a leader type character. There is some bleedthrough between this use of charisma and the oft-used stat willpower.
Where charisma starts to fall down is where it is not sufficiently distanced from an ability to act. While a high charisma might help with acting, it really isn't the natural ability you're using in this case; old WoD handled this well with manipulation and charisma being seperate stats - manipulation was for getting people to do what you want (by whatever means) and charisma was getting people to like you. Both stats involve some use of empathy, but while charisma uses it in tandem with charm and warmth to put people at ease, manipulation uses it in conjunction with cold calculation to figure out what buttons to push to get people to agree with you - wether it's offering them money, promising not to hurt them anymore or just annoying them until they cave to your demands.
As far as social interactions go, ignoring the role that intellect plays, you can basically break things down into empathy (being able to read other people's emotions and reactions), charisma (being able to influence other people's emotions), manipulation (being able to influence others opinions) and willpower (resisting other people's influence).
There is plenty of bleed-through even here, and various different game systems have categorised different aspects of these abilities in different ways and groupings.
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