I've always had a problem at how arbitrary they have made numerical attributes, not just the one in this topic but also the BOD attribute. But, let’s focus on the CHARISMA value.

Trolls and Orcs have a lower INT score and CHA score because they are viewed as slower, dumber and uglier.

The CHA Attribute
Charisma, even the UGLIEST man on earth can have a charisma that would sway ANYONE to do the most despicable acts (Hitler, Pol Pot and a bunch of serial killers and other individuals).

In the case of Orcs and Trolls we have the added drawback of possible:
-Speech impediment due to tusks (lisp, mumbling etc)
-Ugly (dermal warts, neanderthal looks)

Which is hardly CHARISMA but rather LOOKS since speech impediments can be trained away and being ugly should not be an issue in 2075.

So we now have 2 Social attributes.
LOOKS and CHARISMA

BP cost for these are 5BP per point. This might sound like a form of min-maxing but that would be punished later in-game. Trolls would REALLY have problems with both LOOKS and CHA at 1.

LOOKS would affect everything in daily life - especially first impressions and how recognizable you are on the street. The LOOKS 1 Troll would often be stopped and frisked by Lonestar and easier to spot in a crowd.

CHA would affect everything as soon as they open their mouths or starts gesturing and might push people into further trouble.

So you could have a Mr.Likeable the social troll (pun not intended) but with the looks of a dumpster mated with a sewer rat but with a CHA at 7 while having LOOKS at 1.

Or the beautiful runner Hilda Sinclair with LOOKS at 7 but a CHA at 1 who is often recruited as the teams beautiful front and face…until she starts to speak with people…

My group tends to just rock with charisma for simplicity's sake. You're as attractive or ugly as you want to be (which, considering the ease and availability on bio-sculpting isn't really unreasonable), but your charisma is how well you can use it.

Look, I like the idea. I really do. It's just that appearance is so mutable in 2070 that you could just dump the appearance stat then get 2-4 BP on biosculpting into a beautiful person.

It'd be great in another genre, but not here (IMG:style_emoticons/default/frown.gif)

What would it cost to hard max one of these attributes?

For what tests would you use Looks and what skills would be associated?

Why would an uglier troll be more frequently stopped by the law? Uglier humans aren't, are they?

I see where you're coming from, but I don't see the value. I don't know whether or not the rules include looks in the Charisma attribute, but to my mind it works best if it isn't. Like you say, poor physical appearance doesn't always prevent the ability to socially manipulate, and in the hyper-cosmopolitan times of post-Awakening 21st century it would factor less than ever. WRT orks and trolls, I've always considered them less social creatures - genetically more predisposed towards achieving goals via Strength and Body.

Even if one were to argue cogently that looks are relevant it's too small a subdivision IMO. There are many different types of intelligence, but Logic more than suffices for all. A certain level of abstraction is mandatory for RPGs and more than 8 core attributes is a step in the wrong direction for this one.

Yeah, I think FuelDrop has nailed it on the head really.

CHA is the mental attribute equivalent of STR, so I consider it independent of looks - I see it as force of personality and persuasiveness more than anything else. As for the lower CHA racial max for orks and trolls, more importantly than their somewhat repulsive warts and tusks appearance, I see it as an instilled shyness (brow)beaten into them ever since the change - hormone-charged teenagers who can punch holes in walls tend to be disciplined more severely than their less-physically threatening brethren ... that and what Aerospider said.

Beauty is subjective, so depending on their preferred "type" an NPC might be more attracted to the muscular ruggedly handsome but quiet CHA2 ork sammie rather than the slender beautiful and loquacious CHA 7 elf. In this way, I see the "Looks" attribute you are proposing rather plastic, because folks just don't initially react to other folks purely based on their attractiveness. Also, as you mentioned, to me your proposed Att splitting does seem like another opportunity for the min-maxers to pump one at the expense of the other to get a much cheaper high CHA-related attribute.

True, but at the same time you have PEOPLE who get a direct -33% Basic Social Ability before we take SKILL into the calculation.

By that factor alone trolls and orcs should NOT have a negative charisma.

I can get Intelligence due to their shorter lifespan and thus a shorter effective time to become educated before getting close to what constitutes their middle age.

My reasoning for being "ugly" and stopped more frequently would be from multiple factors:

-Racial Stereotyping [Ugly, Large= More threatening etc] Hence an ugly human would fare better

-Regardless of society we still base much of our assumptions by looking at someone and will involuntary make initial judgements on someones looks so an ugly runner that looks initially suspicious and out of place would be investigated more thoroughly than a good looking runner that seems out of place.

-A persons PERCEIVED ability would also be judged by their looks depending if they LOOK confident or if they are a slightly stooped, balding and looks rather bland.

It's like looking at Mitt Romney as a good looking businessman that LOOKS confident but shoots himself in the foot when he opens his mouth - But in that case he might just lack the social SKILLS...

I find that charisma has a link with the way you look. For exemple, having a proeminent teeth makes you look dumber so less charismatic. Which would be why there are less charismatic persons with such a specificity. Does it mean there can't be? No because some are good at leadership (high skill) compensating the flaw.

I prefer too to let the player choose how he looks and treat charisma as the character's charisma.

You're assuming that the negatives for Trolls and Orks on CHA are based on looks which I don't think is necessarily the case. My assumption has always been that it was due to a predisposition to being socially inept/gruff/coarse.

But being socially inept means you should be able to simply LEARN.

In this case its basically a biological inherited trait since you cannot make a troll with CHA 6 who has been raised in a different social structure.

Having CHA 1 means that people (players) OFTEN goes by the assumption of 'ugly' and a high BODY attribute to being 'big'.

Only if you believe the penalty is entirely based on looks. I believe it is entirely not.


This is covered by the Prejudiced negative quality. A more meaningful comparison would be ugly troll vs less ugly troll.


"We still..." doesn't help much when debating Seattle 2072. In SR's timeline the world has changed far more in the next 60 years than in the last several thousand years.

More importantly, stunningly-attractive can be as problematic as bag-of-spanners-ugly. Just as you might think a good-looking person is more confident in their trade, you might equally assume they are more dangerous and liable to break the rules whilst the opposite kind of person would attract less attention through people assuming they aren't much of a concern.

What I'm saying is that to have a mechanic for this won't make sense if having a low score makes criminals think you're rubbish whilst cops think you're dangerous. If the law deems you more of a threat it must go hand in hand with the underworld thinking more highly of you. And if you do that then you have a trade-off situation that clashes with the sliding-scale costs of Shadowrun attributes.

Saying that being good looking doesn't help in social situations is the same as saying being bigger doesn't help in fights. It's not fair, but it's the truth. And since pretty much every situation is a social situation, being good looking always helps. Having a great personality can help in many situations, much like years of martial arts training can help make up for a lack of size, strength or speed in a fight.

Let's just go with the cha stat as is, accept that being ugly makes it harder to get by and move on (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Seriously?
This is Shadowrun we're talking about, right?
The running, hiding, shooting, driving, casting, hacking game, yes?

There are biological and psychological conditions and/or pre-dispositions to being socially inept IRL that aren't things you can just unlearn.

It is that game if we condescend to play it just that way.

#####

Charisma as a real-world characteristic and its SR analog CHA include actions and facets beyond influence through speaking. As an example, my second wife, who is good looking but not movie star level, bragged to me early in our relationship that she could walk into a crowded room of mixed company and draw every man in it to her. I smiled and patronized her.

She demonstrated to me one day. We walked into an officers' mess, and she said, "Watch this." She walked away from me, towards a small group of men, including the base commander. Like a switch had been flicked, one man after another stopped what he was doing and watched her. Before she got to the group she approached, they shuffled around to make room for her, and she engaged The Boss in light banter. Within ten seconds, the only man in the room not looking at her was yours truly, who was slack-jawed watching all the men watching his wife.

That is power.

All trogs have autism (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Honestly adding another attribute to the equation, especially one as narrow as beauty is probably not a good idea. Charisma hits for trolls and orks could be as much because their schools (if they exist) don't have the resources to focus on things like speech and other areas that teach people to be effective speakers and orators. And if you wanted to play a troll or ork who was remarkably charming and erudite you do have options for that.

But honestly outside of faces and charisma streams/traditions I so rarely see people soft or hard capping charisma the hit for being a troll or ork is kind of moot.

TLDR: You can learn to overcome your upbringing, that doesn't in itself negate that upbringing.

It also has a lot less to do w/ being physically beautiful/handsome than w/ body language and presence/confidence.

In the 2070s the only measure of beauty can be found in the size of your wallet.
If you can buy any appearance you want beauty is only a measurement of wealth.
That is if you buy the idea that good looking is what the media tells you.

I used to think the way the OP does when it comes to an Appearance attribute, but I've since figured out just how pointless it is to have. So, for the most part, just buy your Charisma and decide how good or bad your character looks--you don't need a definitive system for determining that.

Another thing to the whole 'charisma is just training and personality' argument, why are trolls also dumber and less able to perceive well? Just accept that somehow their brain works totally different from a human one, making them (on average) less apt.

1) Nothing stops a troll from learning social skills as well as anyone else.
2) a 1 point max charisma penalty is mechanically better than, say, giving freebie Incompetent qualities out to represent automatic social ineptitude.
2a) my real issue is with BPgen hardcap penalty - i've seen hilarious troll faces played, but the 25 bp tax for charisma 5 is just dumb. (our Gm gave the troll Situational Modifiers to some face things, because Everyone Listens To The Big Tall Guy In Charge)


In any case, I feel the charisma hit isn't represented solely by an Ugly factor. Its a lot of small factors.

From tusks getting in the way of talking just enough to make you sound different, to media steriotypes people see and inherent racism in the sixth world, to sweating more just because you're bigger and thus 10% stinkier, to appearing like a glutton to all the normal people just because trolls eat so much, to dermal deposits eliciting an EWW what's growing on your face reaction. Even just a genetic predisposition to not being photogenic.

There's just a lot of little things that add up, when you consider ALL the physical and social factors beyond the statblock.

I do not like the fact that trolls get a max of 5 nat cha. TBH I would listen to the huge guy with a deep mabybe melodic voice rather then the small guy just because of the aura the huge troll would give off, now, sorry but for a female, this is probably different. ( NO OFFENSE OR SEXUAL BIAS INTENDED)

EDIt: who is gonna say no to the troll asking you to sign the papers as he rests a giant hand on your shoulder

You can't start dividing attributes for granularity. You'll never stop. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) If anything, I like the idea of making BOD and WIL derived attribs (~ (STR+DEX+REA)/3, (LOG+INT+CHA)/3). Just an example; obviously this doesn't address the very real Cha issue you mention.

Yeah. Next you'll want to split Quickness and Intelligence into, I dunno, Agility+Reaction and Intuition+Logic

Those are all the things you are forced to do if you're not good looking and smooth enough to just walk in where you're going, take what you want, and walk out. The worlds most successful thieves have not been second story guys or pirates or bandits in the woods, they've been faces. Does the name Ponzi ring a bell? Bernie Madoff has every art thief put together beat, and he's just one guy.

But, to the subject, I'm not sure why being a little ugly or scary would make you less able to bind spirits. You can have all kinds of charisma issues and still have a lot of personality. Bad personality is still personality.

AD&D did this with the Skills & Powers book - split each attribute in to two pieces that represented the two facets. You picked a base stat, then could add up to two to one side to subtract from the other side.

There's a reason Skills and Powers is considered the munchkin's bible. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) "Let's see - there's the strength that lets me kill people, and the strength that lets me bend bars. Hmmm. And the Con that gives me HP, and the one that lets me resist disease. Hmmmm."

A troll can have a very cha - it just takes an bigger investment. Exceptional Attribute, maxing Cha, social skills, exceptional ability. It costs more for a troll to do it, but they can get up there pretty high. Maybe not as high as the highest elf, but enough to stroll in and get whatever they want.

Also, trolls get a *lot* for their BP. Like, a lot a lot. To try to minimize the pain of the -cha hit just makes them even stronger.