Je ne sais quoi

Question: Could you possibly give a deeper explanation of Charisma and Manipulation? I have a character who is a bit nerdy but still open, friendly and likeable. Can I give him a high level 5 Charisma score? And does Manipulation always have to be malignant? It seems like that in the books.

"Open, friendly and likeable" sounds like a dude with Charisma to me!

Charisma is easiest to conceive of as the star football player sort of quality; everyone loves you, nobody hates you, you effortlessly dominate social situations and so on, and for some people that makes it difficult to conceive of an introverted or bookwormish person with Charisma. But Charisma doesn't mean you can't be a nerdy scientist; it just means you're a nerdy scientist with great force of personality, or a nerdy scientist who's beloved by all the other nerdy scientists. Pretty much any character concept can use and benefit from Charisma.

You should also bear in mind that Charisma comes in different forms; it doesn't always have to mean being beloved and romantically pursued by everyone around you. A commander whose soldiers snap to attention the second he walks in the room is also displaying Charisma; a hulking bodyguard whose mere presence inspires awe and fear is also displaying Charisma; a ridiculous class clown who always inspires his classmates to laugh is showing Charisma, too. Charisma doesn't necessarily mean fluffy love, but rather that your personality is so strong that it affects others around you. The opinions of people with Charisma matter; when they enter a room, other people notice them and care what they say or do. That might be because they automatically like them or because they recognize greatness when they see it or even because they fear them, but it always happens regardless. People with Charisma Matter with a capital M.

So when you're getting people to do things with your Charisma, they're doing it mostly because they're kind of overwhelmed by you. They do it because they're magnetically attracted to you, or because they're terrified of what might happen if they don't; they do it because they're falling in love or they just want to see you happy or they trust implicitly that someone as awesome as yourself must know best. People respond to Charisma by wanting to please the person who has it, which is considerably helpful to the Scion on the go.

Manipulation, on the other hand, is a more subtle quality and something that, I think, is a lot harder for many people to play in a character. The classic image is of someone who spins a web of lies, deceit and smokescreens to fool others into doing what they want, turning friend against friend and using various fall guys to prevent the trail from leading back to himself. And while you certainly can play Manipulation that way and be exceptionally good at it, you don't have to. Just like Charisma, it has different expressions.

People with Manipulation aren't necessarily deceitful, but they are persuasive. Whatever they're talking about, they sound legit. They make great liars, but they also make great debaters when trying to convince someone of the truth; they hide things well, but that doesn't necessarily mean they hide them in order to hurt someone else. A skilled diplomat helping prevent war in the Middle East is using Manipulation; so is a teacher attempting to open the minds of her students to new possibilities or a spy infiltrating to foil a dangerous terrorist plot. People with Manipulation are good at convincing others to believe them, at recognizing shenanigans when they see them and at doing things that go unseen or unremarked. Where others do what a guy with Charisma says because they want to please him, they do what the guy with Manipulation says because he has convinced them to genuinely believe that it's a good idea.

Now, you're right; the Scion books generally tend to paint Manipulation as a sort of "evil" stat, possessed by the Lokis of the world and generally used to get away with being the biggest bastard around. Some of this is because the word "manipulation" itself has a lot of negative connotations in English; it almost always implies "against my will" or "for selfish gain" when it's used, and further tends to often imply that the person manipulating others was cowardly for not using a different method to get their job done. If someone says they were manipulated, most English-speakers instinctively know that that was a Bad Thing and that whomever did it is a Bad Person. And then there's also the fact that Manipulation makes it so very easy to be a bad person; it's the perfect stat for putting up fronts, covering your tracks and getting away with murder, so it's not too surprising that many players tend to think of Manipulation as the Bad Guy Stat.

But, while most sneaky bad guys do have Manipulation, all Manipulation users are not sneaky bad guys. Manipulation, in and of itself, is no more an evil stat than Charisma; both of them can be used to great effect for either good or evil, depending on what a Scion chooses to do with them. The Scion with Manipulation could puppeteer some poor schmuck into killing his brother and taking the fall for him, but he could also use his subtle influence to steer those whose tempers won't let them take good advice into doing what's best; the Scion with Charisma could be an easygoing friend who returns in kind all the love and respect he's given, or he could be a tyrannical bastard who takes shameless advantage of the fact that others will literally give him the shirt off their backs. It's the personality of the character and player that determine the behavior of a Scion; and while it's true that you will often see people tending toward trickster or betrayer archetypes buying up all their Manipulation, you should never assume that having a high Manipulation score automatically means that that character is in fact a traitor.

A useful comparison we often use for our players is that of a king and his trusted vizier. The king is the guy with Charisma; he's the figurehead, the center of attention, beloved by his people and constantly in the public eye. The vizier is the guy with Manipulation; he takes care of the politicking, keeps an eye on the social interactions and suggests the wisest courses of action to manage both. Both of them are extremely effective at affecting others, but they do it in very different ways; the king is the center of attention, while the vizier is the one who moves levers behind the scenes.

And not every king is either a benevolent ruler or an evil tyrant, and not every vizier is either an altruistic kingdom-builder or Jafar. Either stat can be used either way; it's all about what kind of social interactions and power you want your character to have. If you have Charisma, people will do what you want because they want to make you happy, whatever it takes; if you have Manipulation, they'll do it because they legitimately believe they want or need to.