Question: You've talked about the difference between Charisma and Manipulation before, but what about the difference between Charisma and Appearance? Aren't they both just the ability to make people notice you?
No, but that is a thing they can both do, so the confusion's understandable. Charisma and Appearance both can be used to make people notice you, but that's not the only thing they do, and they also generally don't do it the same way.
To begin with, while both Charisma and Appearance do depend on people paying attention to you, the stat that actually means "pay attention to me!" is Presence. That's the stat that actually measures how good you are at being noticed; without it, even with all the Epic socials in the world you're still at the same level as a really stunningly noticeable mortal at best. So it's really the interplay between Charisma - the force of your personality - or Appearance - the force of your physical self - and Presence that makes people notice you.
And they do that separately! Getting someone to notice you with Charisma involves impressing them in some way with your personality, which will take whatever form your personal brand of Charisma is most suited to. It might mean coming on so strong that you scare people with your intensity, being so hilarious that you brighten the whole room, or being so warm and comforting that people are naturally drawn to you no matter what you're doing. Charisma may also do any number of other things, including making people feel bad for you if you're in trouble, making people who know you want to be your friend, making people fall in love with you, intimidating people, or even making them feel better about themselves.
Getting someone to notice you with Appearance, on the other hand, involves you being incredibly physically impressive, which again depends on the specific kind of Appearance you're rocking. It might mean being so hot that you melt peoples' brains the second they catch sight of you, being so ugly that they can't take their eyes off you, being so terrifying that no matter where they go they feel like your eyes are on them, or you smell so intoxicating that when you walk too close their synapses all shut down. Appearance can also instigate lust, provoke revulsion, make it impossible to touch you or inspire people with the mere memory of how amazing you happen to physically be.
The difference lies not necessarily in the result but in the method; it's possible to be magnetically noticeable because of your Charisma but to look incredibly ordinary, which you might roleplay as being generally unnoticed until you say something or put yourself forward, and it's also possible to be completely uninteresting in every possible way but being so incredible-looking that people have to notice you even if you have the personality equivalent of a dirt stain. And, you should also keep in mind that the result can vary quite a lot - someone who notices you because you're a great conversationalist and they really like you will react extremely differently from someone who notices you because you look like the monster under their bed crawled out to say hello. Just getting noticed is really only the beginning of any interaction, and what happens next will depend heavily on exactly how that notice came about.
Social stats are weird because they're all about interaction with other people, which means that they aren't simple levers; they all could theoretically do all kinds of stuff, with lots of overlap between them. What really makes them pop is how you use them and how other people react to them, so when you're making a social character, think through what kinds of effects you want to have on people and what socials will serve you best in achieving that in your particular way.
Oh, and buy Presence. Life's a pain in the butt for social characters without any.
Until you get too much Presence, then thing get painful but in different ways.
ReplyDeleteSuch is Scion life.
DeleteCharisma is definitely the better of the two options. Appearance can help you make a big impression, but Charisma can do the same thing with a little bit more time and has none of the overwhelming negatives.
ReplyDeleteEven the few negatives it does have come with knacks to mitigate or eliminate those negatives. And Charisma is way better at actually getting stuff done, and making people do what you want.
It depends on what you want. If you want to make people do stuff for you and/or control what they do, then Charisma is always better, hands down (although Manipulation might be even better than that). Appearance is designed to affect people but not necessarily direct them.
DeleteOh, Charisma negatives do exist, though, and they are a massive pain in the butt. Having people constantly trying to touch you (or shoot you) for Appearance sucks, but the psychopaths who have fallen in love with you and will therefore mow down everyone and everything in their paths and lock you in the basements so they can exclusively devote their time to loving you are no picnic, either.
Charisma can also solve all the problems that it creates, which Appearance cannot do.
DeleteSomeone trying to touch you? Impress upon them the importance of not touching you. Zealot mowing down people in your name? Impress upon him the importance of not mowing people down in your name. Lunatic has you locked in his basement? Impress upon him how disappointed you are to be locked in a basement.
People with massive Appearance (positive in your examples) have to deal with every single one of those problems you listed, and very few tools to do anything about it.
Nah, man. Game Face/Compelling Presence and Dreadful Mien/Waking Nightmare. Instant shutdown switches for anyone with Appearance problems.
DeleteCharisma can maybe solve its problems, but then again maybe not. That really depends on the resistance rolls of the people involved, and furthermore on their actions when Charisma powers are used on them; not everyone responds to being in love the same way, for example, and while Charisma has the power to make people feel feelings, it doesn't have the power to force them to act on those feelings in any specific way.
Geoff can attest that Charisma rarely solves his Sangria problems. If anything, he uses Appearance more - if he really needs to juice up and get over her resistance roll, he usually goes for Compelling Presence rather than any squishy Charisma stuff she might not respond to the way he wants her to.
Let's break it down. Game face stops someone from touching you now, but you have to keep paying to gain the benefit later. Game face does nothing to stop someone from mowing down people in your name. Game Face does not convince someone to let you out of a locked basement.
DeleteCompelling presence stops someone from touching you now, but you have to keep paying to gain the benefit later. Compelling presence does stop someone from mowing down people in your name right that moment, but does nothing to stop them from doing it when you are not around. Compelling Presence does not convince someone to let you out of a locked basement.
Even though Dreadful Mien and Waking Nightmare are different, for the sake of saving space their answers are exactly the same as Compelling Presence.
Meanwhile we can just take Benefit of the Doubt as an easy example. Benefit of the Doubt can stop someone from touching you right now and can do a decent job of stopping them from doing it again later. Benefit of the Doubt can stop someone from mowing down people in your name right now, and long after they are no longer in your presence. Benefit of the Doubt can convince someone to let you out of a locked basement.
I don't think I get your "keep paying later" thing - you mean, because the power lasts one scene? I mean, yeah, it does, but something like Benefit of the Doubt isn't guaranteeing you any permanent effect, either. At least the Appearance knacks actually completely prevent anyone from going at you; the Charisma knacks have to be finessed. Which is great if you succeed at that, but far from guaranteed. Benefit of the Doubt can maybe stop people from mowing others down, but then again maybe not; it can make them believe you don't want them to do it, or that it's a bad idea, or that they should consider doing something else, but the decision is still ultimately up to them. Just because they believe you want them to stop doesn't mean they necessarily will. It depends entirely on the person and why they were doing it in the first place.
DeleteThe problem here is that making someone feel really bad for locking you in a basement still doesn't necessarily guarantee they'll let you out. If they think they'll feel worse if they lose you, or they think they're protecting you, or they think it's the only way they get to be near you, you keep living in the basement. They're miserable, but you're still here. (Of course, the Appearance knacks can't let you out of the basement, either. Basements tend to be speciality cases.)
Manipulation is the social stat that just gets you out of the basement, but it is sort of the blunt instrument of the social stats.
By "keep paying later" I mean that nothing about the power forces the individual to behave differently in the future. Someone who lusts after you right now might be stopped with Compelling Presence (for example), but Compelling Presence won't make them change their behavior at all.
DeleteMeanwhile, Benefit of the Doubt does guarantee you some kind of permanent effect unless someone presents concrete direct evidence to the contrary.
There is very little maybe involved in the issue. It doesn't even matter if /sometimes/ someone has a reason to go against Benefit of the Doubt, because /sometimes/ is still a heck of a lot less often than anything Epic Appearance can accomplish.
You don't even need to make someone just feel bad with Benefit of the Doubt. You can outright convince them that they absolutely will feel worse if they lose you, that they absolutely will fail to protect you, that they absolutely will have less overall time to be near you, and that they absolutely must let you out of the basement immediately and take you to your friends or something terrible will happen to you.
Benefit of the Doubt doesn't give you any "permanent effect" at all; all it does is make them believe, at this exact moment. If they go away, think about it for an hour, and realize it doesn't make sense (likely, if it's something they didn't already believe), they'll be just as unlikely to believe you next time unless you use the power. Affecting someone's emotions right now does not guarantee they'll remain affected later - in fact, if you use Charisma powers to make people feel ways they're resistant to normally, it's much more likely that they won't.
DeleteAlso, there's an important distinction with Benefit of the Doubt - it doesn't actually convince anyone of anything. They don't necessarily believe what you're saying is true; rather, they like you so much that they're willing to extend the benefit of the doubt even if they aren't sure you're on the level. It's not "this guy is telling the truth", but rather "I don't want to believe this guy would lie to me", or even "I don't think he's telling the truth, but I'd rather let him have it this time than fight with him about it." Only Manipulation straight-up actually convinces anyone of anything.
Which means it's even less likely to last for a while, of course. Benefit may get you a very short-term effect, and it is hella useful for that, but it's way far away from having anything approaching permanent effects, especially since they may not even have believed you in the first place.
Look, I'm not saying you can't get out of the basement with Benefit or other Charisma knacks, but I am saying that it sounds like you're assuming Charisma is an instant-win in ways that Appearance is not, and that's just not necessarily so. They're different tools and are usually used in different ways.
"By flashing a smile or letting the force of her personality simply wash over a person, the Scion with this Knack may influence their credulity; as long as she makes a specific effort to encourage someone to believe her, the person in question does their very best to believe whatever she has just told them, no matter how far-fetched or strange it might seem. Nothing short of concrete, direct evidence to the contrary will convince a person thus affected to re-examine the Scion’s statement. If the Scion is required to roll to make her story be believed, she may roll Charisma + Empathy instead of Manipulation + Empathy."
DeleteBenefit of the Doubt doesn't have a time limit, so they are going to keep on believing it. There is no point where they get to think about it for an hour and come to a different conclusion unless they are presented with concrete, direct evidence to the contrary. Or hit with some other power. It literally says they won't even try to re-examine the statement without that proof.
Benefit of the Doubt also specifically says that they believe what you say is true. It literally goes out of the way to explain that the person in question does their very best to believe whatever she was just told, no matter how far-fetched or strange it might seem.
With all due respect, could you are thinking about a completely different knack? :(
Nope, not even slightly, we're talking about the same thing!
DeleteHere's a big disconnect: Benefit of the Doubt does have a time limit, but it's not a mechanical one. It doesn't say "lasts for the scene" or anything like that, but that's because we're dealing with the influence of the perceptions and thoughts of a person, not a mechanial effect. People change their minds - sometimes because of new outside stimulus, sometimes because of new internal thoughts, sometimes just because their perspectives change over time (even short periods of time). We've all thoroughly believed something at some point in our lives and then realized later that we don't believe it anymore, and that might range from happening over a period of years to a period of few minutes.
Benefit of the Doubt can inspire a belief or a semblance of one, but it cannot enforce it. If you use that knack and someone decides they will give you the benefit of the doubt on something, they have every ability to change their mind about that later, with no time limit for how long or short it is until they do. You can make them decide to go with the idea for the moment, but unless you continue using the knack every time they waver, you can't make them keep believing it. They are people and they get to change their minds or consider new information, all the time.
You're again thinking of things Manipulation does; you could definitely use Manipulation knacks to implant a conditioned response to an idea with one of the hypnosis knacks, for example. But Charisma can't and shouldn't do that, because that falls under actually convincing and changing a person's mind to something they didn't choose themselves; it's textbook manipulation. Charisma's job is to make people want to like and/or help you, but it doesn't get to control how they experience and make decisions about that.
Your target has decided to believe you (or try to believe you, anyway). That does not mean that they will go to their graves believing what you just told them; it does not mean they don't get to think about the situation, especially once they're out of your overwhelming presence, and begin to suspect that they might have been wrong. (Actually, a useful rule of thumb for Charisma is that it very seldom continues to work once people have left your presence. Unless it has a set timespan like Engender Love, Charisma effects tend to end when you leave. Manipulation is for causing long-ranging meddling with peoples' psyches; Charisma affects them with your personal awesomeness, but can't do as much when that awesomeness isn't around.)
Otherwise, this knack would be bonkers bugfuck overpowered. Why wouldn't every god with Charisma just use it once on everyone they know to make them believe they were best friends/should give them all their stuff forever/were the rightful ruler of the universe, and then never have any problems again? If the knack worked as you're suggesting, it would be possible to completely change the beliefs and personalities of people forever and indefinitely with a single point of Legend. That's zany. Even Manipulation can't do that - they have to carefully lay groundwork to get those kinds of longterm effects, and often there are still failsafes that make it so people can snap out of it.
Oh, hey, I totally found the problem, whoa. That's a horrible typo on the site - that up there is the text for God's Honest, the Manipulation knack that does make people believe you. It must have gotten cross-copied at some point (maybe an old version from before we clarified the difference between Charisma and Manipulation). Damn, all the confusion we have caused.
Well, no wonder I'm confusing you, we are looking at different things. That needs fixing stat.
Damn knack cross-pollination.
DeleteIf it helps clear up the cross-pollination, here is the text of both:
DeleteBenefit of the Doubt: By flashing a smile or letting the force of her personality simply wash over a person, the Scion with this Knack may influence their credulity; as long as she makes a specific effort to encourage someone to believe her, the person in question does their very best to believe whatever she has just told them, no matter how far-fetched or strange it might seem. Nothing short of concrete, direct evidence to the contrary will convince a person thus affected to re-examine the Scion’s statement. If the Scion is required to roll to make her story be believed, she may roll Charisma + Empathy instead of Manipulation + Empathy.
God's Honest: With a simple wave of his hand and an affirming phrase, the Scion with this Knack may wipe away doubt in the mind of his target. As long as he appends a reassuring phrase (such as “I promise,” or “Scout’s honor”) to his statement, he may cause his target to do their very best to believe what he says, even if it would normally seem completely far-fetched. Targets must roll to resist this Knack as normal; if they fail to overcome the Scion’s successes, they cannot roll Perception + Empathy to attempt to detect the falsehood he is shamelessly perpetrating and are forced to simply believe what he says.
They both share similar issues. No time limit; the ability to completely alter belief systems; convince people utterly unless there is proof; no chance to reconsider. The text is somewhat different though, so not just a cut and paste.
I know, I just looked them up. :) There was obviously some crossover here at some point, although I'm at a loss as to when I screwed it up. I guess everybody has to roll a botch once in a while...
DeleteI've got the correct BoTD text here from file, but I can't update the site for a while since I'm at work. It should read:
"By flashing a smile or letting the force of her personality simply wash over a person, the Scion with this Knack may influence their credulity; as long as she makes a specific effort to encourage someone to believe her, the person in question does their very best to grant her the benefit of the doubt as to whether or not it is true, even if she would reject it from any other, less charismatic source. If the Scion is required to roll to make her story be believed, she may roll Charisma + Empathy instead of Manipulation + Empathy."
So much about our conversation makes more sense now. No wonder we kept missing each other, like forlorn, mechanics-confused ships in the night.
The original knacks in the books really were identical in effect, just under different Attributes; we changed that pretty early on, but apparently I didn't get that on the site correctly, or did and then reverted it some time during edits. This one's all on me.
The no "set time limit" thing isn't a problem in my opinion, though. You're talking to other thinking beings, not automatons you can program forever, so assume they can have thoughts later and act accordingly. God's Honest's belief may also fade later, although it's usually more persistent, since the target actually believed them as opposed to just giving them the benefit of the doubt.
FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!
DeleteGo for his eyes, Anne. Go for the Anon's fucking eyes!
(Nice discussion by the way.)
No worries, other Anon. I don't know if my text conveys my feelings very well, but I have genuinely enjoyed the conversation. The fact that the website had an older version of Benefit of the Doubt explains almost all of the confusion!
DeleteThe only thing left to quibble about is the duration of these social powers. I think that is just going to be an agree to disagree thing, which probably concludes the discussion on a generally enjoyable and positive note (for me at least)! :D
Yeah, no fights here! :)
DeleteYeah I know. I just always wanted said to say that whenever I saw John arguing with a Anon. Those are just so much fun!
DeleteI always differentiated Charisma vs. Appearance based on effort. Charisma requires that you actually try to engage (though the definition of try can be rather inclusive at high enough Charisma). If you have high Charisma but no Appearance, you'll gather a crowd once you clear your throat, but no one's noticing you until then. Likewise, if you have tons of Appearance but no Charisma, then you'll be able to draw heads just by existing, but getting people to actually listen to what you say is a challenge. (manipulation is its own kettle of chimps and can be as subtle or as blatant as you want)
ReplyDeleteSidenote: My characters need more Charisma. Focusing on mentals is all well and good, but coming up with good ideas sucks when no one listens to them. I'm The Smartest Guy In The Room, You Should Probably Pay Attention To My Advice is a rather good application of Epic Charisma.
Ha, sounds like Aiona. Her divine life is an unending cycle of frustration of being the smartest god around and having the best ideas, but being totally ignored by her pantheon because they don't like her. "But I know exactly how to fix the--" "Go back to your cave, troll, we're going with Ares' plan!"
DeleteOne unfortunate part of real life that is mirrored well in an RPG. :(
DeleteThat's EXACTLY Erik's situation, though he's only Demigod at the moment. The fact that Erik has negative Epic Appearance at higher levels doesn't help, since it manifests as him looking like the kind of predator that stalks your nightmares.
DeleteAnd yes, Anon, this is a rather realistic part of actual life, sad to say.
To be fair, Aiona doesn't exactly have the most friendly personality.
DeleteThis is very true.
Delete