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.
Showing posts with label Presence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Presence. Show all posts
Thursday, November 14, 2013
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Star Power
Question: What does Presence do? It's incredibly nebulous and confusing; I only tell people to roll Presence when it is obviously not Empathy, Politics, or Command. AKA, when I can't think of anything else that fits better.
Presence can be confusing, but it's also an important core stat. We include it in the group of "innate" abilities - that is, things that are not so much skills as innate qualities of the Scion, a group that also includes Empathy, Fortitude and Integrity. Scion's system counts these as abilities for purposes of dice pools, but they're not really things you learn as much as things you are, so they also share a little conceptual ground with the Attributes.
Presence is exactly what it sounds like; it's the quality of being present, noticeable, important or arresting. It's Presence that makes people notice you and hear what you have to say, or that gives you the ability to command a stage or be the center of attention. It's nebulous in that some of these things are also affected strongly by your Attributes, particularly Charisma, but it works hand in hand with them the same way Perception works with Awareness or Dexterity works with Athletics. Having a lot of Charisma doesn't necessarily give you a lot of Presence; if you have maximum Charisma but no Presence, you'll be a great time to talk to or super interesting or friendly in person, but you won't necessarily be noticed in a crowd and people won't always think to come talk to you without prodding. If you have a ton of Appearance but no Presence, people won't quite realize how lovely you are until they've spent some time around you or you've directly used a power on them; you're no less beautiful, but that je ne sais quoi that makes it pop isn't there. That's illustrated by your Epic Attributes not coming into play if you lack Presence, just like it would be with any other ability.
We have players roll Presence most often when we're measuring how much of a splash the simple fact of them being there makes on the world around them. When the band enters somewhere with people, they roll Appearance + Presence to see which of them gets noticed first or by the most people; if they try to work a crowd in a general way, they roll Charisma + Presence to see how much people notice and are interested in them. Manipulation + Presence would apply to situations where they're trying to give off a particular impression without specifically targeting or talking to anyone (acting a role, for example). We also use Presence when the person's aura or presentness is a major issue, such as when we're testing whether or not they can shout loud enough to be heard or perform a distraction big enough to get someone's attention.
Actually, "when Command, Empathy or Politics isn't appropriate" isn't a bad yardstick for deciding when to use Presence. Those three are more specialized forms of social interaction, and Presence usually makes a great ability not only for moments when it's the best choice on its own but also when the other three don't fit.
Presence can be confusing, but it's also an important core stat. We include it in the group of "innate" abilities - that is, things that are not so much skills as innate qualities of the Scion, a group that also includes Empathy, Fortitude and Integrity. Scion's system counts these as abilities for purposes of dice pools, but they're not really things you learn as much as things you are, so they also share a little conceptual ground with the Attributes.
Presence is exactly what it sounds like; it's the quality of being present, noticeable, important or arresting. It's Presence that makes people notice you and hear what you have to say, or that gives you the ability to command a stage or be the center of attention. It's nebulous in that some of these things are also affected strongly by your Attributes, particularly Charisma, but it works hand in hand with them the same way Perception works with Awareness or Dexterity works with Athletics. Having a lot of Charisma doesn't necessarily give you a lot of Presence; if you have maximum Charisma but no Presence, you'll be a great time to talk to or super interesting or friendly in person, but you won't necessarily be noticed in a crowd and people won't always think to come talk to you without prodding. If you have a ton of Appearance but no Presence, people won't quite realize how lovely you are until they've spent some time around you or you've directly used a power on them; you're no less beautiful, but that je ne sais quoi that makes it pop isn't there. That's illustrated by your Epic Attributes not coming into play if you lack Presence, just like it would be with any other ability.
We have players roll Presence most often when we're measuring how much of a splash the simple fact of them being there makes on the world around them. When the band enters somewhere with people, they roll Appearance + Presence to see which of them gets noticed first or by the most people; if they try to work a crowd in a general way, they roll Charisma + Presence to see how much people notice and are interested in them. Manipulation + Presence would apply to situations where they're trying to give off a particular impression without specifically targeting or talking to anyone (acting a role, for example). We also use Presence when the person's aura or presentness is a major issue, such as when we're testing whether or not they can shout loud enough to be heard or perform a distraction big enough to get someone's attention.
Actually, "when Command, Empathy or Politics isn't appropriate" isn't a bad yardstick for deciding when to use Presence. Those three are more specialized forms of social interaction, and Presence usually makes a great ability not only for moments when it's the best choice on its own but also when the other three don't fit.
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