Uses for Charisma

[orbsmatt]

Ok, I have another question that needs addressing in my RPG.  I've been finding it very hard to use Charisma (or any other stats related to it if you want to go into derivations) as a solid stat in my game.  It seems that the player's ability to interact overcomes whatever his charisma is, making it hard for me to actually find any usefulness for this stat.

Any suggestions?  Anything I could do to improve its actual use, or should I just get rid of it?

Matthew

[Shreyas Sampat]

Assuming that by "Charisma", you mean "stats that measure a character's ability to socially interact", I have a few:

Four: A Game Idea and In The Court are games built on the idea that players are acceptably good at thinking of things to do socially, but their characters are not infallible at actually executing them.

[Scourge108]

So what kind of role do you think Charisma would play?  What kind of social scenarios do you think would be important in the game, where Charisma would come into play?  Ordering troops?  Selling magazine subscriptions?  Picking up cheerleaders?  Haggling with greedy merchants?  Winning elections?

[AnyaTheBlue]

I have two thoughts.

First, you could generate a 'social combat' system.  This could be similar to the 'characters are not fallible at carrying out what you've thought of' idea from a previous post, or it could take the form of, say, a kind of 'hit point' analog -- when someone is seducing you, they have to wear down your charisma, or you have to wear down theirs.  Insults could overcome your charisma and make you act rashly or unwisely.  You'd have to be careful, though, as I suspect either of these might be tools for deprotagonizing a character in the hands of an unscrupulous GM.

Second, you could use Charisma as a pool of points/dice/whatever that you spend to do socially related things -- like haggle, or whatever.  Spending the points allows you to make an attempt, as opposed to governing whether you succeed or not.

Whatever you end up with, you might gain some ideas from looking at the Dying Earth RPG, which has a sort of generic dice pool conflict system that involves social interaction in a clever way.  I'd describe it, but it's late and my brain is a sieve, so I'd probably misremember important bits.

[orbsmatt]

Ha, that's a really good idea Anya.  I never thought of making a social system like that.  It's always been interesting when one PC would try to convince another PC who's "player" did not agree, but through his persuasion skill and charisma was able to get him to do what he wanted.

I think the idea of "social points" would work well if developed properly.  And of course, they would be dependent on charisma and maybe willpower as well.

Thanks for the great suggestions everybody, further input is welcome.

Matthew

[Itse]

Ok, I have another question that needs addressing in my RPG. I've been finding it very hard to use Charisma (or any other stats related to it if you want to go into derivations) as a solid stat in my game. It seems that the player's ability to interact overcomes whatever his charisma is, making it hard for me to actually find any usefulness for this stat.

If you find this a problem, just force it. If the Charisma-roll fails, what ever the character says will have no effect. Actually, it might even have a negative effect. Ever heard of how peoples communication is mostly based on body language, and how most messages can be interpreted in several ways? Failed Charisma rolls / low stats could make the messages to be either ignored (the NPC just didn't care what the character had to say). Maybe the receiver even finds the character with low charisma to be a generally offensive person, and just assumes that what ever he says is propably veiled insults. Personally, I believe that in almost every situation it's more important who is talking that what he is actually saying. Emphasize this. To me, that's realism.

If none of that makes sense to you, just ignore it. Anyas "social combat" could also be one way of doing it.

[orbsmatt]

That definitely works too.  I also thought of the idea of rolling before they talked to determine the "mood" of the NPC, and then letting their roleplaying determine the result.

Matthew

[Nathan P.]

I usually give a "social" roll a positive modifier or lower difficulty (depending on the system) if it's accompanied by good roleplaying. I've found that this encourages players to play out a scene, while not penalizing those who aren't comfortable with their communication skills.

Just a thought.

Thank you for your time,
Nathan P.