Can charisma be something more than just dump stat?

[Liquidlizard]

I'm gathering opinions on ideas how to improve charisma stat in custom made RPG systems.

I'm toying around with creating new RPG systems (I'm one of those people who has to "do-it-yourself") and I've realized one thing. If I include Charisma as basic stat it will always end up becoming a dump stat. Just like this (I'm sure you must have experience something like this in your GMing career)

In a way it is understandable. If you make Charisma a stat that is linked with magic (I'm speaking here about generic fantasy setting), and it's a prerequisite for certain magic schools, then it will be popular, but then, to my mind it's no more charisma, but just some magic prerequisite stat that has its name.

I want it to be just like it is - not something that is connected with magic. Unfortunately it leaves charisma to be only a social skill, which is fine, if you're campaign has enough social encounters or depends on how you heroes deal with situations in which you can't just brawl. On the other hand we know that fantasy, adventure games, inevitably means danger and enemies and monsters, thus people often still favour the "more practical skills".

I was wondering how to give more weight to this stat, so that people do not automatically lower it in order to max other skills, but they have to think about it, even in not so social games.

I would like to hear your ideas. I have two of mine here as well:

1) Bard which is an overall great both combat and social booster and support character benefits from charisma. But only specialised bards will take it (unlike strength or agility, which is luring for everyone)

2) A friend of mine thought that charisma could determine the social rank of the character before the game. Meaning higher charisma gives a larger chance to be someone rich and important, which could translate is such simple bonuses as larger sum of the money at the beginning or maybe certain support money that the character receives every week. Thus being an adventurer with high charisma might be more inviting even for powerplayers.

These are just some ideas, I gladly would like to hear yours on this matter.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Social rank would not work too well, because it is mostly used in social interactions, and limited starting money will level out over time...

In D&D Charisma reflects your personality and confidence...

In 3.5, it reflects how easy you can be charmed or controlled (after your will-save failed)

Actually you could use it for mundane combat too:

How easy are you intimidated or impressed by your opponents behavior, how easy can you intimidate or bluff him. Also you could tie it to initiative in some way...

This will make those who like to be in combat consider twice if its worth dumping it:
Having the highest strength is worthless if you run away all the time^^

 

[Janx]

It's a good question.

Part of the problem with Charisma, barring game rules that force using it, is that for the basic premise of the game, killing monsters and taking their stuff, speaking well and looking good aren't too useful towards that goal. Whereas strength, Dex, Con, Int, Wisdom all have in combat uses, especially strength, Dex and Con. Since you expect to spend more time in combat (or can solve most problems by setting it on fire or hitting it repeatedly), Charisma gets ignored.

The other part of the problem, is that Charisma is the "role-playing" stat. My real world strength, dex and con have no bearing on my PC (who could be better than I am). But my own natural charm and way with words CAN influence the GM when I speak. My PC doesn't need a high charisma stat when I am charismatic.

If you look at old-school gaming, even Intelligence gets treated this way. Sure, it affects how many spells you can know, but other than that, if the player is dumb, the PC dies. If the player is smart, the PC survives.

The result is, a branch in game design thinking. Is the PC an avatar of the player, and the only rules you need are for simulating things the Player can't do? Such as fighting, casting spells.

Or do the rules model the PC, and the PC can only do what he has in-game skills for, regardless of the player? When 3e added more social skills and classes that used Charisma, they headed toward this interpretation.

I would argue, however, that since a real player is controlling the PC, the player's intelligence and charisma is always influencing the game in real ways. An intelligent player with a tactical mind will do smarter things in combat, even with "just a fighter". A persuasive player will sway the GM to side with him in rules disputes, and NPC interactions.

What all this boils down to is you've got to either eliminate the Charisma stat (an extreme choice) and strictly rely on the player's portrayal of their character (some folks would enjoy this). Or take an approach that incorporates their real skill, and their game stat.

I've seen this proposed before, it's good advice:
In any social skill situation, If the player does a good job with actual persuasion/speaking, give them a bonus to their skill check as a situational modifer. It may be easier to lower the DC and not tell anybody. A player who just does the skill check, gets no bonus. A player with no tact who tries to role-play it out, and just comes off as insulting is the tricky part. Realistically, you should apply a penalty, and the player should learn that they need to take communication classes. However, it may be nicest, to simply ignore what they said, and make the skill check, with no bonus or penalty.

Once you've figured out how your going to handle social skills, you've got to make them happen more often. If you don't make socializing important in the game, then the stat is useless. This doesn't need new game rules, just a shift in the kinds of encounters and adventures you have.

If you stick to mostly dungeon crawls, the party won't need socials skills. If you make most of the game about social skills, with a fight for the climax, you'll get a lot more use of those skills.

My advice then, is to run a city campaign, where most of the NPCs the PCs need to work with are in public view. It'll be harder to solve with violence when nobody draws a weapon (except for the bad guy at the climax).

From there, getting from encounter to encounter should be a matter of trying to get information or persuade/bluff/bully NPCs. This will require a shift in thinking. Normally, to spice things up and make things challenging, the GM has the villain send in thugs to rough up the party. Instead, you've got to send problems of a social nature. Spread lies, slander, buy things out from under the party. It'll be tough, but once you get the pattern down, it'll work.

The trick is setting up encounters that are obviously solvable with non-combat, and that would make more problems if combat is used. It's very easy to make a combat encounter. Send NPCs at the party with weapons drawn and tell them to roll initiative. The trick then, is to make bad guys who seldom use weapons. They send lawyers and spies, and buy/bribe their way.

Once you do that, you'll have more social encounters, which will make Charisma more useful. It'll also mean you won't waste time on tons of combat encounters, which means the PCs will be at full health for the climax, which means you can make it tougher and more epic.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If you are designing your own game, who says you have to have a charisma stat?

If the game you are designing has no importance for such a stat and you feel that giving it meaning to other game elements in order to justify its inclusion is wrong then leave it out.

Charisma was actually important in the original D&D game. It determined how many henchmen you could have, and thier loyalty/morale level. As the importance of henchmen declined through the editions, so did the value of charisma.

Unless there is an overwhelming in game use for charisma then leave it out.

 

[Aus_Snow]

In one set of d20 house rules, I had each save influenced by 2 ability modifiers, instead of the standard 1. Rounding up, if a particular one was higher, down if the other was. There are variuos other ways you can make Charisma represent more than it does in say, 3e, as well.

Or, unless you just get rid of that type of ability altogether, as suggested upthread, you might also consider going the way of - for example - Unisystem, which has the same abilities, except that Charisma and Wisdom are replaced by Willpower and Perception, respectively. From there, it's a lot easier, and just clearer, making it all happen for [what was] Charisma

Another possibility is to weave skills and magic (and even combat, perhaps) together, for example by requiring an appropriate 'social' skill roll to cast a spell that affects people in such ways.

Or hey, use it for morale and suchlike. It can certainly be interpreted as covering confidence, so that could be exploited in a variety of ways (like morale). Or, indeed, action points / luck / destiny type stuff - basically, the character's 'aura' / 'mojo' / whatever.

But yeah, you don't even need to stick to six stats. You could go for fewer, more, or none at all, like the 'A Song of Ice and Fire' RPG, which ranks what might normally be called 'stats' or 'skills' as exactly the same thing: skills, IIRC.

There are a lot of different approaches. You could always check out the many free RPGs out there, as well as the 'quick start' versions of non-free systems that are frequently to be found at the creators' website.

 

[Krensky]

Charisma is a dump stat because GMs allow it to be a dump stat. Part of this is by not using it (or social skills) part of this is that it either effects fewer things or the things it effects become less relevant over time.

Some OGL systems have resolved this in different ways, usually by playing off the Charisma is force of personality and likability concept. The best way to make CHA actually matter in a game is to actually make people roll their social skills. A number of people here detest (or some less extreme verb) this concept, but if you want CHA to mechanically matter, this is the first step.

If you have a copy, look at Charisma in Spycraft 2.0. It effects a number of skills, it's one of the casting stats (although not in the way it is in 3.5), it effects your finances and equipment access, and theres a crap load of things a high CHA person can do to abuse a person who just dumped it, and a lot of feats, tricks, and class abilities to exploit a high Charisma in combat. Frankly, a Charisma based Martial Artist can be scary as hell.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Something that I toyed with, back when I was running 3.5, was associating Charisma with "luck". The basis was that charismatic people tend to be confident, and confident people make their own luck (in other words you are far more likely to succeed at something if you have confidence in yourself).

I tried different ideas:

Things normally determined by a random die roll were instead determined by opposed Charisma checks (a modified random chance instead of an equally random chance). Good things happened to the guy with the highest roll whereas bad luck was drawn to the one with the lowest roll.

I forget exactly how it worked, but I also tried a Luck point system. I think it was a pool of 5 + Charisma modifier Luck, and you could spend Luck to modify a roll by +1 for each point spent. Luck refreshed each game session.

 

[Henrix]

I overcame the dump stat thing (in 3e) by forcing my players to make charisma checks in about every social interaction.

As soon as they wanted something out of somebody, or wanted to buy/sell something extraordinary - a charisma check. (Often I allowed a Diplomacy check instead, if I deemed it suitable.)

By really showing that a lower charisma meant that people liked you less I got my players to stop dumping charisma.


Charisma is often a dump stat because people think that the 'roleplaying' should decide how a conversation turns, and not the stats.
I say that as long as combat isn't figured in the same way, neither should social interactions.

The characters' stats should matter. (Or else play a game where there are no such stats.)

 

[Raven Crowking]

In RCFG, Charisma is tied to:

* Willpower save (Wisdom is tied to Perception save)
* Max number of henchmen
* Skills such as diplomacy

The first, more than anything, helps prevent Charisma from being a dump stat, as Willpower is a fairly common save. The justification is that Charisma ties directly to force of personality and sense of self.


RC

 

[roguerouge]

Have charisma include luck or fate as a component, in addition to personal magnetism. (After all, feeling lucky or blessed tends to have a positive connection to being confident.) Have action points or story points or plot coupons be keyed to that stat. You can also use it to reflect those situations where it's truly random who gets attacked (such as an ooze faced with two opponents equally distant.) Alternatively, you could make it give you a number of contacts and their helpfulness for you.

The +2/-2 circumstance bonus for good or bad RP by the player is a good compromise position when it comes to the issue raised above. It makes player skill important, but not too important.