WhyGamesMatter

Have you ever noticed that people that play role playing games, unless they are playing a bard or an old school paladin, almost always use Charisma (or its equivalent) as a dump stat?  That is, they always make it their lowest stat.  At the same time, when you ask them to show their characters, their image always looks like Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp?

Part of me wishes that there was some kind of visual scale that players could use to see what their characters will look like with a given charisma score.  Here’s a tip: if your character has a charisma of 3, he probably looks and smells hideous AND is most likely really annoying.  Put simply, a character with a charisma of 3 IS the stereotypical gamer that we are all trying to get away from.  The guy in today’s image?  He’s a solid 5.  Characters with a charisma of 3 are generally jealous of this guy for his good looks.

So if you want to min-max your character with a low charisma, that’s fine, but don’t tell me that your primary concern is role-playing if you don’t role-play the charisma accordingly.