I was thinking about "delivering on fantasy" today and thought about how some people just want to be attractive.
In D&D's past, this was a seventh ability score called Comeliness. While it would typically fall under Performance now, that's probably too far removed from a player who just wants to play Flynn Rider who can show off their "Smolder"... so as a fifth Charisma skill I think it would fit nicely.
How about you? Would you stick with D&D's tradition of come-hitherly Comeliness, or use a different word? Beauty, attractive, or something else?
Comeliness was an ability sub-score for a brief time in 2E before TSR realized that breaking ability scores down into multiple sub-stats added nothing to the game. Trying to add a Comeliness/Beauty/Attractiveness stat is simply not a good idea because it assumes that there's some sort of universal standard for looking good. Which is just silly: why would a dwarf automatically feel that a tall, willow elf is more beautiful that a short, thick dwarf? Why would a lizardfolk rate a human as being more attractive than any lizardfolk when they don't even have scales and they have that weird shaggy stuff on their head?
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Because you can't control your genetic appearance, but you can fix your hair well, keep your facial hair maintained, pay attention to your posture and the roll of your hips.
Different cultures may find different postures and mannerisms attractive, and that could be represented.
While "being attractive" is kind of a skill, it's not a skill for D&D5 purposes. You use skills in D&D5 to achieve specific things. Are you using your looks to get someone to do something? That's Persuade. To draw attention? Performance. To distract someone so they don't notice you're not supposed to be here? Deception. You can even use your looks to intimidate.
Between the extant social skills and Charisma as general presence, there's no need for a specific skill to cover appearances. (And a stat, like in 1e Unearthed Arcana, really doesn't work on so many levels, which is why nobody used it even back then.)
And if you just want your character to be pretty? You don't need a skill or a stat for that. You can just say you are. (Even if you have low Charisma. Being attractive and knowing how to use it to influence people are two very different things.)
Because you can't control your genetic appearance, but you can fix your hair well, keep your facial hair maintained, pay attention to your posture and the roll of your hips.
Different cultures may find different postures and mannerisms attractive, and that could be represented.
In old editions we had a interacting with different races modifiers.
I mean, if I was going to run this I'd set up a tool proficiency thing; that way players could have their hair and make up taken care of for the purposes of impressing people at a ball or meeting or such.
It's purely an RP thing now. You want to be beautiful, just say you are. Hopefully, the DM will RP people reacting to you based partly on that. Like people might be nicer to you, but on the other hand, people are more likely to notice and/or remember you, which can be both good and bad.
Starting to attach mechanics to it would get really complicated really quickly. Particularly since it would imply similar mechanics for being extra ugly and turn into one more set of modifiers for everyone to track.
I mean, if I was going to run this I'd set up a tool proficiency thing; that way players could have their hair and make up taken care of for the purposes of impressing people at a ball or meeting or such.
In old editions we had a interacting with different races modifiers.
Those are inherently setting-specific. Also, there's currently about 60 playable races.
They weren’t setting specific. It was part of the Unearthed Arcana. Now some settings did have adjustments on top of that.
PHB page 18 had the Racial Preference table and DMG page 114 had the Humanoid Racial preference table. So definitely not setting specific, the UA just expanded on it some. Other supplements both TSR and 3rd party built on it more. It was an ok mechanic and primarily a role play one, as we liked to say at the table a high comeliness is a curse more than a blessing.
I mean, if I was going to run this I'd set up a tool proficiency thing; that way players could have their hair and make up taken care of for the purposes of impressing people at a ball or meeting or such.
For example, a disguise kit?
I wouldn’t run it as a Tool Proficiency. Leave it as roleplay only or as a non mechanical stat. I use it in later editions to decide how to play the character,
In old editions we had a interacting with different races modifiers.
Those are inherently setting-specific. Also, there's currently about 60 playable races.
They weren’t setting specific. It was part of the Unearthed Arcana. Now some settings did have adjustments on top of that.
PHB page 18 had the Racial Preference table and DMG page 114 had the Humanoid Racial preference table. So definitely not setting specific, the UA just expanded on it some. Other supplements both TSR and 3rd party built on it more. It was an ok mechanic and primarily a role play one, as we liked to say at the table a high comeliness is a curse more than a blessing.
Any such thing is inherently setting specific, because what the races think of each other, and how they behave, are setting specific. There's no in-species concept of universal beauty, much less a cross-species one, so that's another reason that the old Comeliness rule was not useful.
I think it should be a passive, and whenever you meet someone, they roll to see if they find you attractive or friendly or whatever, it would add to the immersiveness without making the person ask to roll 'comeliness' every time they meet someone.
Personally, I agree with Lyran. It doesn't really add much of value.
You can be attractive, yet socially inept and utterly ineloquent. That isn't to say that being charming doesn't have any effect on one's perceived attractiveness, because it certainly does, but Charisma is more 'force of personality' than it is a physical determiner.
but you can fix your hair well, keep your facial hair maintained, pay attention to your posture and the roll of your hips.
I would just roll that into Charisma wholesale and call for performance if a player wishes to exaggerate one of those things or pay specific attention to them in the hopes of achieving some kind of desired effect.
At the end of the day, though, I guess it's really just up to whatever a hypothetical group would vibe with if that's really the kind of thing they'd want. Overall, I'd say it's far too niche and adds more rolling and stat crunching where it's unlikely to be beneficial, as more rolling in general often isn't good for anyone.
I remember when Comeliness was a thing. As a stat, it was kind of pointless. I mean I get it, you can have person who's ugly as sin be charismatic as a god, and vise vs you can have a looker with a bad personality. But... Those can be done in RP, with out the need for stats. Stats are about game mechanics. So your idea of a skill called Comeliness, it's not the worst thing I've heard of from homebrew ideas, but mechanically what is it going to do that isn't covered by Persuasion and Intimidation? The Flynn Rider's of the world who stand up with a hairflip and smolder look in their eyes, can achieve everything they want with the current skills. And frankly as a DM if a player Roleplayed that properly, I would give them advantage on the roll.
I was thinking about "delivering on fantasy" today and thought about how some people just want to be attractive.
In D&D's past, this was a seventh ability score called Comeliness. While it would typically fall under Performance now, that's probably too far removed from a player who just wants to play Flynn Rider who can show off their "Smolder"... so as a fifth Charisma skill I think it would fit nicely.
How about you? Would you stick with D&D's tradition of come-hitherly Comeliness, or use a different word? Beauty, attractive, or something else?
Comeliness was an ability sub-score for a brief time in 2E before TSR realized that breaking ability scores down into multiple sub-stats added nothing to the game. Trying to add a Comeliness/Beauty/Attractiveness stat is simply not a good idea because it assumes that there's some sort of universal standard for looking good. Which is just silly: why would a dwarf automatically feel that a tall, willow elf is more beautiful that a short, thick dwarf? Why would a lizardfolk rate a human as being more attractive than any lizardfolk when they don't even have scales and they have that weird shaggy stuff on their head?
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Because you can't control your genetic appearance, but you can fix your hair well, keep your facial hair maintained, pay attention to your posture and the roll of your hips.
Different cultures may find different postures and mannerisms attractive, and that could be represented.
While "being attractive" is kind of a skill, it's not a skill for D&D5 purposes. You use skills in D&D5 to achieve specific things. Are you using your looks to get someone to do something? That's Persuade. To draw attention? Performance. To distract someone so they don't notice you're not supposed to be here? Deception. You can even use your looks to intimidate.
Between the extant social skills and Charisma as general presence, there's no need for a specific skill to cover appearances. (And a stat, like in 1e Unearthed Arcana, really doesn't work on so many levels, which is why nobody used it even back then.)
And if you just want your character to be pretty? You don't need a skill or a stat for that. You can just say you are. (Even if you have low Charisma. Being attractive and knowing how to use it to influence people are two very different things.)
In old editions we had a interacting with different races modifiers.
I mean, if I was going to run this I'd set up a tool proficiency thing; that way players could have their hair and make up taken care of for the purposes of impressing people at a ball or meeting or such.
It's purely an RP thing now. You want to be beautiful, just say you are. Hopefully, the DM will RP people reacting to you based partly on that. Like people might be nicer to you, but on the other hand, people are more likely to notice and/or remember you, which can be both good and bad.
Starting to attach mechanics to it would get really complicated really quickly. Particularly since it would imply similar mechanics for being extra ugly and turn into one more set of modifiers for everyone to track.
Those are inherently setting-specific. Also, there's currently about 60 playable races.
For example, a disguise kit?
They weren’t setting specific. It was part of the Unearthed Arcana. Now some settings did have adjustments on top of that.
PHB page 18 had the Racial Preference table and DMG page 114 had the Humanoid Racial preference table. So definitely not setting specific, the UA just expanded on it some. Other supplements both TSR and 3rd party built on it more. It was an ok mechanic and primarily a role play one, as we liked to say at the table a high comeliness is a curse more than a blessing.
I wouldn’t run it as a Tool Proficiency. Leave it as roleplay only or as a non mechanical stat. I use it in later editions to decide how to play the character,
Any such thing is inherently setting specific, because what the races think of each other, and how they behave, are setting specific. There's no in-species concept of universal beauty, much less a cross-species one, so that's another reason that the old Comeliness rule was not useful.
I think it should be a passive, and whenever you meet someone, they roll to see if they find you attractive or friendly or whatever, it would add to the immersiveness without making the person ask to roll 'comeliness' every time they meet someone.
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That's just bringing back the 2nd Edition reaction roll. I don't think that adds much of value to the game.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Personally, I agree with Lyran. It doesn't really add much of value.
You can be attractive, yet socially inept and utterly ineloquent. That isn't to say that being charming doesn't have any effect on one's perceived attractiveness, because it certainly does, but Charisma is more 'force of personality' than it is a physical determiner.
I would just roll that into Charisma wholesale and call for performance if a player wishes to exaggerate one of those things or pay specific attention to them in the hopes of achieving some kind of desired effect.
At the end of the day, though, I guess it's really just up to whatever a hypothetical group would vibe with if that's really the kind of thing they'd want. Overall, I'd say it's far too niche and adds more rolling and stat crunching where it's unlikely to be beneficial, as more rolling in general often isn't good for anyone.
I remember when Comeliness was a thing. As a stat, it was kind of pointless. I mean I get it, you can have person who's ugly as sin be charismatic as a god, and vise vs you can have a looker with a bad personality. But... Those can be done in RP, with out the need for stats. Stats are about game mechanics. So your idea of a skill called Comeliness, it's not the worst thing I've heard of from homebrew ideas, but mechanically what is it going to do that isn't covered by Persuasion and Intimidation? The Flynn Rider's of the world who stand up with a hairflip and smolder look in their eyes, can achieve everything they want with the current skills. And frankly as a DM if a player Roleplayed that properly, I would give them advantage on the roll.
by the end of AD&D there was hundreds. thanks to rules that allows many monsters to be player characters.