 February 2, 2014 - 7:05am | http://www.examiner.com/article/jon-peterson-ama-the-40th-anniversary-of-d-d-and-the-sex-stat?goback=.gde_4439688_member_5832839... It seems that proto D&D had a sex stat that could be crucial to survival but was collapsed into charisma but latter expanded to comliness. The PER stat of SF, likely bears its lineage from this "sex" stat. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 2, 2014 - 9:42am | I can see that... "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
February 2, 2014 - 9:45am | I can see that "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 February 2, 2014 - 12:00pm | Yes, sex-appeal and sexual performance are important stats in any heroic fantasy (e.g. Conan and James Bond), and in the end, condensing appearance, leadership potential and sex-appeal into a single stat would prove to be more economical. Unfortunately small-minded folks reduced this "Charisma" attribute into a "dump stat." Low Charisma scores are for jerk and buffoon characters, not heroic characters!  |
February 2, 2014 - 1:01pm | Yes, sex-appeal and sexual performance are important stats in any heroic fantasy (e.g. Conan and James Bond), and in the end, condensing appearance, leadership potential and sex-appeal into a single stat would prove to be more economical. Unfortunately small-minded folks reduced this "Charisma" attribute into a "dump stat." Low Charisma scores are for jerk and buffoon characters, not heroic characters!
The fail happens on three levels. 1.) The player as you illustrated. 2.)The the game master that fails to create opportunities where charisma is crucial or fails to enforce concequences for stat domping 3.)The game designer that failled to codify how and where charisma was useful and even critical. This above fails can be compounded when players and GMs have a philosophy of role playing everything - minimizing dice rolls and players must describe what and how they are doing something.I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 3, 2014 - 5:56pm | Palladium Books had that same stat and called in PB for Physical Beauty which was really only a stat for sex appeal. Charm, chrisma and leadership were stated with MA or Mental Affinity. These stats could make a real beauty (PB:24) a really intolerable person to be around (MA:4) Sometimes to really fill a character out more stats are needed, but sometimes I think Palladium went over board on this. Of course Dream Pod 9 did something similar with Heavy Gear and Jovian Chronicles having an Appearance stat and one for Influence. As did R. Talsorian with Mekton Zeta. In every age, in every place, the deeds of men remain the same. |
February 3, 2014 - 6:36pm | It is a fine line with stats (& skills), to many or not enough can hinder a game. I always go for a combo of descriptive role playing plus those dice rolls... let's face it we have all met people who think they are hot and sexy (& may not be) and so act their idea of the stereo type... while everyone else in the room is trying to escape their clutches... (CHR or PER fail check in RL). Then there is a point where things get to detailed (I played one game where no one could remember half the crap their PC's could do, simply too much detail to be practical in play as everyone had a small book per character). I think it really depends on the ref and how they direct or lead the use of the stats. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
February 3, 2014 - 9:08pm | James Bond RPG had a rule mechanic for seduction. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 February 4, 2014 - 2:37am | LOL - I ran the James Bond game, and I remember that! |
February 4, 2014 - 1:02pm | A James Bond game without a rule mechanic for seduction is like a Call of Cthulhu game without insanity rules, or a Cyberpunk 2020 game without pages and pages of catalogs for common items illustrated in the style of Patrick Nagel. |
 February 4, 2014 - 1:55pm | Spycraft has a seduction dramatic conflict minigame and a feat chain for being drop dead gorgeous. Fantasy Craft inherited the feats and added an appearance score. This above fails can be compounded when players and GMs have a philosophy of role playing everything - minimizing dice rolls and players must describe what and how they are doing something. Out of interest, how do you handle this? The OSR generally makes it out to sound like non-OSR people are sitting around a table going "I bribe the guard. Ok, roll bluff." I usually require them to at least play it out and then I adjust the roll on the basis of the ideas presented. If someone has an awesome idea or otherwise is really impressive in a surprising way, I may scrub the roll and let them just win. Admittedly, I'd never require a person making a strength check to actually lift a weight. I don't tend to use a lot of puzzles bare. I find that mine are either trivially easy or impossible and I'm terrible at telling which is which for others. I'll let them roll various skills and when I see frustration starting to appear, I'll just let them roll to figure it out and move on. |
February 4, 2014 - 6:21pm | In general my heart is with OSR crowd, philosophically. However, I'm open to "roll bluff". Lets face it, some RPGs are about playing a larger than life hero and a player may not feel up to acting out everything thus the "roll" playing dice resort but certainly role playing is likely to be more fun. And some things, like seduction, I'm just not going to role play with a group of guys around the kitchen table (thats just too creepy for me) and for that I very much like a mechanic like in James Bond. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
