Shadowrun: Modern

[Apos]

@Thenomain I'm still going to hold that having any character statistic that can be interpreted in wildly different subjective ways based on the player is just bad design. Appearance is just a dumb stat.

[Thenomain]

@Apos said in Shadowrun: Modern:

@Thenomain I'm still going to hold that having any character statistic that can be interpreted in wildly different subjective ways based on the player is just bad design. Appearance is just a dumb stat.

Agreed. It made some sense back in the Cyberpunk era, where the ideology was "style over substance" and we didn't think about it too much, but in our more modern age of social acceptance I'm glad to see it almost entirely stricken from what few games used it. We are better off without it.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Thenomain ok buddy

@Apos said in Shadowrun: Modern:

@Thenomain I'm still going to hold that having any character statistic that can be interpreted in wildly different subjective ways based on the player is just bad design. Appearance is just a dumb stat.

It's a mega bad stat. Oh my god. Every_rper says in OOC: "Teehee/heh SL2/appearance 6...."

[Arkandel]

@Kanye-Qwest said in Shadowrun: Modern:

It's a mega bad stat. Oh my god. Every_rper says in OOC: "Teehee/heh SL2/appearance 6...."

What about players who're too cheap to actually buy the stat although they clearly want it, so they end up making a wiki with super attractive supermodel pictures, write descriptions about how scorching hot their every inch is, and yet they don't have the merits because dammit, brawl 4?

[Jennkryst]

@Arkandel said in Shadowrun: Modern:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Shadowrun: Modern:

It's a mega bad stat. Oh my god. Every_rper says in OOC: "Teehee/heh SL2/appearance 6...."

What about players who're too cheap to actually buy the stat although they clearly want it, so they end up making a wiki with super attractive supermodel pictures, write descriptions about how scorching hot their every inch is, and yet they don't have the merits because dammit, brawl 4?

You bitchslap them and run train on them with NPCs until they spend the karma on appropriate social stuff. And then you take this argument back over to the social combat thread where it belongs.

[tragedyjones]

There is indeed some correlation in Shadowrun between raw appearance and Charisma (the attribute). There should not be a correlation between body type and Charisma. However, certain metatypes (read, trogs) are generally considered less attractive, in more recent editions they also point out that orks and trolls tend to possess a lower degree of emotional intelligence.

Also a fat elf should be a legit thing, though i imagine less common than other metatypes.

[Misadventure]

Some measure of attractiveness makes decent sense if you have any interest in modeling reality. When considered more attractive all sorts of things happen for you, plenty of which are positive. Some attractiveness is considered fairly universal for humans, symmetry and strong fertility markers. Others are very subjective. Some are literally just how you look, much of attractiveness is everything else you do.

CHARISMA (CHA)
Charisma is your force of personality, the persuasive- ness and charm you can call on to get people to do what you want without having to go to the trouble of pulling a gun on them. It’s not entirely about your appearance, but it’s also not entirely not about your appearance. What it’s mostly about is how you use what you have—your voice, your face, your words, and all the tools at your disposal—to charm and/or intimidate the people you encounter. Additionally, Charisma is an important attribute for shamanic mages, as it helps them resist the damaging Drain from spells they cast.

Shadowrun 5E Page 51

Elves have a starting Charisma of 3 according to the table of page 66. There could be a way to lower that with a flaw, I didn't look.

Weight or body fat isn't mentioned here, so I would assume that an elf that didn't fit the Tolkien or D&Dian or Pini standards of appearance would still be most likely to be seen as physically attractive, meaning they look within some boundaries of general societal taste.

I believe the disconnect is Theno asked can an elf not be slender, and Lithium says that elves get a charisma bonus so they would not end to be unattractive due to weight and how they carry and present it. Who won? Who lost? Who's next? You decide!

Of course perhaps I just fat shamed everyone I know by saying any of this.

PS Appearance or Attractiveness better fits an Advantage, that modifies other resolutions, except in designs where randomly determining things is considered valuable. For short hand, many such games just leave it as a stat because everyone has an appearance. It should then just be a randomly determined modifier, but that frightens D20 players apparently.

[Apos]

@tragedyjones You can't escape it though whenever you tie something subjective like, 'they have an attractive appearance' to a stat. There's objective physical characteristics, but whether those are considered attractive is subjective, which is why Theno was able to call Lithium a dirty fatshaming horrible person by implication, even if he acted obtuse about doing it. So like, if a player has a skin condition or Proteus syndrome at the tabletop and is really sensitive about it, I also wouldn't want to be the asshole to say that orcs are considered hella ugly because of their skin and how their bone structure differs from commonly held societal standards of beauty. I mean sure it's true and we all know it's true but why even get into it?

[Misadventure]

@Apos Perhaps talk to your players about what they want to get into.

I agree with the general idea that if the fiction is about something, then by all means include it in some fashion.

Some people don't like racism in their games either.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Arkandel said in Shadowrun: Modern:

@Kanye-Qwest said in Shadowrun: Modern:

It's a mega bad stat. Oh my god. Every_rper says in OOC: "Teehee/heh SL2/appearance 6...."

What about players who're too cheap to actually buy the stat although they clearly want it, so they end up making a wiki with super attractive supermodel pictures, write descriptions about how scorching hot their every inch is, and yet they don't have the merits because dammit, brawl 4?

Do people even read descriptions? I think this is about as meaningless, the only downside is that players like this are who make the others go TEEHEE SL2 APPEARANCE 6 SO..... like it's going to make them appealing even if they rp like a boring boiled potato..

[tragedyjones]

You don't need a desc you just whack off to the picture on their wiki during the TS. This is basic shit!

[ShelBeast]

@Arkandel To be fair, I kind of am guilty of this right now. I'm playing a physical based Mekhet character with a Presence of 1. But he's a good looking guy. Super good looking.

I try to offset that by making him just detached and cold, and generally socially awkward. Kind of creepy, or always vaguely threatening. That kind of thing. So... the dude is pretty to look at! Until you see him in person and he's just this cold, dead eyed thing that looks completely awkward when he smiles because it looks so fake and unreal that it has an uncanny valley effect. But damn is he pretty.

[Kanye Qwest]

lawl

[ShelBeast]

@tragedyjones Better yet, go look up nude pics of the PB. That's what google is for!

[WildBaboons]

@ShelBeast a quality wiki includes the links with the NSFW warning

[Thenomain]

@WildBaboons said in Shadowrun: Modern:

@ShelBeast a quality wiki includes the links with the NSFW warning

Links, hell, the actual images. Then complain when staff asks you to take them down that they're behind an NSFW link.