Charisma, the way it should have been

[Tony the Wookie]

again. if you were to use a default head model with perfect proportions.. then any change made to it would make it less perfect... (but more interesting/varied)

so by restricting how much you can change the perfect proportions you would be alot more likely to come up with a face that most people would consider good looking.

and by allowing you to make big changes to the face and prohibiting you from using values close to the default ones would force you to create a face that is not close to perfect proportions.

 

makes sense to me.

 

a 'beauty percentage' could even be calculated from that if you want to make it even more complicated.

 

this is based on science and not something i'm making up.

 

personally i don't think the game really needs it to be enjoyable.

 

but it could theoretically be done this way, and i'd like that alot more than making it depend on your charisma which describes character and not looks.

 

I get what you are talking about, and I have done plenty of reading on the science behind what we preceive as beauty, such as the theory of the "mask" or whatever they call it.

 

I am, however, quite skeptical on how those studies could be practically applied inside of a videogame. From my expereince from drawing and modeling the human face, following those specific guidlines usually ends up with a boring, rather than beautiful peice of art. What works in the real world doesn't always transfer over completly to the things we create. But even if they were to work 100% of the time, I honestly wouldn't want to use a mod that forced me to customize my characters facial features withing certain limits or forced me to use more points than I wanted.

 

I personally would perfer a system that would let me customize my characters face to the way I see fit, and then depending on how many points I dedicate to my characters looks, the character could have very blemished and unhealthy looking skin, or have airbrushed super model skin. And the more points you add the more bright and vibrant eye choices become available. And when you get to a certain level you are given more hair choices to choose from and the like.

[PsyckoSama]

Actually, the 'Intelligence the way it should have been' would be quite easy to make. The dialogue, at least. Just add conditions that check the player's intelligence. I think in Fallout 1/2 3 or less made you a moron, so there's something to go by.

 

Me Uug. Me Chosen One. Me find GECK!

[MoreDread292]

hey i like the skin and hair bit, too...

 

but assigning things to attributes that have nothing to do with them completely destroys RPGs for me..

 

if you were to add a new attribute for looks.. i'd be fine with it.

but doing it with charisma it would feel very very stupid to me and i wouldn't use it ;)

 

but enough.. i don't wanna argue anymore hehe

 

i'll just admit that my idea is probably not the most practical thing.

 

i have just never seen a game, or RPG system that 'recognizes' beauty in any way.

 

beeing an artist myself i understand your scepticism about the science, beauty is in the eye of the beholder after all.

 

but if you do look at the stars and compare the proportions of their faces...

they tend to be very similar.

yes thats boring to an artist who tries to put some life and character into his work (usually by NOT making things perfect)

but in my mind it still makes sense.. because well.. superficiality IS boring ;)

[spammster]

well a few random ideas for the good,bad,ugly :D

 

option 1: you don't get to pic your character at all (you may choose your sex but thats it) after all, we don't choose when we're born what we look like and just go with a random shot.

 

and that results in you either being considered good looking, ugly or normal.

 

for an somewhat acceptable amount of scriptwork, one could make the only check criteria the facial symmetry and depending on how much that differs assign the perk (this most likely will not result in an accurate assumption but it should be good enough for picking a perk)

 

option 2: just let the player decide (in that case it wouldn't matter how the character looks, could be pretty and still pick the ugly perk)

 

reward for being pretty: speech challanges are 1 level easier (ignoring very easy and removing very hard), you gain 10 points for barter and get a "good lookin perk" for free, but you loose 2 Intelligence cause people assume you're not a smart one

 

reward for being ugly: you gain +2 Intelligence (cause nobody wanted to play with you and you read a lot of books in the vault ;) ) downside: speech challenges are 1 level raised (ignoring very hard and removing very easy from the game) your max. barter skill can be 75 and you can't pick the "good lookin perks" (lady killer etc.)

 

one could even go further and add a gender component,

female players get a plus 1 to charisma and 10 points in speech

male players get plus 1 in strength and 10 points for small guns

 

intelligence: below <3 speech challenges get set to very hard if you talk to a scientist, but you get +25 in unarmed and melee (cause you do know how to club things :D ) and for a real hard combo speech skill gets limited to 75 (so there will be challenges you can't win unless you're pretty ;) )