Charisma – What is it Good For?

By Charisma Keller and Dixon Trimline

Charisma:

To quote a Dixon Trimline article I love very much (the article, not Dixon Trimline… okay, fine, also Dixon Trimline): “The power gamer is earnest in his approach to the game, in the same way that an evangelical is earnest about saving souls.”

Hand that player a Shadowrun character sheet and they’ll eyeball Charisma and ask, “What does this do for me? If it won’t help me geek the guards, it’s hello dump stat.” And it’s not only power gamers. Plenty of players don’t want a number on a sheet telling them how they’re allowed to roleplay.

So really, what good is it? I’ve got plenty of roleplaying chops. I don’t need a high Charisma to sweet-talk a Johnson or bluff my way past corp security. Besides, who’s going to judge whether I’m playing true to my score? And on what scale, a number from 1 to 6? I don’t think so. Every player at the table has a different comfort level with talking in character. Who gets to say my runner wouldn’t act that way?

And don’t get me started on filters. “Hey GM, ignore everything I say until the rest of the team can clean it up. I’m the face and my Charisma is huge, but we all know I’m a social stink bug, so the decker’s going to talk for me.” Nope. If you want to play the face, then play the face. Don’t hide behind your dice pool and your teammates.

The way I see it, dice are for everything we can’t do at the table, because we’re sitting at a table. Yes, I can do the splits, and I can do a back flip, but I’m not going to do either one at the table to prove my adept’s wall-run should succeed (well, not again, anyway). That’s what the dice are for. Talking is something I can do at the table, and I don’t need dice or stats for that.

Now, Mr. Dixon Trimline, what say you?

Dixon:

Yeow, what a great idea for an article! I love your point about the double standard between physical skills and social skills, where a player doesn’t have to demonstrate his acrobatic skills to verify he deserves a maxed-out Dexterity.

Believe it or not, the difficult roleplaying decisions you have to make in a game don’t actually impact your real life in any way. If you’re willing to believe this, why not start stretching your roleplaying muscles, step outside your comfort zone, and act up like a big old salty ham? Sure, we can all agree that you, personally, don’t wield anything close to a top-tier Charisma, but inside the game, your raging insecurities, awkward phrasing, and machinegun stammering all translate into one articulate, sexy, and irresistible bag of pure hotness.

This really is a great opportunity for you to act like the person you’ve always wanted to be, and it’s a situation that can only be bolstered by your character’s ability score when it comes to actually rolling the silly dice. I feel like all the successful and multi-dimensional games have to include some amount of social interaction, and hopefully it’s quite a lot of it. Games that are wall-to-wall combat can be thrilling, but ultimately a little flat.

What’s the point of slaying the dragon if you don’t get to ride back to town to comfort all those terrified townspeople?

Sitting at the table, you may wind up sounding like this: “Um, hey, um, guys… um. I was going… it’s like this… there was this dragon… hey, you know that dragon? It’s like, totally dead.” But in-game, your character with her top-tier Charisma gets to sound like this: “Good people of Verbobonc, hear my voice! Your dark days are at an end. The dragon, the scourge of life and light, is no more! Rejoice!”

Charisma:

Sigh. All right, all right. You make a good point. When you put it that way, I have to concede. Thanks for being the pro to my con!

And bonus points for Verbobonc. Swap the dragon slayer for a runner and the townsfolk for a room full of nervous wageslaves, and that’s every face I’ve ever played.

Dixon:

Thanks for the opportunity to play along, Charisma! And I love the name 🙂