The topic of Charisma in games like Dungeons & Dragons, as well as Pathfinder, is an interesting one to me. It is defined as a character's personality and social intelligence, or it can be defined as your good looks (and occasional case of winning the heart of a dragon Girlfriend).

Though when it comes to me being a Game master and running my game, i always prefer the former definition and application of the attribute, simply on the sole purpose of irony and colorful roleplay moments in my games.. A few days ago, I had a player who's character in my game is a (by party standards) physically beautiful wolf-orc, but had shit charisma and inteligence.

the example came when the City guard talked about how a gnoll character had a bad taste in civilized lands. the wolf orc took got confused and asked if cities had tastes. the guard sarcastically said that the city the party is going into tastes like blueberries. and the wolf orc went down and tasted the ground. she was disappointed, and i laughed. funniest shit i have seen in recent sessions.

I have seen charisma as something that only affects a person mentally. as the skills applied by charisma are geared towards social situations. The idea of treating Charisma as a social and personality thing sparks some pretty interesting and ironically funny ideas. like an elf being pretty but having shit charisma scores. or an ugly Hobgoblin who has the charisma of a pop-star.

its another reason why i enjoy playing ttrpg and why i am reminded on how fluent they are.