Monday, January 30, 2012

Some Thinks About BRP

I like the fact that BRP has an APPearance stat rather than a nebulous CHArisma one. I think it more accurately models something people react to the first time they see someone: their physical prettiness or ugliness. It is a stat that is helpful when it comes to roleplaying where Charisma isn't. It is a stat that give lots of traction to a player trying to bring the character to life.

Recent rewrites of BRP derived games have replaced APP with CHA. The latest version of BRP derives CHA from APP directly. I think both of these are wrong and miss a rather neat point.

Charisma in real life often works at odds with a persons appearance, but we don't ignore that appearance when we interact with an ugly or deformed charismatic individual. A pretty charismatic is more appealing than a homely one.

My thinking about this was long and twisty but finally zeroed in on three BRP characteristics: APPearance, INTeligence and POWer (defined as a person's "inner reserves", Chi, what-have-you). My thinking is that charisma could be expressed in terms of a combination of these stats, derived from them. Let's talk cases.

Bill Clinton: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, good looking (so I'm told), very centered but poor impulse control - lets say moderate inner power.

Alistair Crowley: Highly charismatic, highly intelligent, very average looks, high inner power (we might suppose).

Hitler: Highly charismatic, distinctly average intelligence, good-looking by the standards of his day, very driven (high power).

Now admittedly the sketches above are highly subjective but they are based on other people's assessments I've noted over the years (but cannot cite of course).

Anyway: I was thinking that perhaps charisma might be arrived at by averaging the APP, INT and POW characteristics, which allows for people who are ugly (in some way) and yet still fascinating.

Lets take a case:

STR 9, INT 13, SIZ 12, APP 5, POW 15, DEX 8, EDU 13. This is a character of average strength, above average intelligence, big, distinctly homely, possessed of high inner/psychic resources, a tad clumsy on occasions and educated to around A-Level (associates Degree) level.

The BRP charisma stat for this character would be 25%, for too low in my opinion given that outstanding POW. Lets average out APP, INT and POW rounding down, giving 11 which converts to 55% in the BRP scheme, which multiplies by 5.

Conan: POW ~ 10, INT ~ 9, APP ~ 18 - Charisma from BRP: 90% Charisma from my figures: 60% (His attraction is all about his looks).

James T. Kirk: POW ~ 16, INT ~ 16, APP ~ 18 (can't argue with the man himself) BRP Cha: 90% My value 80%

So. Hmm. Not a finished system perhaps, but definitely better than "APP times 5".

Why do I care? I play mostly Call of Cthulhu, which is played using a stripped-down BRP. In that game it seems to me that first impressions are highly important, it being at heart a detective game. I need a way to express "The guy has terrible wounds, obviously a result of some WWI injury, but you can't help but feel a strong fascination for him" and "This woman is drop-dead gorgeous but there is something repellent about her".

Something else occurs to me: Charisma is used to modify NPC reactions to PCs in negotiations and interractions. Call of Cthulhu (and by extension BRP) models this mechanism by the skills "Persuade" and "Fast Talk".

All this suggests to me that BRP doesn't need a Charisma stat as much as other systems do, and providing one can be done without throwing out the existing stats in the interests of political correctness.

Azathoth forbid anyone should admit there are ugly people out there.