[Basic] Advantage Of the Week: Appearance Levels

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by fmultimedia

You're not being a jerk, you're illustrating flawlessly what I've been trying to say: if the cap for normal beauty for the gender you're not attracted to is +2 with normal looks, no way being androgynous (however that's implemented/fleshed out) will get you beyond that.

What you seem to be not factoring in about the cap:

The +2 cap is the cap on the amount of bonus an Appearance can produce against heterosexual members of the same sex and gay members of the opposite sex while having features that provide a +4 or greater bonus against heterosexual members of the opposite sex and gay members of the same sex. That is, you can't have some Godlike Handsome that provides +3/+4 or Godlike Very Handsome +4/+6 (though maybe gods should be able to). You have to give up the bigger +4 or +6 in order to get past the +2 cap, because they represent the 'sexy appearance' features as being incompatible with 'general appearance' past a certain level (whether Impressive or Androgynous).

[Flyndaran]

I understand the math as well as that it would fit many settings.
But androgynous isn't realistic as it allows an impossible greater than hetero bonus for those not attractive to heteros, for example.
No realistic advantage or feature will override my heterosexuality. If they aren't obviously female, then they cannot get greater bonuses than any male.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No realistic advantage or feature will override my heterosexuality. If they aren't obviously female, then they cannot get greater bonuses than any male.

So you would rather remove the Impressive variant too?

[smurf]

Jealous people will treat the bonus as negative.

VBeautiful (androgynous) +4/+4
Voice +2
Charisma +1

A big +7 modifier

Shape it up or down with Over confidence.

Talents can help.

Reputation too.

So you can have some really funny modifiers.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Toptomcat

The 'Hollywood Homely' quirk from this is tailor-made for that.

I have to thank one of my IRC players for that Quirk. Nice to see people that are not-me using that doc. :)

[Not another shrubbery]

Originally Posted by fmultimedia

You're not being a jerk, you're illustrating flawlessly what I've been trying to say: if the cap for normal beauty for the gender you're not attracted to is +2 with normal looks, no way being androgynous (however that's implemented/fleshed out) will get you beyond that.

... I thought I had been saying that, but it was in another thread :/ But yeah, that's my preferred assumption for gaming appearance.

[fmultimedia]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

I understand the math as well as that it would fit many settings.
But androgynous isn't realistic as it allows an impossible greater than hetero bonus for those not attractive to heteros, for example.
No realistic advantage or feature will override my heterosexuality. If they aren't obviously female, then they cannot get greater bonuses than any male.

Couldn't agree more. I think Impressive works based on a different basis - not at all based on "(sexually) attractive features", but rather on looks that your society learned to regard well independently of the gender.

IMHO if you really must surpass the +2 bonus for people not attracted to your gender, I would sooner consider allowing a combination of normal good looks and Impressive. Something like Attractive (+2/+4) and Attractive [Impressive] (+1/+1), for a net +3/+5 (and 16 CP) ... although I still don't find that 100% realistic, I find it far more acceptable. Also, not sure this approach doesn't create loopholes, haven't sat down and analysed deeply, it might totally break the system for some combinations of levels.

Just so we are really clear here, we are talking mainly on world perception here. While Physics and Chmistry maybe somewhat easy to prove to be better or worse modelled this or that way, when it comes to people's perceptions, fancies and culture, it is definately much more of a grey line. I strongly believe that women can NEVER get bonus bigger than +2 on me based solely on looks (and I've been around some stunning women, believe me, they seem to flock on gay guys =p), while Flyndaran states what my intuition is for straight guys, that no man can trigger a higher than +2 bonus on him based solely on looks. Any "gender confusion" will dispell previous bonuses as soon as the confusion is cleared, at least as a rule of thumb (I have assumed tomboyish girls where incredibly attractive while I thought they were boys, just to be sorely disappointed and not attracted at all on the 3rd look! Similar story to Flyndaran's, without the "disgusted" bit =D)

You (and a lot of people) might perceive the world differently, and that's fine. It seems that for you, it's much more a matter of granularity and fairness of the rule-system than how it actually models the world - correct me if I'm wrong. Someone else (can't be bothered to look now) seems to strongly disagree that same gender attraction (for straight guys) should be capped at +2 ON PRINCIPLE, because that's how he perceives the world, and that's fine too. Maybe I'm just too damn gay to conceive that +3 bonus for women...

Final remark: although I think this hardly matters in 95% of the games/settings, true Androgeny - the fact that you can be easily perceived as both man and woman - is not covered in the system (I feel) and is 100% indepedent of good or bad looks. Courtney Act is Androgynous AND Very Handsome (AND has a great Desguise skill level!) - so when he drags, he becomes this stunningly attractive woman. Funny thing is (and that's 100% non-modellable by GURPS as far as I see) some drags are only good-looking in "one gender", even when they are really skilled at dragging (e.g. someone is a very good looking male who drags into a plain looking woman - it's really hard to tell he's not a woman, but still, he's only plain as a woman, or even ugly!). Anyway, getting way to getto-y here, pardon me =D

[johndallman]

A related question: Where in creating a character does deciding on their appearance come for you?

Obviously it depends on character concept to some extent, but appearance doesn't tend to be a primary part of concept for me: how a character's mind works and what they do - the inside of their head, where I ride - tends to be what I think of first.

I have the general impression that some people create characters inspired by pictures, but that seems weird to me: pictures show me very little of personality.

[Otaku]

For me, unless it is a part of the character concept, it usually comes at that point where I sit down and run through the List of Advantages in the Basic Set, which itself happens whenever I am done covering what I think "should" be part of the character but want to avoid some easy oversights. Going through the list helps me notice things like "Oh, of course this character should have [insert Advantage]!" or "Oh, if I can free up the points, that would be handy!".

I used to do only this when I came in "under" point budget, but I eventually started doing it for every character because... I forget important things so easily, often leading to "I wonder why I never did that before... oh right, no way I can make that work on this budget." moments.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by johndallman

A related question: Where in creating a character does deciding on their appearance come for you?

Obviously it depends on character concept to some extent, but appearance doesn't tend to be a primary part of concept for me: how a character's mind works and what they do - the inside of their head, where I ride - tends to be what I think of first.

I have the general impression that some people create characters inspired by pictures, but that seems weird to me: pictures show me very little of personality.

Pictures can be inspiration, but generally I'm looking for them after the concept is ready. And concept includes Appearance level and usually description. Which makes finding the right picture for the character actually difficult. Making composites and/or character portraits in EvE and/or Inauguration Station doesn't seem to be something I can do at a level sufficient for getting what I want.