I think knowing someone's cha provides a lot of help for me when RPing with them.  If they tell me to do something, how should I react?  Everyone more or less poses themselves as convincing, good looking, blah blah blah, but most people have an average charisma score.  If a charisma 14 character asks my character to do something (assuming I don't have a willpower 14) I'm probably going to do it.  That can and should be left up to the player, and I'd rather be able to read someone's charisma and react to it how I'd like, as I'm sure would most people.  I don't want to have to pose someone who's treating my character as an uncharismatic little bitch "Umm my charisma is 6 dude."  That's just going to make them annoyed, they'll accuse me of "rollplaying" and trying to "use OOC justifications to force my character to do something."  They might ignore my CHA in +scan, but at least I have it out there for them to consider before they decide how to RP with me.  If they don't want to, that's fine since I  haven't made any rolls, I can't forcibly influence any of their actions.

The reason posted by Absinthe is not a reason for +scan to be removed or have no charisma listed.  It is, perhaps, a reason to have some sort of explanation of what the +scan command is and isn't for in the +help on it.  The example given is a rare occurrence, clearly against every rule of IC justifications for pkill; if it had happened, the scene would have been retconned by any competent staff.  Bad RPers who don't understand what charisma means should not be allowed to dictate whether good RPers have access to a non-invasive assessment of another's personality.

I don't remember exactly how we had it rigged in old Seattle, but my plan was thus:

====================< +scan: Foyer -- Matchsticks Night Club -- Downtown >======================
_______Name______ _Sex_ ?_Race_ _Ht._ _Wt._ _______Hair_______ _______Misc_______ _Lifestyle_
Big Joe? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ??  ?? ?? ? M?? ?? ?? ? T??? ??3.3?? ? ?350? ? Brown, matted? ? ?  ? Facial tattoos? ? ? ? ??  ? ?? Low
Slim Shady? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ?? M? ? ? ? ? ?E? ? ? 2.0? ? ? 82?? ?? Platinum, long? ? ? ? ? ?Chromed? ? ? ?  ?? ? ? ? ? ? Middle
Hawt-T? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? F? ? ? ? ? ? H? ? ? 1.8? ? ? 65? ? ? Blonde, mohawk? ?? ? ?Glam makeup? ? ? ??  ? ? Middle
======================================================================================

Each field (sex, race, and so forth) would be pulling data from the character's real characteristics (@sex, &race, etc.)
unless "apparent"-based attributes were present.? For instance, &RACE_APPARENT could be introduced if the person
had one of the "poser" Qualities or had a GM-assisted disguise running.

&HAIR and &MISC (or whatever) can probably exist as player-editable fields for those people who like to play dress-up.
No need for a separate *_APPARENT attribute on those.

Side note: Again, my memory is fuzzy on this, but I do remember at least starting work on an astral version of +scan.? It
would show only the obvious stuff as well, and could incorporate the "disguise" functionality for those initiates out there.

Personaly I like Mark's example. I dont generally like having a mode of dress in +scan cause well. Yeah I personally at least (And I know alot of others) often forget to update it. But at the same time it is handy when yoru just walking into a room. If I want to see more I use the look command.

Best example I can bring up where something like that is handy is my char Jurgen. I mean he's got horrific scarring that you'd have to be blind not to notice unless he's got it well covered up. And even that would look odd in itself as it's his entire neck and lower jaw (and then some below the neckline) that has horrible burn scars from a run gone horribly wrong (for him at least)

A +scan like Mark has put up as an example would let folk know that without me allways having to constantly remind people in poses that yes. My character is horribly disfigured enough to give small children nightmares no matter what his other qualities may be. I'm somewhat neutral as to having Charisma in there. Its the kinda thing I may or may not pay attention to. Frankly if you seem to be doing your best to piss me off I'm not going to react favourably to you no matter WHAT you do at least at that point. I may forget and forgive later on. But for that scene forget it. And Charisma is the kinda thing that can work both ways. Yes it can inspire trust and friendship. Help you weasel a few more yen outta some guy.

But on the flipside of the coin it can make your mean actions come across that more demeaning. Intimidation is linked to Charisma for a good reason. I mean it's just like that stereotypical girl in highschool who has millions of friends. There's still the odd person who's going to hate her guts.

So far as charisma stats go I'd probably have to agree with Tear on that one. Since I appear to tend to treat it about the same way she does at least when it comes to PC vs PC interaction. That's for general RP mind. When it comes down to the nitty gritty thigns like negociation. Seductiona nd hwo well their doing it. if they want to roll for it. Sure. Otherwise I'll just RP it out as I see fit from my end of things. I generally prefer the latter but some times yeah. A players posing ability just doesnt match what their PC is capable of skill wise. And if you go round and say the wrong kinda thing then yeah consider it a major negative modifier for anything from then on.

I mean gunplay is abit more straight forward. You shoot the other guy dodges basically. Charisma based stuff gets alot more complex in my mind because honestly. Social intereaction is never as easy as it seems especially when your dealing with new people. A high 'charsima' can help you out there sure. But it doesnt necessarily mean thing will go your way. And some times everything can be going your way till you for what ever reason say the wrong thing even if you dont realize it.

As anything goes, I can't get you to do anything until I roll.

The fact that some people don't want that to be true just cause its 'social' skills, is pretty aberrant to me.  I have GMed for a very very very long time, and I always remind my players that there are a few skills worth everyone getting.  1)  Etiquette.  2)  Stealth.  If you have both of those, even minorly, you are better off than without. 

In SR4 things have changed.  A person with a charisma of 6 and no skills means they roll 4 dice.  A willpower 6 person gets all 6 of those dice to resist.  You are unlikely to fail in that situation as the willpower person and if the person's been rude to you ALL night they may even remove those 4 dice from modifiers to be zero.  In fact, let's try and figure this out.

The person, described by Runefire32, has berated the character Runefire’s decided to play all night.  And Rune’s been kind enough not to just swap the little girl upside the head and say, “You die now.”  Instead, Rune’s been cool about it, laying low, not wanting to make a scene.  And because of it is proving that Rune’s character has a Willpower of 4+, likely 5 or 6.  We’ll go with 6 cause we’re making a person whose very stubborn.

We have two characters:  Little Girl, with Charisma 6 and every social skill at 4.  And Runefire32, Willpower 6, just cause Runefire32 knew of this post and realized that to be a stubborn person ICly they need the stats to back it up.  Just like any other stat or skill in the game. But, took no levels of social skills at all (even though its cheaper for similar benefits).  For all modifiers see page 122 for listings.

Little Girl has been pissing Runefire32 off all night.  Now, Little Girl realizes she has no money and wants to get the only person nearby to pay for it as she’s leaving.  So she spends the last few minutes doing one of 3 things.

Situation #1:  Little Girl just roleplays, hoping that Runefire32 looks at her Charisma 6 and will want to TS later or something, so will give up the nuyen now.   Runefire32 ignores the +scan in light of the fact that Little Girl is PISSING the character off and says, “Hey, there’s some orks over that way who’ll pay for your tab, you just have to dance for ‘em.”  And off Little Girl goes to her only hope, and gets killed by Ork Gangers.

Situation #2:  Little Girl wants to rely on sympathy, so makes up some bullshit story about why her day’s been going all wrong, cause she’s an orphan and just turned 18 and so she got kicked out onto the street and blahblahblah.
Little Girl rolls 10 dice base (Con 4 + Charisma 6).  Runefire32 is rated at hostile but not enemy at this point.  That’s a -3 dice pool.  The desired result is harmful to Runefire32 cause Rune had to pay for all the ammo in the character’s guns, thus not having much Nuyen.  That’s another -3 dice pool.  That’s -6 in total so far.  Than Little Girl has been posing drinking ALL night, so now, despite her ‘sober’ poses, she gets the intoxicated modifier, -1 more.  That’s -7.  Onto Con Mods.  The story is plausible, and seems real, especially from the way the character acts/looks.  So we’ll give +1 to Little Girl… -6 only now.  And Runefire32 has plenty of time to evaluate the situation, so another -1.  So Little Girl has 3 dice out of her uber social pool left.  And Runefire32 still has 6.  Statistically its impossible that Little Girl can even CONVINCE Runefire32 that her story was truthful.  And, even if she did, than Runefire32 could just be a cold bastard who doesn’t care about orphans, not enough to pay their bar tab, and sends Little Girl off to the Ork Gangers once more.

Situation #3:  Little Girl wants to soothe Runefire32’s agitation, to make it seem like it was incorrect flirtations or whatnot.  And so, we get to -7 as the base again, cause the first two predicaments are still true, but instead of moving to the Con Mods, we drop down to Etiquette.  Little Girl is obviously nervous, or agitated.  Afterall, she’s a poor girl in a bar and can’t pay the tab in Redmond.  So, -2 dice pool.  That’s -9.  She’s even worse off here.  Here however, Runefire32 gets to add on Perception to the character’s resistance roll.  We’ll say that Runefire32 wasn’t thinking in Chargen and didn’t buy Perception.  So, 1 die from UBER SOCIAL CHARACTER, versus Runefire32’s 6 dice!!!! My character NES, willpower 2, is still looking good against this Little Girl’s dice pool, let alone Runefire’s. 

The fear that social skills have some ability to alter your character from some simple whim is one that is a misnomer.  If your willpower is 1, and your perception is 0, and you have no social skills to help you out.  Than yes, you are a sniveling little twirp who can be taken advantage of in any situation.  Why? Cause you didn’t back your character’s personality up with stats.  And I’m sorry, you lose out in that situation.  In the reverse, however, you’d still have a fighting chance against a person like this Little Girl, who’s done nothing but piss you off all night.  An uber social character can do a lot, but the only situation that dictated you had to pay her tab, she only had 1 die to roll.  If she had been friendly to you all night, its unlikely she’d even have to roll, Runefire32 might just pay for the tab if asked ‘just cause’ but because she was hostile, there was a roll that was needed.  And guess what, poo on Little Girl, she sucks, she loses, and you don’t have to do anything you don’t wanna.   Just like, if I don’t wanna get shot in the head, I better invest in dodge skills.  If I don’t, than the next time someone comes up to shoot me, I better be in cover, behind a troll, inside a car, while running.  Cause if I don’t make sure that all my modifiers help me out, than I’m losing out to the system, and they can MAKE me die by simply tossing a lot of dice at me.  I get to decide how I describe it though.  Which can be a lot of fun too.

====================< +scan: Foyer -- Matchsticks Night Club -- Downtown >======================
_______Name______ _Sex_  _Race_ _Ht._ _Wt._ _______Hair_______ _______Misc_______ _Lifestyle____Charisma___
Big Joe                         M         T      3.3     350      Brown, matted            Facial tattoos          Low               2
Slim Shady                    M         E      2.0      82       Platinum, long             Chromed                Middle             4
Hawt-T                         F         H      1.8      65       Blonde, mohawk         Glam makeup          Middle             6
=============================================================================

Sorry Melkir, here's a sum up of my argument above... for those visually inclined.

====================< +scan: Foyer -- Matchsticks Night Club -- Downtown >======================
_______Name______ _Sex_  _Race_ _Ht._ _Wt._ _______Hair_______ _______Misc_______ _Lifestyle____Charisma___
Big Joe                         M         T      3.3     350      Brown, matted            Facial tattoos          Low               2
Slim Shady                    M         E      2.0      82       Platinum, long             Chromed                Middle             4
Hawt-T                         F         H      1.8      65       Blonde, mohawk         Glam makeup          Middle             6
=============================================================================

I have to agree with Runefire32. His example takes into account the new edges and flaws that can be purchased in chargen. In fairness to the rules of the game a person who takes Human Looking, Elf Poser, or Ork Poser should have to describe themselves accordingly. To show what thier race is regardless of edges and flaws in my view is a kind of cheating. Further one can argue about mages using magic, or the interesting PC who apps a post-op transsexual.

While Mark's example is great I am still against the inclusion of the charisma attribute. Why only show the charisma attribute? If there's to be attributes it should be all or none. Show strength for low strength = spindly hacker geek; high strength = super hyped up ubersam. Low logic = drooling idiot; high logic = rocket scientist.

Using Runefire32's example my current +scan should read:

Name           Apparent Gender       Apparent Race
Absinthe          Female                      Human
A goth kid.....

I think NES and everyone makes a lot of fair points, but no one's considered NPCs in the +scan conversation.

Walk into a RL bar in a shitty part of town. ?Walk to a table. Close your eyes. Out of the dozens (hundreds?) of people you walked by in the dim light, who did you notice? What did you learn about them? At this point, all you can do is judge a book by its cover, and that's way less info than +scan provides. ?My point here is that +scan only registers PC's and permanent 'fixture' NPCs (Like Hulk in the 'Shee). And I don't like it when code is used to separate the PCs from the NPCs because there's enough out of control RPing that ignores that there are NPCs in the IC world already. That's part of how you end up in 'rooms' the size of a city block and everyone happens to notice that I'm blue eyed or have Puma shoes on.

Gimme a break.

IMNHO, Dice rolling is for using against NPCs or for combat in pvp. If I know NS is going to be making me roll charisma instead of letting me rp my pc, I'll just make sure I NEVER play it cool. I'll just blow your effing brains out before you can +judge. Won't that be fun? It'll be a big race to see who can convince the Judge whether it should be a charisma+social skill roll or time to roll initiative. Wheee...I hope they decorate CG nicely.

But that's just me isn't it? Everyone has different rp styles and rationales for how they play and who they play with. And becuase it's a flexible game there are different equally viable solutions to different situations. But that's TT. This is a Mush, we have to find a compromise, and for me, extra code and forcing people to roll stuff is not a compromise. That's roll playing.

And what about disguise, or physical mask? I now have to +judge every time I want to use these for fun because +scan can't be changed on the go? Blah.

You're supposed to +judge for a GMNote for disguises anyway.

...

Defaulting is only a -1 penalty

...

How about we just let players +sheet each other at will?

...

Yes I'm joking.

Fixed.? ?

Using Runefire32's set up we could have 4 player controlled attributes.

1 The player object @name. There are currently rules about having to +judge to change your @name. I think @name should be nothing more than a means to identify a particular player object in a room. In my case it has nothing to do with who my PC is. It's just a nice word and even better liqour.

2 The short description. It's currently under player control, we can change/alter it as we wish.

3 The apparent gender: If this were a player controlled command that we could set it would take care of using magic, a transsexual PC (either willing or unwilling), virtual personas, etc.

4 The apparent race: Being player controlled also covers magic, virtuality, the edges and flaws.

Perhaps Mark will be kind enough to post an example of what such commands might look like?

The items under debate have never been available to PCs for change on the go.  You can always for fun still roll your +disguise, or dress up however you want (and if no one calls you on it, you never have to +roll).

My arguments about charisma hinge on the understanding that Charisma, unlike any other stat, is both unable to be described in your @desc entirely and is unable to be left for 'behind-the-scenes' like willpower/logic/intuition/magic can be.  Strength does not need a +scan because your @description can show ALL of it.  You can desc yourself as incredibly muscular, but without the strength to back it up you can't DO anything with that.  But, Charisma is DOING something all the time.  Its your presence, can be your looks, its your ability to walk into a room and not be noticed when you don't wanna be noticed, or to get a spotlight on you when you want to have one.  Of course, all mitigated by skills as well.  The book even describes people with high strength who are small people, and in clothing you'd never really notice are strong.  Take Bruce Lee for example.

A high Body can be described as a big person, but again with all the modifications available and body-sculpting that can happen... well, you don't have to be so big anymore even WITH a high body.  So again, you @describe your character a certain way and that's all the Body information someone gets from dealing with you until they do something to 'test' your body.

Willpower is useful only when resisting things.  You can RP your character cool as much as you like UNTIL the crap hits the fan, and than any GM can require you to +roll willpower and see if you run away scared.  So willpower 2 street samurai beware, GMs can as they see fit get you to roll whatever and whenever as the situation dictates (which they are in full control over).  So if you wanna be a person who acts cool, any willpower is possible, but if you wanna be someone who IS cool under pressure, you need a high willpower... as per rules and experience will show.

Intuition is even more withdrawn, a very perceptive person doesn't show these as anything.  You just roll it, no Roleplaying required, although you can pose "Erik looks around intensely."  Anyone can pose that, and it doesn't mean they actually perceive anything until they roll, which you have no indication of.  So again, free form, no response needed from my character based upon your stat.

Logic, same as above.

Charisma, however, CAN be looks, can be personality, can be your just overall get-alongness, or your overall-scaryness.  Its a lot of things that piggy-back onto poses.  I pose, "NES smiles to Kage and offers a wave in his general direction."  And the big troll momma of charisma 2 does the same, and its more likely that you'll notice NES than the troll.  Although its up to you still at this point to do whatever you want to do.

No roll ever controls your pose.  It just controls the limitations to the things you CAN pose.  Intimidating another character doesn't require them not to insult you back, it just requires them to back down from their current action (like going to shoot you).  Shooting a person doesn’t require them to pose explosions of blood or screaming out in pain, but it does indicate they must pose somehow that they are getting ‘hit and hurt’ if they are indeed hit and hurt.

Whether or not Charisma is inside of the +scan doesn’t change whether or not I can +roll my social skills and make you do something.  Seeing as that’s apart of a non-consent setup.  What NOT having +scan include Charisma means is that I never will know how charismatic your character actually IS until you roll some sorta dice.  Instead of asking you or pitting against your socialness all the time, you could just leave one line in the +scan which allows those of us who use Charisma as yet one more of many guidelines to help our RP do so.  Those of you who don’t put much merit in charisma or skills linked to them, can ignore that section of +scan just as you may have already been doing for years on end.  So as far as I can see, including it hurts no one, and removing it hurts some.

Well you can already do that. In fact, it's the only reason I would support free regular ammunition, if I did, which I don't. It's damn fun to +shoot each other, and it doesn't do anything besides waste bullets. It's even better when it's things like grenade launchers.

Again all great points for TT.

Never going to work on a mush where half (or more) there's no judge to respond. And non-consent doesn't always mean that we agree on what the situation we should be non-consenting about is. 

I had a troll with 12 charisma once. It was on the +scan.  It didn't count for shit, though I did get a lot of pages with people asking me how I raised it that high.  The 4 charisma elfs still got all the attention. 

I wonder why a 4' tall dwarf with 4 charisma gets to roll the same dice as a 4 charisma troll who is just a weee more intimidating.  I don't like rolling stuff unless there's no other way around it. In your example above, no matter how cute NES is, I'm going to probably notice the 8 foot tall horned woman thing waving first.

Again, differences in style.  Imagine hwo much a mush would suck if you actually had to roll willpower to stay in a time stop with your sammy.

In other news, Absinthe's solution sounds good. 

And remember, Charisma is about influence, not control. 

Actually, once you start +rolling it IS about control.  You just control vaguely, not specifically.  If I roll and shoot you well enough to kill you.  You MUST die.  If I roll to seduce you well enough to succeed you MUST like my character.  How you like the character specifically is up to you, and how you die specifically is up to you as well, but you MUST do something based on the +rolls.  However, when talking about +scan, lots of people ignore it, sure.  That's not saying that EVERYONE ignores it.  And to argue that it shouldn't be in +scan because people can non-consentually roll their skills, is a moot argument, as they can do that anyways.  I'm merely arguing keeping it in +scan for the few of us who actually USE charisma of others to help in our RP.  Simple added bit of code causing no harm to anyone.  So, again, I don't see a reason not to include it.  Perhaps I'm missing something though?  You admit I have great arguments, and since you've never been in a game of mine, TT vs MUX arguments don't account for much of anything.  My players often times are pitted against one another because of differences in character's they want to make, different situations they find themselves in, or simply trying to get another player to do something who wouldn't without some leadership involved.  NPCs roll social skills to negotiate, they try at times to beg for their lives and PCs sometimes fall for it.  Why? Cause they didn't take social skills or stats to resist well.

If your point is more on the lacking of a GM around at the time of a disagreement, than: Without a GM around, if you can't come to a consensus than no one does anything.  You agree to not participate in the current situation and both parties depart.  If you want to shoot me, but I think you wouldn't be able to get beyond the security guard and you think you would.  Without deciding on rolls that we could come up to sway the difference of opinion, than by default you don't get to shoot me and we both head our separate ways for RP in that particular situation.  However, if we can come to a consensus than we roll.  As I noted before, if someone rolls and actually does convince you to be nice to them, and they aren't a good RPer.  TELL THEM THAT!  Say, "Hey, this is the bad way of going about things, if you instead used better worked out poses like: Give an example of one of their poses, changing it to be something you consider good.  I'd be more inclined to RP with you about these things.  But right now, you can consider yourself an IC friend for the next day or so, but I'm gonna go for now."   Non-consent rolls only work when there is a GM around to adjudicate.

And in SR3 btw, a troll would get TN modifiers to change their intimidation roll.  A troll would get bennies cause they are 'taller' than the dwarf, and likely because they had '2x+ strength of the other character'.  Both of which were considered when determing TNs for intimidation in Sr3.  For current modifiers go to page 122 to determine what matters.    And you'll notice that the charisma 4 troll does not get the same as a dwarf.  Unless both were equally physically imposing in some way.  So all things being equal otherwise, the troll would have +1 to +3 dice in comparison to the dwarf.

OK, if you just want charisma as a guide, walk in a room, page those there, ask them their charisma. Voila.

No code needed, you get your charisma, and +scan doesn't give everyone another number to ignore.

What about NPCs? Can you give me a few paragraphs on my point about NPCs?