eye of the beholder 3 racial level limits

In a campaign without a single dominant Reference Society, no race gets a Racial Appearance trait, and Appearance only applies to other members of the same race as standard unless they have the Universal modifier. a Beautiful/Handsome elf is Beautiful to humans, merely Attractive to other elves, and gets no Appearance modifier with other nonhumans). So in that context, as well as allowing any nonhuman to buy their Appearance up or down from the racial default, I would assume any nonhuman would ignore the default, and tweak higher/lower levels accordingly (ie. An Attractive elf isn't startingly appealing to any other Attractive elf, because to them it's the norm, but they're more likely in any given roleplaying session to meet a human than another elf, so that's how it impacts their character point total. In an off-the-shelf Tolkienesque/D&Desque fantasy world, humans live more or less everywhere and have the largest, most economically and culturally impacting society so a race's Appearance in human eyes is likely to impact them almost every day. The idea, as I read it, is that the Reference Society is dominant. It is safe to assume that if a person possessing a given template hasn't modified their appearance then their own kind and those with the same esthetic would actually regard you as average just members of the same minority group would usually have no modifier for social stigma.Īnd what your society thinks of your attractiveness doesn't matter when you aren't in your society. That's why the concept of a reference society exists, because the alternative is to create a list of reaction modifiers that in particularly diverse settings could run for pages. I'm not even trying to account for personal taste, I just want some different perspective on racial standards.Īnd if I could do it without creating a lot more paperwork, that would be awesome. Anything to do with multiple points-of-view on Beauty is pasted on (if it exists at all). It's as if the system had only humans in mind when it was created. Your society says I'm ugly? Well, I'm not part of your society, and MY society thinks I look just fine. I think the whole idea of the Reference Society is where my problem is. Should I even try to compensate for doubled point costs? Do they possibly cancel each other out, or at least do they properly reflect the reactions that the character has coming to them? Am I overthinking this? A Very Handsome Elf Lord has to pay double while a Hideous Orc Dude gets a double Disadvantage bonus. The (only?) downside, as I see it, is that the Character Points for both of those. i.e, Orcs are Unattractive, but Drusilla the Lady Orc is considered to be very Beautiful among Orcs and makes all the other lady orcs jealous. Then every Individual also has an Appearance Level to reflect how members of their own race react to them. Average for Humans, Unattractive for Orcs, etc.) that reflects how the other races react to them.

is this:Įvery Race has an appearance level (i.e. I'm not sure I stated the problem(s) very clearly, but the solution I am toying with. To Humans, maybe they all look alike, but don't Elves have an interest in having a 50 Most Beautiful Elves List? How can you tell your Elf girlfriend that she's the most attractive if, in fact, all elves are equally attractive?

I suppose one could create a matrix of appearance that shows how each race reacts to every other, but a) no thank you, and b) How would point costs even work?Ģ) It means all members of a Race have the same level of Appearance. If Elves have the Attractive appearance level, Humans and Halflings might agree, but maybe Orcs find them Hideous. I've become bothered by the one-dimensional way Appearance is handled with regards to different races having different racial appearance levels, leading to one of two problems:ġ) All races have the same standards of appearance.

Eye of the beholder 3 racial level limits