Return of the COM Debate:

[Alibear]

Personally I don't like Com much either.

 

I really like the way GURPs handles it, with tangible benefits built into the system. GURPs has stolen so much from HERO, I think that it is about time we took something back.

 

Perhaps buy it as skill levels in Presence based skills or roll it into Presence and have only one characteristic?

[Marcus]

Put me down for liking comliness. Sad truth of the matter, in the really-for-real world, Physical Attractiveness is only barely less important in your ability to work your will on the world around you than Intelligence, Presence, or Hard Work (aka Ego). As much as we would like to hand-wave it all away, the truth of the matter is people are nasty, shallow, genetically-programmed little gits. Comliness kicks them in the 0 Point 'Pretty People are Right, Successful, Socially Desiriable, and Good' Very Common, Moderate psych lim.

 

This doesnt mean that all of my characters are stunningly georgeous, even though (in any even vaguely realistic setting) Com is point-for-point among the best things you could possibly spend points on (did I mention im a cynic?). Like a characters Strength, Intelligence, etc, its something that defines them. If people are roleplaying their PCs (and the GM their NPCs) appropriately, itll be worth every point paid for it, and moreso. Even if their not, its who they are, and its alot more than just 'special effect'.

 

That said, if you want to roll it up into PRE, and let people define the special effect of their PRE however they like, and/or buy limited PRE, I dont at all see a problem with that. I just like COM as a seperate stat for the granularity it gives. Granularity Good. Thats why were playing Hero, right?

 

Now, on the matter of STR... thats an old debate, and probably one not best revisited. At least ~I~ wont open a thread to that effect.

 

As always, my 2c. Your mileage may vary.

[Mutant for Hire]

Why COM is a characteristic:

 

Everyone has it. And it's not something that just crops up once in a while, not believably anyway. My major problem was that attractiveness clearly has an impact in RL, and the rules weren't bothering to work with it.

 

And COM is not the same thing as PRE. Charisma is not the same thing as physical attractiveness. Low COM has different effects than low PRE. Having two separate traits makes it more possible to accurately model different types of people.