Why do ugly people still exist?

[Muad'Dib]

Are we talking about Los Angeles or fantasy RPG's?

-MD

[Set]

Mark Hoover wrote:

This topic is SO ripe for plot hooks I can't stand it.

It can also get 'meta' pretty fast. Note that, in comics, in fantasy art and novels, etc. it's almost always the ugliest person who turns out to be the traitor. Someone has scars on their face from a childhood illness? That's the person that's going to betray the Knights of Solomnia.

While there are plenty of beautiful-but-evil folk on the other side of the coin, age, fat, scarring, etc. are all warning signs that a character is going to be evil, as if we still carry the dark ages around with us, and sickness or infirmity is a sign that somebody did something morally wrong and is being punished for it (or is possessed by evil, or something).

Given that, in many fantasy worlds, 'ugliness' is often a stone-cold-fact association with evil (Scarification, piercings and body art? Kuthite! Or maybe Drow Pain Taster, but still not good!), and deformed people are associated with Lamashtu worshippers (kill the freak before it kills us!), it's entirely possible that people would seek to either 'kill alla uglees' or try to 'redeem' them by transforming them into more aesthetically pleasing sorts, since they've gone to the shallow end of associating physical appearance with moral values, and so it would make 'logical' sense to them that making an ugly evil thing into a beautiful thing would cause it to become less evil and more good.

And so, a (horribly misguided?) group, perhaps even a heretical splinter sect of a Shelynite church?, might be found to be kidnapping people who are deformed or unattractive and using surgery and magic to 'fix them' into prettier people, under the muddle-headed notion that they are fighting the influence of evil, such as Lamashtu, by cutting away deformities and alchemically 'blending' blotchy skin and pulling crooked snaggle-teeth and replacing them with aesthetically positioned and colored ivory replacements. Weak chin? Clearly a sign of moral weakness, perhaps a lack of courage. Just make a few slits and place some 'lifts' under there against the bone to 'fill it out.' Milky or lazy eye? Just pop that sucker out and we'll replace it with this flawless stone replica.

As long as ugly or fat or deformed or venerable or mentally ill people are associated with 'evil' or moral failing (even if it's just as simple as 'fat people are lazy') by various setting elements (Lamashtu, Zon-Kuthon, Great Old Ones cults, etc.), then it totally makes sense that their would be factions within the setting attempting to 'fight the spread of evil' by finding ways to eliminate or 'beautify' these people.

[Degoon Squad]

A thing about beauty and money
even today people with money often look better then those who do not , even if they share the same genes.
Chances are a peasant woman doing hard work day in and day out,out in the weather and mud is going to have a lower beauty score then her cousin , working in an office job in the City.
Add to the fact that the peasant woman, may not have access to dental care or maybe even a toothbrush, has a poorer diet and cannot afford too many beauty aids and and no time or money to pamper herself and you can see why some people would not be as good looking as others.

[Liam Warner]

I'm reminded of the family guy episode where Brian and Stewie go to another dimension and see Meg (who for those not familiar with the show is constantly getting hammered because of her looks) as an absolutely stunning (in their opinion) young woman and Stewie comments that in this reality she's still one of the ugly ones. So for all we know this was actually done years ago in Golarion and their "ugly" 1 charisma is the equivilent of real world supermodels.

[Orthos]

Just go to PFSRD and look up Paladin Oaths and check out "Oath Against Grotesquery". I'll wait. (I'd link it myself but PFSRD is blocked at work.)

[Charlie Bell]

Plastic surgery could make everyone better looking right now. Why do we still have ugly people in a world with plastic surgery? Why doesn't the government start a massive plastic surgery program to make everybody better looking?

Sorry to answer your questions with other questions, but there you go.

[Orthos]

Someone beat you to it last page, Charlie. ;)

[yellowdingo]

Odraude wrote:

Also define beauty.

Its why even though human height is anywhere from 1'10"-8'11" (17d6+5") human is qualified as 4'6"-6'6" even in d&d. Anything outside the acceptable is hated and feared. There is 'too beautiful' out there in fairytale land. 'Fairest of them all' comes to mind.

[lemeres]

Degoon Squad wrote:

A thing about beauty and money

even today people with money often look better then those who do not , even if they share the same genes.
Chances are a peasant woman doing hard work day in and day out,out in the weather and mud is going to have a lower beauty score then her cousin , working in an office job in the City.
Add to the fact that the peasant woman, may not have access to dental care or maybe even a toothbrush, has a poorer diet and cannot afford too many beauty aids and and no time or money to pamper herself and you can see why some people would not be as good looking as others.

Well, that could be due to environment (the sun is KILLER on the skin in a world before sunscreen) and better diet.

Although, a city worker might end up being uglier since cities are notorious for disease in the "dump the chamber pot onto the street" era, and their food might have to deal with delay and storage issues since it might be isolated from the sources of food ("That moss on your week old fish is there for flavor! I'm only charging 20% extra for it, what a deal!!")

[KestrelZ]

The plastic surgery parallel has been used a lot, and has a ring of truth. Even funnier, with as many adventurers gaining vast amounts of money, most seem willing to spend it on so-called practical items such as magic weapons, armor, or enhancements to things other than beauty. The few that do purchase and carry any such magical enhancements are usually the face people of an adventuring party.

In all my years of roleplaying, I think my characters are the only ones that carry a grooming kit (hairbrush, toothbrush, mirror, shaving razor, soap). The only reason my fellow party members have SOAP is because I buy it for them!

I did invent a magical armor enhancement that creates a minor illusion -
1000 gold, does not count as an enhancement bonus, acts similar to alter self only the illusion stays a long as no other illusion magic is in effect, and allows the user to appear as a more scantily clad and idealized version of themselves (more muscular and fit, fewer blemishes, etc.). It does not work as a disguise as your features are still recognized as you, you just look much better than before. We call it "Vallejo armor", and even the wealthiest adventurers think it's cool, yet would never buy it. Go figure.

[mechaPoet]

Set said this better above, but basically:

If there weren't any ugly people then how would we know who was supposed to be tough and/or evil????

[Charlie Bell]

Orthos wrote:

Someone beat you to it last page, Charlie. ;)

Yeah, in my old age I'm getting too lazy to read the whole first page.

[Degoon Squad]

On a personal not on tbis sudject.
I have been married for along time to a woman of Asian descent who I and many of my friends find cute and pretty.
But had one of her ancester looked like her in China 200 years ago she woukd have been thought ugly.Why? Well first her skin is more brown then average, (Dark skin being considered ugly in China, )she is very petite(tall women where considered more attractive then snort ones) but her feet are large for her height. And today how many men bother to look at a woman feet? I would say the gaze of most men stop 6"-12 "below the chin.

[Lucy_Valentine]

Well, for one thing, those alterations don't increase CHA. So whatever you make the person look like, somehow they aren't any more attractive. True beauty is on the inside, or something.

Also, "beauty" is totally subjective. Maybe this is already happening.

Also, numbers. Even if a person could cast the spell a few times a day without worrying about it, that's not remotely enough to do a whole country. With an average life expectancy of 45 and at 4/day transformations you could only maintain an altered population of 65,700. That's not a whole country. It's not even a whole county.

Also, resource management. Even if some people devote their life to it and there are no material costs and nobody is paying, there's still the opportunity cost. A powerful spellcaster has spells per day, and any day they spend them on this project is a day they don't spend them on something else. Like, something that could save lives or improve things in practical terms.

Relatedly, if you're doing augmentations, why would you pick beauty as your first? Why not immunity to disease or something? If you're in a society where paying a priest to cast remove disease is a significant expenditure then disease resistance would be a lot more useful (since it would greatly lower the under-five mortality chance).

Also, dislike of magical procedures. A wizard says they want to cast a spell on your kid. Do you let them? Sure, they say it's good, but wizards are weird so who knows? Maybe it's going to turn the child into the wizards slave. Or a goblin. Or not a goblin. Or hot pink with lime green stripes and orange polka dots.

Finally, zen spellcasting. Not so much a D&D/PF trope, but sometimes the ultimate truth of magic is how to get stuff done without magic.

Thelemic_Noun wrote:

For humans? And in the absence of cosmetics and other obfuscating factors?

...

No. Because even if every point on the list were backed up by perfect research, that research would be modern research and would just demonstrate what the modern notion of beauty is within the society in which the studies were conducted.

And even within a modern context, it would only give you an average-over-society concept. Individuals differ in what they consider attractive.

Hell, your own list features renaissance paintings that no longer match modern conceptions - just compare them to modern porn.

Set wrote:

age, fat, scarring, etc. are all warning signs that a character is going to be evil, as if we still carry the dark ages around with us, and sickness or infirmity is a sign that somebody did something morally wrong and is being punished for it (or is possessed by evil, or something).

Given the existence of this trope, the primary users of this sort of enhancement magic might well be evil cults, trying to improve their public image. Especially if they're genre-savvy.

...and now I have a new villain to work into a campaign somewhere.

[Geistlinger]

Aelryinth wrote:

Just to throw fuel on the fire, there was a spell in 2e that did gradual minor permanent physical changes. I don't remember if it was called FLeshsculpting or what. The showcase was a bard using it on this harpy child to over time remove the offensive harpy elements and transform her into a beautiful winged female whose appearance rather reflected her voice.

And with hats of appearance, altering your physical appearance isn't hard. Unless everyone walks around with true seeing and sees thru the illusions, of course.

==Aelryinth

The spell was Sculpt Features.