charisma in a non-human enviroment

[Bacon666]

My group had a nice debate I would like to get a few mire inputs too...

Background: in a homebrew world each nation consist primarily of different humanoids. The players come from the human part, and are all human. Last session they ended up in the greenskin nation, where goblins and orcs are the norm, and humans are the primitive tribes attacking villages.

Now the debate started (after the session)

Howcome a human (or elf or any other race without cha penalty) entering an orc village are still considered more charismatic ?

Should there be racial modifiers on social interaction between races (-2 for similar races, -4 to unsimilar races, -8 to completely different races; acces to reduce theese penalties be knowledge checks)

The point is that a group of humans entering an orc village should interact according to orcish culture.

What do you guys think?

[Deadmanwalking]

What you're talking about is cultural, not racial per se, and is covered by Circumstance Modifiers, which the GM is supposed to adjudicate at their discretion.

[lemeres]

My first assumption is that you can much more easily handle this with the starting attitude set at a lower point. A strong and forceful personality is the same anywhere. The question is whether the other side is in the mood to listen to them, and how hard it is to get them in a good mood in the first place.

And when you say 'social interactions', would that include skills other than just diplomacy? Would the 6'8 barbarian in 100 pounds of metal armor covered in spikes and goblin skulls get a -8 on his intimidation check in the goblin village? Plus, I think bluff might also be one of those skills that could work even across culture boundaries as long as there is a shared language.

So yes, just lower the starting attitude based on a step for each of those categories you used. That'll up the difficulty accordingly, and give a persistent PC the chance to worm their way into their hearts (or have them worm daggers into his if his diplomacy rolls go very, VERY badly)