To some degree, it's understandable that there's confusion about what Social Attribute to roll when. There are many ways to reach the same end through social means. Physical Attributes are much simpler. Strength is raw muscle power, Stamina is bodily endurance and Dexterity is fine motor skills and speed. There is some overlap certainly, because running could also be considered a function of Strength and a function of Stamina, but in game terms it falls under Dexterity. That's an established gaming convention that most players don't have any problems with.
Charisma, Manipulation and Appearance aren't as well defined and there is a strong gaming convention that "Charisma" is your go-to Social Stat. It tends to get rolled an awful lot, leaving the other two Attributes in the dust. What good is Appearance when instead of being hot, you can just be charming and get the same result? And what good is just being hot if you can't talk to people because of your crippling lack of oratory skills? Can't you use Charisma to lie to people just by steamrolling them with your force of personality? Well.. kinda. You can get a lot of flexibility out of the Social Attributes. With them it's less a question of "what can I use Charisma to do that I can't do with Manipulation?" and more a question of "HOW can I use Charisma to do this?"
Instead of breaking down by the ends, Social Attributes break down by the means. If you want to get past a guard by making him think you belong there, you can use any of the Social Attributes. Which one you use will depend on how you go about it, and each method has its own benefits and consequences. Being so sexy that the guard doesn't want to question you because it will make you less likely to sleep with him is one way, but so is lying to him and convincing him that you're there for a surprise inspection.
I'm not going to spend forever breaking down all the problems inherent in trying to define the entire spectrum of social interaction into three categories. What I will do instead is describe how I define the role of each Social Attribute.
Charisma - Active & Obvious
As I said earlier, Charisma is the go-to stat for many gamers. It's obvious and easy, it covers most everything you could want to do socially. You can charm and seduce people, steamroller them with your personality, threaten and bribe. Even lying doesn't fall outside of Charisma, though it becomes a bit tricky. That's because Charisma is Obvious. Charisma is the force that pulls your attention to a speaker even when they whisper, it's the vibrant spirit of the guy who always gets away with everything because he's just so friendly that you forgive him no matter what. It's never subtle, but it can be quiet. Without speaking, someone can draw your attention to them and demand respect.
Charisma is also an active expression of social power. It's something you try to use, that takes a little effort to project and control. Sleeping or unconscious, you don't have Charisma. You need to be actively attempting to use your personality; no one's personality is evident without expression.
Manipulation - Active & Subtle
In some ways, Manipulation is the opposite of Charisma. That doesn't mean a single character can't have both (Odin certainly does), it just means that they work in very different ways. Charisma is obvious, but Manipulation is not. Manipulation is Subtle. It's when you twist your words and no one realizes that the deal they just made has no upside for them. You're using Manipulation when you convince someone that your idea is really their idea and they thought of it all on their own. It isn't about arguing with someone and winning them over, it's about making sure there's never an argument at all because they don't even realize they disagreed with you in the first place.
Like Charisma, Manipulation takes effort. It's an active attempt to create a result and never expressed passively. You can't Manipulate people without doing something. It could be silent or implied by body language and expression, but there is some method of communication involved.
There's a perception among many gamers I've met that Manipulation is for when you're doing bad things. That isn't true, anymore than Charisma is always good. Charisma can be used to make someone piss their pants in fear or overwhelm someone with your personality until they're reduced to a sobbing mess. Likewise, Manipulation can be used for good and noble purposes, and it doesn't have to be a nasty thing. It's just avoiding conflict that might result from more direct methods. Sometimes you just know that telling people what to do will cause problems, but nudging them towards a coure of action will get the same result with much less fuss.
Finally, a simple one. Appearance is how impressive your physical body is. It can be awfully impressive or awesomely impressive. I want to specifically note that it does not have to have a sexual element to it. It's possible to have a high Appearance and not cause people to think about how much they want to have sex with you. It's also possible to have a Negative Epic Appearance and still cause feelings of sexual excitement.
Unlike Charisma or Manipulation, Appearance is Passive. Without any conscious effort, Appearance has its effect on anyone seeing you. You can be unconscious and still affect people with your Appearance because it's just how you look. Now, quite obviously Appearance can be used in an active way. It can be flaunted or attention drawn to it, but generally Appearance just is. When you're rolling Appearance to seduce someone, you're seducing them just by being hot. Not by talking sexy, not by making them laugh. You are seducing them, or terrifying them, or whatever else you're doing just by looking a specific way. Not by acting a specific way or saying things or doing things, but just by looking a way. It might help to take off your shirt, or flash your ass, but basically you're just taking advantage of your looks. That's what Appearance is. It tends to be one of the more boring Social Attributes to invoke because there's only so much you can do with your own looks. But, that's also a benefit, because it doesn't take much skill to use.
I've actually been in a game where the ST was distressed by the lack of spotlight on the Manipulative characters. It seemed to him that the Charisma character was always in the spotlight. He was the one doing the talking, the one bulling his way through social encounters and the one throwing nasty looks this way and that way to get what he wanted. He started trying to find ways to limit the power of the Charisma character so that the Manipulation characters would have more spotlight. Instead of creating situations where a subtle approach was the better or even the only way to accomplish a goal, he tried to make it impossible to use Charisma for many things.
That isn't a good idea. It's perfectly possible to use Charisma for intimidation or interrogation, two things he wanted to say were Manipulation-only. I won't say that Charismatic characters should always have the spotlight, because that isn't true. Charisma can be quiet and calm, but it's going to be in the spotlight. Manipulation-heavy characters can be in the spotlight, but as a result of their manipulations. The manipulations themselves are subtle. You, the Storyteller, can set up situations where the subtle actions of the manipulator save the day and are dramatic and impressive, but the actual process of using Manipulation isn't a blatant, obvious thing.
Don't restrict what the different Social Attributes can do. There are far too many examples of them crossing all the lines and too many good arguments against strictly defining what they do. Instead define how they accomplish their goals.
Being Social'd
Possibly the touchiest Social subject in gaming is when PC's are the target of social abilities used by NPC's or other PC's. There is a knee-jerk reaction on the part of many players and, yes, many Storytellers to say "but my character wouldn't do that!" and that's not good. Emmet mentioned in his recent entry that ignoring social effects is a lot like ignoring any other effect. If Freyr wants to seduce you, you've got as much chance to staying a virgin as the guy whom Thor wants to punch has at staying un-broken.
Appearance can be an especially touchy situation because it so often comes back to being a sexual thing. 'It doesn't matter how much Appearance your character has, my character isn't gay!" is a terrible argument. It's not just about being arousing or looking like a good potential sex partner. It's about being impressive, in a good or bad way.
I don't have any easy solutions to the problem of characters being affected by Social Attributes and not wanting to be. It really all comes down to reminding anyone that has trouble with such things that they can't cheat. Just because they know that their character is being Manipulated or Charmed into accepting something, it doesn't mean their character knows that. Or that their character somehow can must enough mental fortitude to stand against a stronger personality. If they could have, they would have resisted the social effect.
Putting a Mental DV into the game, and further implementing a system like the Stalwartness defense that Atlanta uses can help with these problems. At least under those systems, there's a mechanism in place that you can point at and say "Sorry, no, your character is affected. He tried to resist and failed."
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