On Charisma

Far and away in my experience, Charisma is the statistic that has the most to do with your success in life. It has the greatest bearing on your happiness, your employment, and nearly every factor in existance.

This is not surprising at all. We are tribal animals - each dependent upon each other for everything in life. Our place in the community is critical to our mental well being.

Is it any wonder this is the least mechanically useful stat in most versions of Dungeons and Dragons?

The above is a little joke - certainly not true in the older editions. The number of henchmen and hirelings you can have is crucial to your survival, but a lot of that strength dissipated in the more recent editions. And the use of henchmen and hirelings was very Dungeon Master dependent, whereas I have never met a Dungeon Master who didn't give the Strength bonus to hit and damage.

But then this isn't surprising that it's poorly represented in the rules. It still is a major factor though - however, it's not your characters charisma, it's yours. For this is a social game and you're doing a social thing, making it by far the most important attribute at the table.

Too bad we can't re-roll in life if our dice came up as a 4.