Wow, that's exciting!! I'd like to be able to show my friends & acquaintances the game system but with a SFW version of it. My main question though-- how would you incorporate Charisma into the combat system without the use of NSFW elements. Would you be able to parley and stop combat that way?
Yep! That ties into the multiple combat outcomes - convincing someone to surrender, or to a ceasefire, or to run away. For the original game design, the setting was in the middle of a (losing) war, with the protagonist one of the survivors of a lost, decisive major battle trying to return home, and along the way she'd encounter other deserters, enemy soldiers, etc. so there's a lot of fighting people off not-to-the-death, talking people down even while fending them off. So persuading someone to surrender or to a ceasefire/truce would be one aspect, and then things like intimidation (a fear like status effect that would affect the opponent in various ways like existing status effects), taunting to make someone angry and more aggressive (so you can tire them out or set them up to be predictable for counter attacks), and theatric feints would also be ways Charisma helps with combat objectives.
Most of that would still work just fine in a SFW version of ToA. Charisma probably will tie into ToA as-is in some of those ways as well, similar to how Agility gives certain skills additional properties.