Quote Originally Posted by terodil View Post
I'd like to expand on this a bit. Pardon me if this is my inexperience talking, but I do not quite understand where the problem with D&D seems to reside for the OP and a lot of the (other) posters in this thread.

Rule 0: The DM creates the game world. If you (the DM) design the NPC properly, if the NPC has motivations, flaws, convictions etc, then it is easy enough to model a social interaction with the tools that D&D gives you. The rulebook allows you to set the DC (e.g., monarch vs. peasant), to hand out (dis)advantages (e.g., degree of goal overlap), and it even presents some bits on reputation that PCs can build up with NPCs. Nowhere does it say that social interactions have to be single step only. Quite the contrary, in fact, as the example with the reputation guidelines shows. If your PCs beat the DCs simply by virtue of their high modifiers, then you have failed to apply the same concept you naturally use when designing combat scenarios (XP threshold calculations etc.) to social situations. You have all the tools, why not use them?
The "issue" is this is not in the rules in the same way things like hit points are. You have very clear rules for saying how much damage getting hit by a longsword does, how many hit points you have, and what happens when you run out of hit points. Rules for gradually chipping away at someone's point of view to convince them to join your side is much more "make it up yourself".