Quickleaf
Legend
Definitely. I think the nuance may be in what does that negative impact look like?Yellow flag is very sensible here!
I'd argue that the line between "jerk mercenary character" and "jerk player" is a more of a scale.
A social mechanic that values character performance should allow for flaws with an impact on the game. If the flaw is just handwaved away, it's not really respecting the player's choices, here. So we do need, generally speaking, to be OK with negative character traits having a negative impact, just as we're OK with having a low DEX score have a negative impact. Nuanced characters have flaws, and those flaws impact the stories those characters are in. There's gotta be space for making good trouble with them.
At same time, a good social mechanic would be able to encourage players to play flawed characters without flanderizing them, without constantly spotlight-stealing.
Which is why I pointed out group checks - that's a way to let one character suck without necessarily ruining the experience for everyone. Not everyone needs to be persuasive in order to persuade in general. A given PC can be weak in that area without ruining the experience.
Another aspect is that of parity. Though D&D doesn't highlight this much right now, you could imagine a world where a CHA dump stat was, like a DEX dump stat, just something you kind of build around. The low DEX character might take heavy armor and a shield and be fine. The low CHA character might take Intimidation and be fine.
Obviously the thing we’ve all seen or GMed where the “jerk mercenary” causes an immediate and sharp veer toward hostility in a social scene that interferes with another player’s fun - that’s not what we want.