The issue I have, well one of them anyway, is that absolutely nothing is required other than the player declaring what they want. You can add all the fluff you want but if you strictly follow the rule it just happens.
Roleplaying is not required of probably 99% of D&D. In fact, the backgrounds are really the only part of the game that
encourages roleplaying, via those ideals, bonds, traits, flaws.
You can literally play D&D with not a single second of roleplaying. All you need are dice rolls. "I attack. 18 to hit. 5 slashing damage." "I roll 16 on Persuasion to get past the guard." "15 on Search. Any traps?"
If I wanted
that, I'd go download Nethack again.
No muss, no fuss, just flip the switch with no chance of failure.
You can say this same thing about pretty much all non-combat spells. No fuss, no muss, someone gets buffed or you get some information or you cast an illusion.
For that matter, there's nothing in most illusion spells that requires roleplaying, but you probably wouldn't let the PC get away with "I cast
silent image to distract the ogres" without finding out at least what the illusion
looks like to see if it would, in fact, distract them, right? Or would you just say "the spell's description doesn't require you to say what illusion looks like, so whatever, cast your spell"?
There's zero requirement for any social exchange. In a port and need to get to another port? All that's required is that the player says "I'm a sailor so I get free passage on a ship to where we need to go." Badda boom badda bing it just happens according to the rules. Everything else is unnecessary fluff.
I'm booking passage on a ship. Why does this need to be a "social exchange"? I book, I pay my gold, and we move on to the next scene. Done. I don't want to talk to random NPC #162 that is going to feature this one time and never again. What's wrong with just getting on with it?
Sure, you can do so that. Just like you can say "I cast an illusion spell" and that's it, because nothing else is required by the spell's rules.
Is that really the type of game you want to run, though?
If all you're doing is buying a ticket, you don't really need to RP it. But if you're negotiating passage because you have a nautical background and you want to trade on that, or because you're trying to offer your services in exchange for passage, or any other reason that involves
talking--well, give me one reason why it
wouldn't be a social exchange? Other than "I don't like to play that way," because
that is you, not the game as a whole. It may not even be the other players at your table.