Aldarc
Legend
There's not too much to add to D&D, to be honest, when it comes to social rules that isn't already there in rudimentary form. The current and past two editions of D&D have social mechanics of some sort, with the skill challenges in 4e probably offering the most robust support. The new Ravenloft book also provides rules for non-magical fear (and stress) for when encountering frightful monsters and the like. It's not much of a stretch to expand those rules for other aspects of social/mental dynamics or encounters that could affect your character's mind.Since it's all a preference and there are already other games that include additional rules, why do we need to add those rules to D&D?
Why not play those other games and let D&D be what it is and always has been? It's the most popular TTRPG ever, it obviously doesn't need the secret sauce to be successful. Yet time and time again when people say "I like it the way it is" the response is always "Why can't we fix it?"
I don't want to fix or add to something that, for me, is not broken. Which obviously means I'm attacking everyone who disagrees ... even though I try to go out of my way to say that it's just a preference.
Meanwhile whenever I suggest that people come up with concrete ideas on how to implement things in D&D that could actually receive feedback, that gets rejected as well. A plus thread on how to add things to the game may actually be useful to those who want it; repeating vague assertions and complaints? I don't see the point. Publishing a supplement to DmsGuild? If it's successful it may be adopted in some form in an official supplement. Complaining on a forum like this? Never goes anywhere.
In any case, this is pointless. If there's ever concrete rules that we could critique I may have something else to say. Until then, it's a free country and feel free to yell at the wind.
Usually the people who don't like social mechanics in D&D are typically the ones who are more inclined to actively ignore the rules rather than use the rules. I think one of the bigger issues is that some character/social rules (e.g., Bonds, Ideals, etc.) aren't particularly well integrated with the play loop of the core system.