The Mezzanine

*nods*. I tend to find - simple flat-roll social systems, like 5e and such, kinda weird? They tend to lead to weird outcomes (esp given that in 5e, the range of possible rolls are incredibly wide and swingy compared to the size of bonuses you can have, so it's very hard to be consistently good or bad at a thing), so I like something with more - hard-coded understanding of what it's going for in it's resolution system and mechanics. A good example of this kind of thing is the exalted 3e Intimacies system and how it impacts social persuasion - interacting with people socially has *mechanical depth* and by extension the ability to produce (more) complex stories emergently, which I like a lot. Since social outcomes are - innately nuanced, and innately attached to mechanical outcomes. So if you're trying to convince someone - you try and learn what they care about, as described by their existing intimacies, and try to give them more intimacies using whatever persuasion you can try and *then*, after - an extended interaction, you can lean on those things to maybe talk them into something that they wouldn't have agreed to without that consideration?

(So, for example, if you're trying to convince a king to support you in a war, then you - start by learning that they care mostly about riches, so you explain to them that this will be profitable rather than leaning on a moral plea, and that leads to a concrete mechanical bonus; similarly you could instead spend your first few interactions filling this king with a great hatred of the people you want him to fight and thereby making convincing him to do so much easier (unless of course, he draws on his desire to keep his kingdom peaceful as a counterbalance, and so on).

I'm given to understand that a lot of people find this kind of mechanical complexity a burden on their storytelling (and specifically, a burden on their ability to RP freely, I think?) and not an aid to it (whereas I find it's an aid because I have trouble as a GM, producing deep models of what every middle-sized NPC is thinking, and the use of mechanics should lead sometimes to outcomes you didn't expect), though, so it might not be for you?