Rolling for social interactions

If everything is reduced to dice rolling then you proceed down the slippery slope that begins with,

>My thief character is an expert trap finder, but I'm not an expert thief, so it's unfair to expect me to remember to roll for find traps when an expert thief would remember. I'll just roll on the "Remember to search for traps table" at the start of the dungeon and that roll will determine if and when the DM will tell me to roll for "find traps".

And ultimately leads to,

>Natural 20. I crit the dungeon, rescue the princess, slay the kobolds, and get 2x treasure!

The way I figured it is let the person talk. Then based on the NPC I've made, I try to see if my NPC would find this persuasive from an RP perspective. If he would? No roll needed. If he wouldn't? Then I'd call for a roll to see if it worked. I don't see the point in making them always roll. Each NPC has a personality and beliefs. He may not take much persuasion beyond just normal roleplay shit. DMs who play every NPC as an immediate adversary who can't be persuaded except by dice is just being a faggot.

To give an example. Let's say one of my players has buddied up to a local shopkeeper a lot and became friends. He always pays the guy well, gives him info, etc. Maybe that player can get discounts for stuff and his team. When he asks to get some new stuff or repairs he says he'll pay the shopkeep later. Rather than roll for persusasion, I figure this friendly shopkeeper is well off enough and friendly enough to do so and he will. No rolls necessary.

Now let's say this shopkeeper was less well off, he may not be so keen. Or if the players were making a scene in the town or always forgot his name and all that. He would be far less willing to agree to front the players stuff in return for payment later. I find that this makes the worlds feel more alive. Each NPC is different and some will be adversarial and some won't be. Certain circumstances will also change whether or not regular RP will convince him of things, and like any sane person he has a threshold of just how far he will go before needing some persuasion. Front armor under the right circumstances? No big deal. Give up my business and jump off a cliff and leave my family? You better roll a 21 on that d20 or don't bother. Help us escape from town after we somehow became villified? Roll and see if ya managed to make him take the risk and help ya out or play it safe for his livelihood.

Honestly thats a good way of dealing with "I'll just roll the problem away!", but I hate rolling for socials all the same.

In our group there is 3 people who have no bonuses to social interactions whatsoever and a newish guy who specced his character towards it.
Problem one: The difference between us and him is so ridiculous that any time we try to have any interaction it often near impossible for us and ends up detrimental to the party progress.
Problem two: His chance of suceeding on even hard checks is very high and GM is obviously getting tired of his shit, making his character not be able to participate in any important event. ("the golem bars your way into the wizards tower"; now the lone party barbarian is forced to negiotiate rewards for the quest youve spent 3 last sesions on)
Problem three: The new guy complains (rightfully so, ill admit , from his perspective) that our characters have no depth, because any time we would like to present our point in a conversation, we would be forced to make our shitty rolls while robbing the new guy of the opportunity to do what he made his character to do.

Its getting frankly really stupid and I have no clue how the situation can be unfucked.

What about a system wherein the GM takes into account the player's roleplaying and modifies the difficulty of the roll required to suit?

i.e The player makes a good argument/ is actually convincing IRL? Low/No DC Requirement

Not so great attempt/ "Roll to persuade"? Higher difficulty

I like this system purely because it rewards convincing roleplay whilst also allowing an autist to 'mechanically' play a person they are not, albeit it is slightly harder. Roleplaying should be encouraged most of the time unless you're at a table of munchkins who teleport between combat encounters.

Thing is, you're rather disconnected from all the things that happen in the game: you're not actually swinging the sword around, and you're likewise not really trying to convince the duke not to execute your friend. You're in a more comfortable situation and not pressed so much for time.

You can probably come up with a few convincing words, and depending on your character's charisma and any other special skills, we see how well it works out in the game - just like the sword-swinging is decided by the character's swordsmanship, while you the player just decide who he attacks and how.

I should have read the thread some more, this nigga beat me to it

Actually, I didn't soy combat doesn't, I said the rest of the game.
You wouldn't ask a player something like "well, yeah, but HOW do you hack that computer exactly?" and then wait until he gives an explanation to decide if you roll or if his explanation wasn't good enough and thus it fails.

It's fair to say a player won't be as compelling as a character. There is an argument here, even if this inflammatory idea contradicts roleplay concepts.
"I hit him with my sword" should be discouraged, anyway. If we're describing our actions, then at least give them flavor--as I'd imagine we'd want the speech actions to be described, if they are to be described instead of acted.
I don't believe roleplay should be removed as it is something to be improved... like system mastery.

That would be rather nice if the system itself is always encouraging characterization, instead of the ones where 96% of the game is miniature combat mechanics. I foresee, unfortunately, a lot of bitching and debate over whether or not the debate itself was powerful enough to lower the DC.

Kinda shitty to specifically bar a character from doing the things that character's player designed it to do.