@Lisse24 Exactly, and that's what I meant earlier about having to quantify social 'damage' (and we probably want to shy away from that term if we want to avoid people treating it as a negative thing).
To put it in perspective let's use real life for a second - although obviously there are huge differences between that and depictions on games, I think I can still make my point.
Any given fight can change your life - every single time you get punched someone can poke your eye out, pull a shoulder out of its socket, cause internal bleeding... and that's without counting weapons. With weapons all bet are off, at that point chances are your life is about to change especially if you lose.
But how often have you sat with someone and had a chat after which any dramatic (hell, even significant) changes in perspective took place? You have conversations every day, arguments, debates... when's the last time any of us sat with someone whose political views are different and caused a tangible, somewhat permanent shift? Not that often, right? But maybe if you continue to sit down and have these chats until a different perspective is hammered into you there could be a more noticeable shift - that's how people get indoctrinated into cults or educated at school after all. Not in bursts but in degrees, normalising their behaviour based on their environment and the stimuli they receive from it.
That's what I'd like to see in RP.
I'm an Carthian atheist and you're playing a Sanctified. I sit down with your character and he/she 'wins' the religious argument? The IC result could be some more respect for you people. You win another of those? I understand better the role you play and maybe am a bit more sympathetic toward the overall cause. Another? I could be convinced to take minor action - nothing that could do my causes damage but giving you a freebie piece of information maybe - to help you guys out. And so on - each of those arguments being an entire scene.
If I started out as a devout Catholic already interested in the Sanctified though it'd go significantly faster. You could entice me to help out in the first scene, for instance.
That's how I imagine social stats should be used. There's inertia in people's views, different levels of 'defence' against gaps in opinions - and somehow in all that posing quality should matter. For example we should be trusted to assign modifiers to our own resistances; if you just made a great IC argument I'll give you a +2 bonus against my own character's convictions. If you just threatened I'll burn in hell if I don't help you, here's a -3 for your trouble. That sort of thing.
There must be cooperation from both sides for this to work out. There's no way it'll function if someone is OOC negatively predisposed toward it or is using the system as a sledgehammer ("here's my roll, now you want me!").
Social attributes must facilitate RP if they are to be used in RP. They need to enrich it.