Attention; you can only have so much of it, and your empathy skills should determine how well you can read a crowd (which needs to be its own entity)
Obviously. Social skills should be a huge factor in conversations, and how they play out. Currently, social skills are almost all the same and have an exceedingly minor role in the game. I imagine they could be improved in a way like this:
1) Conversationalist: determines mainly your capacity for small-talk, but also has a slight effect on other types of conversations. A high conversationalist skill lets you make small-talk that is actually interesting to the second person, opening the way for things like making a friend, getting someone's guard down, making someone more likely to divulge information that they're not normally supposed to, etc. Capped by your empathy level.
2) Comedian: determines the quality of your insults, and how likable you are in general. While conversationalist is meant to have a greater effect on long-term relationships, comedian can be used to gain a temporary, but significant, relationship boost with someone(if the context is valid, of course). High-quality insults could also be used to make someone lose their temper, potentially making them make rash and irrational decisions. Capped by creativity.
3) Judge of intent: how effectively you can judge other's emotions and detect lies during a conversation. A high level in this skill lets you get accurate info on what the other person is feeling, how interested they are in the conversation, how believable they are finding your story, etc. while also letting you see through otherwise highly believable lies. Capped by the your empathy or intuition, whichever is higher.
4) Liar: how good your lies are, obviously. For simple lies, like answering 'yes/no' questions dishonestly, only this skill is used, but for more elaborate lies(including made-up stories like the one I made above) it is used in conjunction with the persuasion skill. Capped by your creativity.
5) Intimidator: how legitimate your threats come across, obviously.
6) Persuader: used when trying to convince someone to do a particular action, or trying to change their values. Also used when making long, elaborate lies. Capped by your empathy.
7) Negotiator: used mainly when haggling or making some kind of contract/deal. Capped by your patience(?).