Are you trying out Oblivion for the first time now that it’s been remastered? Well, then you’re probably a bit unfamiliar with some of the mechanics, such as the disposition and persuasion systems.
I’m not gonna dive into immense detail about them, as there are extensive wiki entries that have all of the nuances covered, but I can show you the basics to help you get started right now. Let’s go through how the speechcraft minigame works so you can start training that skill!
How & Why Should You Persuade NPCs?
Almost every NPC in the game will have a certain disposition value towards you, and this affects how much information they’re willing to divulge or just how they treat you in general.
There are even quests you can get by having a high disposition with certain characters, which is why it’s worth learning how to raise it. For example, one method of joining the Thieves Guild will require you to have a high disposition with beggars or the recruiter himself.
To get started, talk to an NPC and press the “Persuading” button at the bottom left to bring up the speechcraft menu. Here, you have two options: Bribe or Start.
Bribing will allow you to raise their disposition at the cost of some gold. It’s generally not recommended to do this unless you’re already locked out of the minigame. To do this for free, you have to press start instead.
You’re going to be on a timer the moment you press start, as the person’s disposition will slowly decrease over time. Before you begin, take note of the following mechanics:
The Art of Persuasion – The Four Options
Once the minigame starts, you’ll have a wheel with the following choices: Admire, Joke, Coerce, and Boast. Each of these will either increase or decrease the person’s disposition, and this is different for every NPC.
Your goal is to pick the options that will maximize your disposition gains while minimizing your losses. First, hover over each option and pay attention to the character’s face. Their expression will change depending on what you’re hovering over.
For example, if you hover over “Joke” and they start smiling from ear to ear, that means they love that option. On the other hand, if they start frowning even just slightly, that is an indication that they dislike that option.
Now that you know how the NPC will react to each choice, take a look at the number of bars displayed beside all of them. This determines how much the option will affect their disposition.
You can only choose each option once, and every time you pick something, the entire wheel rotates clockwise. Ideally, you’ll want to click on the options they like while they have the maximum number of bars (four), but this isn’t always possible.
My tip is to focus on minimizing the negatives. If you can, do everything in your power to only click on the two negative options while they only have one or two bars on them, even if this means that the positive ones get the same treatment.
Don’t spend too much time trying to figure out the “perfect” choices. It’s normal to lose disposition every now and then, because the way the wheel is set up is completely random. As long as you’re doing it properly, you’ll steadily gain more than you lose.
Here’s a YouTube short I made that quickly sums up this entire process, so you can better visualize it:
Some Things to Keep In Mind
The main thing you should consider when trying to raise an NPC’s disposition is that you can keep trying until you’re satisfied with the amount they have or the game prevents you from starting the minigame.
Most people will be pretty neutral at the start, but various factors can affect their disposition towards you as soon as you try to speak with them. For example, talking to somebody while your weapon is out will cause them to start out with a lower value than normal.
The amount of fame/infamy you have will also affect how everybody views you all around Cyrodiil, but trying to compute this is unnecessary. Just don’t be surprised if people everywhere start off angry with you after you’ve gone full murderhobo.
If you’ve been training up your Illusion and are familiar with the spellmaking mechanic, you can even cheese this mechanic by making a powerful custom Charm spell. It doesn’t need to last long, because spell effects don’t tick down while you’re talking to somebody.
Those are all the speechcraft and persuasion basics that you’ll need to get started! If you’re looking to grind the skill, it’s actually hilariously easy as you can strike up a conversation with almost any NPC. I personally like training it on guards, since there’s plenty of them roaming around every major town no matter what time it is.
