Lately I've been playing characters who use Speechcraft, and I've got a few questions about the various options.

To raise disposition, you can either Admire, Intimidate, or Bribe.

How do these options differ from one another?

I know some basic stuff, and I think I can guess some other parts.

Admire seems like the default Speechcraft option. Succeed and you raise disposition; fail and you lower it.

Intimidate success can raise disposition, and Intimidate failure will lower it, as predicted. But Intimidate will lower the target's disposition after success, if you return to the NPC later.

Bribe works like the other two: success increases disposition; failure lowers it. It also obviously costs money, with costlier bribes seeming more effective than cheaper ones.

So, questions:

1. Does it ever make sense to Intimidate? I.e., does Intimidate raise NPC disposition by a higher amount than Admire would? Does Intimidate take into account other factors besides Speechcraft skill (such as, say, Strength, or character level)? If not, it seems like Intimidate is the worst option for persuasion, since it comes with a downside for future interactions.

2. Does Bribe take into account the 'responsibility' rating of the target? It sometimes seems as though I'm more successful when I attempt to Bribe traders, commoners, etc., and less successful when I attempt to Bribe members of the Temple or law-and-order types like Redoran members. I could be imagining that, though.

Well, speechcraft success partly depends on the NPC's speechcraft skill level, not just their disposition. That may affect the results you're seeing.

I don't think Responsibility is a basic NPC attribute in Morrowind; that's an Oblivion thing.

Think about it. Someone just threatened to beat the crap out of you/rearrange your face/break some bones so you would give them imformation.

Now the same goon is back and is being all nice and cheerful.

Would you like him/her now, just because they don't need anything and aren't threatening to hurt you again?

I think its part of the coercion thing; just like if you use a spell or bug musk; it boomerangs. The npc knows you did something because they don't like you and wouldn't bother to help you. They helped you, so you must have done something shady to make it happen.

Bribing is especially useful at the start, since the chance of success is much bigger than by admiring with the low skill. Intimidation is related to the levels of you and the person you're talking to, so it will be more successful if you're a higher level and you're talking to someone of a lower level.

Don't get me wrong - I understand the mechanic; makes a lot of sense. I'm just trying to figure out if there are any advantages to trying Intimidate over Admire.

Thanks Chaka - I wondered if it had something to do with character level. So it works kind of like in Skyrim, then.