Morrowind:Speechcraft

Those skilled in the art of Speechcraft influence others by admiring, intimidating, and taunting them. Listeners are more willing to divulge information or to entrust important tasks to the skilled speaker.

Character Creation
The following races receive bonuses to their Speechcraft skill:
+10 bonus: Imperial
The following classes have Speechcraft as a Major skill:
Agent, Bard, Healer, Knight, Pilgrim
The following classes have Speechcraft as a Minor skill:
Acrobat, Rogue, Thief



Factions
The following factions include Speechcraft as one of their favored skills:

Blades
Census and Excise (not joinable)
East Empire Company 
House Hlaalu
Imperial Cult
Twin Lamps

Persuasion
There are four means of persuasion available to you:
; : This is usually the best way to raise someone's Disposition towards you, provided you're skilled at Speechcraft.  If you're not, this may have the opposite effect, to the point where they may even attack you. On the other hand, if you want to get attacked, but don't have the skill to taunt effectively, this may be a possible alternative, but it can take some time.
; : If you can't make them love you, you can always make them fear you instead. This technique may be more effective if you're significantly stronger than the target. Some people may not be impressed, however. Lowers Fight and raises Flee.
; : This technique is the best way to get people to hate you. Successfully Taunt somebody enough times, and they will rise to the bait and attack you. This is a good way to have an excuse to kill somebody in front of witnesses, because if they attack first, it's considered self-defense. Raises Fight and lowers Flee.
; : If you lack the skills to either Admire or Intimidate somebody into doing your wishes, a well-placed bribe may do the trick. The larger the bribe, the more likely it will work and the less skill you need. Like the other methods, bribery can also backfire and result in a decrease in disposition.

Notes
In addition to your speechcraft/Personality scores, chance of success is also dependent on the Disposition your target has towards you, as well as their own speechcraft score. Even at 100 speechcraft/Personality, you're very unlikely to successfully persuade someone at 0 Disposition in any one attempt - especially if they themselves have a high speechcraft. Try Charming them up to around 50 points first, then Admire them to higher levels; they'll still be friendly once the spell wears off.
It is possible to make a very strong yet very low cost Fortify Speechcraft spell that lasts a mere 2 seconds, which will be very effective for any desired purpose. If a Fortify Skill effect proves hard to come by (as there are none in the base game), a Fortify Personality spell will also work, albeit only about 1/5th as effective.
If you need to kill somebody, but lack the skills to Taunt them into attacking you (Taunts are much less effective once their Disposition goes down to 0), you can repeatedly bribe them to raise their Disposition and then Taunt again.  Eventually you should be able to get them to attack.  And after you kill them, you can take all your gold back again.
Some NPCs will refuse to talk to you, making persuasion impossible.  They may respond if you continually try to converse with them, but if not, there is still a trick to get around this:  Strip naked - remove all armor, clothing, and jewelry, and then talk to them.  You'll get the "Cover yourself!  Are you mad? Have you no decency?" response in place of the usual belligerent shove-off, and you can then continue the dialog as normal.  This does not work on Argonians or Khajiits, and it is not guaranteed to work on all NPCs, but in most cases, it is a sneaky way around this problem.
You can train Speechcraft quickly by intimidating the same person several times. This is more effective if you are a high level, and they are a very low one (try it on commoners). On the PC you can speed this up by moving the dialogue window's "Persuasion" button directly underneath the "Intimidate" button. Fast clicking can beef it up nicely.
If a person has 0 Disposition towards you and your first successful persuade attempt fails to raise this, then all Disposition points you do manage to gain during that conversation will be lost the next time you talk to that person.
An optional patch included with the Morrowind Patch Project causes the speech menu to stay open when selecting any of the speech options, saving a great deal of time navigating back and forth between the dialogue and speech menus.