General Maxson
Arcane
There are 3 ways of trying to get your way with NPCs and your partner: sweet talk them into it, intimidate them, or use logic. The chance of these succeeding not only depends on your primary stats, but also on the context.
The stats that you gather by having these discussion, will also have an impact, we'll try to clarify this (and the above) in an update.
Can you tell us will there be skills or just stats in the game? And how will skills develop? Like when you use them, or during level up?