#there are some class specific options & ofc you can be creative with other spells like minor illusion to boost your chances

[ineskew]

played a session of d&d the other day that reminded me how much 5e isn't designed for investigation and diplomacy. it's a combat game; actual roleplay is barely supported by the rules

we spent half the session going in circles trying to convince someone to do something without knowing anything about him, and even with insight & persuasion checks to help it still took us 2+ hours to get to the heart of things. we wanted more information but couldn't figure out how to ask the right questions in character; the dm wanted to tell us but didn't know how to get us there without breaking the fourth wall. we only made a handful of rolls, and most of the session was just unstructured talking (not a bad thing, but further evidence that d&d isn't really designed for this)

i would have killed for a pbta-style "discern realities"/"read a person"/"assess the situation"/"investigate a mystery" roll to give the conversation more structure. instead of making me roll a general insight check and parceling out information my character could realistically intuit, give me the chance to ask questions directly. with the right gm, "what here is not what it appears to be?" or "how could i get your character to ___?" would have cracked that negotiation open without giving the whole game away. instead we just... kept going in circles