Anyone know how to set up a dialogue that basically forces a Goodbye event after it finishes playing and is the first/only thing an NPC says when the player talks to him?

I currently have a blocking branch with a single greeting topic with 3 randomized info variations. With all the correct (I assume) conditions on them and the goodbye flag set for each, I cannot for the life of me get any of them to show up in-game (as subtitles). When I tested a Debug script on them, it does indeed message me correctly, but the dialogue doesn't lock in (I can still move around) and the subtitles doesn't appear to be working. When I turn off the Goodbye flag, everything works except that I want the dialogue to exit when it's finished instead of giving the "..." topic.

So does anyone know of any work-arounds or fixes?

Edit: got the audio to work, but I really would like to have subtitles to work for players who prefer reading/clicking through fast/or deaf.

The CK has a dialogue bug (search this forum if you want details). Any dialogue you create - or vanilla dialogue you edit - is likely not to be seen or heard. Everyone - and their mother - is waiting for a fix

You may or may not be experiencing the bug ... here's a way to test/get around it (sometimes, for some people):

Load Skyrim with your mod active
Start a new game (coc or sit through the intro)
Save that game
Exit to main menu
Reload the saved game.

Does it work? If it does, you were bugged.

Here is a link to the current version of the Dialogue Bug thread modders are doing: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1403919-dialogue-no-longer-works-thread-2-quest-bug-dialogue-scenes-etc/

You should be able to set the dialogue to Force Subtitles.

This is not the save/resave bug though (and yes it's hellannoying, I went through at least 80 tests sessions today having to deal with that crap) or even the bug that requires saving, reloading, and saving the package in the CK. This is just a weird thing that happens with the subtitles not showing, even if they're flagged as forced, when treating Blocking Branches as greetings.

And apparently the only solution I've come up with was having the player toggle on "General Subtitles" (instead of just "Dialogue Subtitles"). I'm pretty sure that could be counted as a bug too since I am, afterall, flagging the dialogue to show subtitles.

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood you

And sadly, Force Subtitles does not work ... You are correct that only setting Subtitles to show IN GAME works.