Idea: You can pay the Town Crier to broadcast a server-wide message.

Obviously it has to be relevant, and in character, but I say for the cost of 1000gp you can have the Town Crier make an announcement that can be heard everywhere that news from Baldur's Gate would reliably be heard (Such as anywhere in the city or surrounding farmlands.)

Also make one just for the Underdark, etc.

I can see it now,

'Hear ye, hear ye, You're all butts.'

How about five gold a word or something? In general, I would think criers would be known for their memory and such and as such, would be paid for that service. Not one flat fee for a message, but maybe a few coins per word, so that you'd be wanting it short and to the point.

Someone with 5000 gold can, at 5 gold a message, say a 1000-word message. A short book of 50000 words only costs 250000. Do you want rich people broadcasting an entire book?

You must be joking.

I doubt a town crier would want to try to remember more then a paragraph or two, much less a book.

Honestly, five gold a word, up to x words per message sounds fair.

The idea is to make a town crier a feasible thing for anyone to use, not make the thing completely ludicrous.

Now if you want to re-create a book, we can always look into inventing the printing press.

this is a good idea. maybe to eliminate the

it could be a list of things to choose from that will cover a variety of topics.

If this were implemented, it may make more sense to have the messages heard only within normal perception distance to the crier NPCs. This would encourage visits to the cities themselves and better reflect who and where those messages would reach.

Perhaps a local area shout in each BG area, where tow criers would go, in a first pass, Evert 5 minutes for 30 minutes.

Our couriers that carry that message to other cities' town criers?

I like the idea, specially the server wide broadcast. I would limit it to a single message text box or something and have a once per reset cooldown to prevent spam.

+1

Town Crier: "Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known to all and sundry that by Duchal decree the City of Baldur's Gate shall now welcome the persons of drow and or... wait, what?"

City Watch: "Treason! Get him!"

Crier: "No! Get your hands off me! I was paid to say this!"

Meanwhile, somewhere in a shady place a shady character snickers.

It would need to be limited to region, hence TOWN crier, not 'server wide'...

You get the idea.

In order to be implemented within RP parameters, limitations must be set. However, this would also require further restrictions. 5 players could approach the NPC at the same time attempting to have the crier broadcast their message. Which one gets broadcast? Trick question! NONE. But gold will be taken all the same.

ALL JOKES ASIDE.

The more I think about it, the more I consider this meta-game....Town Crier should be only be controlled by DM discretion....remaining true to setting, town criers would only be yelling that which was deemed 'newsworthy' or.....'for the peasants, etc' to hear, by the local leaders and authorities.....

Heaven forbid we cut our tourism profits by making our lovely village seem awful....

Yes....lets have the town criers shout about how beautiful everything is.....

*local DM plot point*

Is it possible to hook the crier's speech to a certain input mechanic like the bulletin boards?