I saw mention that shouting in towns and taverns would cause npc's to approach and suggest places to search for more. True or false?

go shout at a few and find out

Also, Greybeards.

Shouting sometimes triggers a courier finding you and giving you a note 'From a Friend' that has a Word Wall location.

wow, of course you do not have to cheat in order to find shouts.

Yep, has happened to me. You get a letter from a courier

This. I've only gotten one letter from the Courier, but it helped. Other than that, Shouting in town just makes the guards mad at you (with pointless threats).

Also, at a point in the Main Quest the Greybeards will occasionally reveal a location of a word wall if you ask them. Other than that, get your butt out there and start exploring.

I have with no luck, just guards telling me to shut up. So I'm not sure if it's only certain towns.

I found one word on my own, one in a quest dungeon and the rest were from the beards.

Random wandering is a pretty tough way to go. Doing the same with finding ore and am wondering I'd there's a better way. Seems like the smith mechanic is best to work with leather and hide to give the same bonus and quickly climb up to making the armor I want.

Also, sale prices are crap so if I'm not making it for myself, there's little reason to make it for sale.

Go to the Graybeards at High Hrothgar and talk to Arngier (sp). He will tell you where one is and mark it on your map for you. You can apparently do this more than once.

It isn't just in towns. It's everywhere you travel. Say you find a cave and decide to explore it, in that cave you use a shout x number of times. After this a courier will come up to you when you return to a city. The letter will say " People were blah blah when you demonstrated your power in the super awesome cave"

There doesn't even need to be any humans for this to activate.

Example. I found a cave with only trolls in it. I used Aura Whisper a few times in the cave. When i returned to town the courier still handed me a letter anyway. In short, it can happen anywhere and happens A LOT. I've accumulated around ten or so of these letters, even getting more letters from the places where the letters have directed me to. Don't just stand in a town and shout, that won't work, explore and use your shouts as you normally would.

I've also only ever had guards tell me to shut up.. no one has delivered a note or anything.. But I haven't had any trouble finding words and there's plenty of dragons about so I haven't had to go without unlocking words. I guess it just depends on how you play.. I'm doing a total exploration play.. crossing off every single place on the map as I go and not worrying at all about quests.. I take the quest when I find it and complete it when I get to it. Probably makes it easier to find word walls doing it this way. They sure do turn up in unexpected areas.. Some are in tombs or dungeons.. but a few are just out in the open in minor areas on the map. A couple didn't even have dragons or dragon priests guarding them.. just walked up, got the word and left.

yeah aura whisper seems to work well, the guards wont tell you off for shouting

Yeah, I've gotten that courier note close to a dozen times. Every few dungeon runs, one will run up to me in a town or village with a "note from a friend".

Throw a health stealing enchant on every dagger you make and it's worth a crap ton more! There's also a couple good ones for leather bracers that'll jack up the sale price quite a bit.

It happened to me once. I think if you go back to a save before you hand the dragonstone to the mage in whiterun you should take a look at it.

The prices at war maidens seem to svck. Is that likely due to low speech or the need to sell elsewhere?

I'd been trying to avoid most things magical because my nord is but a simple fighter but I think I'm missing out due to that. Must work on enchanting then.

I used to have the same problem, but then I too... nah, no time for arrow/knee jokes. Seriously, though, I did have the same problem, but then I found out you can ask Arngeir at any point if he's located a word wall. I no longer need to ask him, though, because I can't seem to stop the courier from finding me everytime I return to Whiterun. Shouting within Dragonreach is usually a good place. Use the shout that makes you become ethereal to shout in a guards face. If nothing else, it's funny

Two birds, one stone.

You can indeed ask the greybeards for new locations over and over again.

Im curious whether this note from a friend is always a completely random shout or an upgrade of something you used. Greybeards ones are totally random from what i can tell

The note is random, but I suspect that it favors new shouts early on, and upgrades later.

Walk up the nearest mountain. Usually has some sort of word wall on it. Take the mountain near Shor's Stone for instance.

No need to be in towns, although I'm sure a few guards will attack you if done wrong. I've had a lot of the "letter from a friend" and I've never once shouted in a city, just out and about in the world.

Look for a dragon head on your compass and head towards that. It's a word wall, but I think they're the ones guarded by dragons

i have also gotten letters from couriers, after shouting in regular dungeons