Today I'm taking inspiration from a tremendous post by Improved Initiative. Go check out his blog, it's some great stuff.
He was talking about the role of graffiti in making a town feel vital and lived in, and I thought it was a fantastic jumping off point that just needed one thing: a generator table. I took some time to put together a first draft of a graffiti generator table for a typical fantasy world. It's a mix of rumor mill, plot hooks, and flavor text; and any of it might or might not be true, up to date, or accurate in your game world. Try it out, comment below with your own contributions, and have fun.
Graffiti Generator Table
1 "Sardin McClint's store sells stolen stuff."
2 "Albion knows every girl at Miss Hattory's"
3 This is a strange symbol in a single color (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a gang tag, and will allow the players to search the city, surveying the borders of various rival gangs)
4 Ornate lettering spells out "This is Vandalism"
5 There is a crude portrait of the town sheriff, made to look cartoonishly obese.
6 "Nearland steel is a hoax"
7 "Jericho was here"
8 "Flora Cooprider hexes hogs"
9 You find a crude drawing of, . . . let's just call it anatomy.
10 "Nymphs dance at Ash Cay"
11 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating a safe place to beg)
12 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating that the police harass beggars here)
13 You see a very simple symbol (a successful streetwise or similar check will identify this as a hobo sign indicating that there's an aggressive dog in the area)
14 "Trinkets for sale, inquire inside"
15 You see a portrait surrounded by an ornate painting of a frame. At the base of the wall is a small pile of flowers that have been left by others.
16 "Buy Enid Pott's Meat Pies"
17 You see the symbol of a defunct and near-universally hated army, defeated nearly a century ago.
18 "Dwarves not welcome"
19 "Tam Beck summons dead"
20 A well composed piece of genuine art, painted on a wall around fifty feet above the ground.
