The Supporting Cast: What's Happening Around the Plot?

A d6 is all you need to generate your NPC encounters, random monsters, plots, treasures, spoor, campsites, and more. I know how tempting it is to go for the d100 or d20 and have lots and lots of options, but unless you're writing up a full setting supplement, you don't need that much.

In fact, I've found that for my games, what I need is usually just a couple of d6 tables to generate the whole "world" around the main campaign. There just isn't time for me to do more, or for my players to encounter more. Sometimes I'll roll for a full row, sometimes mix and match columns. The result is a table more or less like this pre-fabricated for each session. An additional table for treasure and rumors usually rounds things out nicely.

d6	Name	One-liner	Attitude to Plot	Their Tip	Their Motive	Another Person
1	Jessie Hare	femme fatale	loves it	a secret key	money	Lisbeth
2	Metropolis Honés	archaeologist	likes it	a dirty secret	love	Adrian Ask
3	Melvin Riggs	dirty cop	it's ok	a stolen child	vengeance	Doc Maxine
4	Pal 600	sentient golem	meh	the brick activator	shame	Zita
5	Citizen Jane	carries cane	dislikes it	a hidden master	restitution	Thomas Numbers
6	Dude Wizard	flying rug	hates it	a coincidence	safety	Mira Muffins