Thursday, September 3, 2015

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.

d6NameOne-linerAttitude to PlotTheir TipTheir MotiveAnother Person
1Jessie Harefemme fataleloves ita secret keymoneyLisbeth
2Metropolis Honésarchaeologistlikes ita dirty secretloveAdrian Ask
3Melvin Riggsdirty copit's oka stolen childvengeanceDoc Maxine
4Pal 600sentient golemmehthe brick activatorshameZita
5Citizen Janecarries canedislikes ita hidden masterrestitutionThomas Numbers
6Dude Wizardflying rughates ita coincidencesafetyMira Muffins