Created by David Wood, this form can be used to keep track of what the protagonists in your Shatterzone game are doing, and what they are interested in doing. Remember all those neat compensations you made them take? Well, here’s how you can keep track of them.
Character Name: Put the character’s name here, along with any aliases.
Player Name: Enter the player’s name here, along with any aliases (you’d be surprised).
Current Date: This line contains both the real world date and the Shatterzone universe date (or a reference as to what adventure this is, or when during a campaign this card is in effect).
Current Adventure Agenda: On this particular adventure, what is the character “looking for” or out to accomplish? The player should state it here, plainly.
Overall Agenda: In the overall context of the campaign, what does the adventurer “want out of life?” What are the character’s long-term goals?
Hidden Agenda: Not all characters have hidden agendas. Some have hidden agendas that are the same as their current adventure agenda. But state here, if there is anything that the character wants to accomplish that he or she might not want anyone else to know about (at all, or until it’s too late).
Compensation Notes: What compensations does the character have? Organize them by mechanical and story-based. What compensations does the character have that the player does not know everything about (for example, the player might know a crime lord is out to get his/her character, but the character might not know—this should be specified)? Are there any compensations the character is actively working to get rid of?
How to use Character Agenda Forms
At the beginning of every adventure, give each player one form (or more, if you have players running two characters). The player must fill out the entire form privately, so that no one else knows what was written. This adds mystery (and distrust) to the party. The gamemaster then collects the cards and looks them over. The gamemaster can use them for reference when subplots arise, or when the adventure heads in a certain direction. Experienced gamemasters may even customize pre-generated adventures to fit with the information on the forms as they go.
It is a very good idea to keep the forms both for reference and to show players who change their characters’ agendas from adventure to adventure (while this is not totally unrealistic, people usually have similar goals over short periods of time).
It is also a great idea to save them if you want to write your own adventures. You can look at these forms and get some ideas as to what will appeal to the players in your group, and the characters in their party. If everyone has an “overall agenda” that reflects the fact that they want to be rich someday, you know that money will motivate them. If one character has an ongoing, or even a sporadic, hidden agenda that conflicts with another party member’s agenda, you can use subplots to build tension in the party. This all makes for good storytelling.
Finally, after you’ve run a few adventures, you can pull out your stack of forms and have a fun time going over them with your group. After the particular party of characters has “moved on” (either to another place or to another world), you can all have a good time looking over their development as individuals and as a group.
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