First Patreon Content and Two New Features

Tomorrow, March 15, our first Patreon content is scheduled for release. Barring being eaten by tigers or some similar fate, I’ll be sending out copies of the free material to everyone who has purchased the game through itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Patreon Rewards

Tomorrow’s release introduces how we will be structuring our Patreon content going forward. Patreon content will be released in 3-month arcs. Each arc will contain 3 NPCs for free for anyone who wants them to put in their own games. Each NPC will have a background, stat-block, and a timeline that works with the overall story-arc.

For the Scout Level ($1 a month) you receive a location associated with the NPC of that month. For this first story arc, all three NPCs are tightly linked to their locations. But in future arcs these associations may be a little looser.

For the Organizer Level ($3 a month) you get the location and either an adventure overview or an adventure scene. For the first month of an arc, you’ll get the adventure overview. For the following two, you’ll get a scene each month that can be used in the adventure or slotted into other adventures.

Timeline Adventures

A Bite Out, our first Adventure Arc, highlights something that I’ve wanted to get back to with The Worst Days since its first adventure. Timeline adventures are written with the idea that the players are not at the heart of events but are living in a world where the events are going on around them. Each timeline adventure will be released with a timeline that highlights the goings on of a dozen or so locations within the adventure setting. It will allow players to move around in a setting and GMs to know what’s happening wherever they go at any given time.

Timeline adventures allow different groups to play in the same space and experience the same events entirely differently.

Destinations

Destinations in The Worst Days are specific location settings that many different adventures can take place in. The first Destination that players will be introduced to is Singleton, USA (a little ironic programming joke there, thank you). Singleton is small-town anywhere with a movie theater (the Gilded Falcon), a bowling alley, a regional radio station, and plenty of things to do (and also, ironically “nothing” to do for most young people). Singleton will be delivered to players through A Bite Out and following adventures, allowing GMs to pick and choose the pieces of the town they want to use for their own stories, or to set their stories in Singleton itself (by that or any other name).

Singleton is the “Small Town” Destination for The Worst Days, but there will be more. The “Beach Town” Destination is, of course, “Horror Beach” which will feature in the next story-arc, and the “College Town” Destination just outside of Laracette College. Smaller destinations will include places like Slumpo’s Pizza Kitchen.

Destinations should be treated as “renewable” by GMs and players, such that any horrific supernatural tragedy that befalls them can be safely swept away into another history or timeline if they want to play another adventure there that takes place some time in the future or past. Or they may be treated as continuous so that the monstrous history stays with them for your adventures.

What Makes The Worst Days Different

Story-Arcs, Timeline Adventures, and Destinations should give a little insight into how the Worst Days can be played, and what makes it different than some other TTRPGs.