I put out a general call to see if anyone had any questions for me
about Pressure and TTRPGs in general, and here are the first four.
From Joseph Wolf
Are Pressure and
Dark Places in the same setting?
They are –
Those Dark Places was more of a concept with a focus on crewmembers
and a vague background to give the setting a bit of depth, but
Pressure is much more filled out, has a complete campaign setting and
even a history up to the year 2345. This will hopefully spark ideas
and adventure seeds for GMs to take advantage of, and really sets the
mood.
What's the game
content focus in Pressure vs. Dark Places?
Those Dark Places
was focused on the small ships with small crews out in the middle of
nowhere, blue-collar workers just trying to get by and deal with the
problems and terrors they faced. I was trying to capture that sense
of helplessness in the far reaches of the cosmos to help heighten the
tension, so the players would have to rely on their own wits to
survive.
Pressure is the
reverse of that – the game’s focus may be on SOS teams, special
military squads sent out to deal with these problems, but the players
can now create any kind of PC they want and play the game as they see
fit. They can still play crew members in the middle of nowhere or
play the Pressure’s default game which is the SOS squads, but they
can also play any kind of person doing any kind of job in any part
of the explored galaxy. Want to play a detective in a HyperCity on
Earth, Blade Runner style? No problem. Want to add some cybernetics
and get a bit Ghost in the Shell? There’s rules for that. Want to
be the one good cop on a bad mining station? Go for it. Want to jump
from space station to space station as a jobbing crewman, or an
entertainer, or a reporter trying to uncover the latest corporate
scandal? Absolutely. With the new skill system that enables character
progression and longer campaigns, as well as the ability to create
your own skills to suit your PC concept, the sky is no longer the
limit.
From Jason Riffle
Are there any
supplements planned for Pressure aside from Reports/Adventures?
There are –
it’s my intention to create some follow-up material in 2024 that
goes into more detail about certain factions and corporations in the
setting, some focus on starships and stations (everyone likes a good
deckplan, after all) and even some expansions and/or rules options
that groups might want to take on board to suit their table. I’m
already getting some great feedback on how some gamers are
interpreting the rules and - as I’m a great believer in games not
being played RAW but modified to suit individual tables – I’m
hoping that these groups will share their preferences, house rules
and modifications.
Will Those Dark
Places continue to receive support? Since the rules appear largely
interchangeable, this may be a distinction without a difference.
All future
material will be using the rules introduced in Pressure, but as the
basic rules are exactly the same they will all be compatible with
Those Dark Places. If, for any reason, the differences don't allow that I will incluide seperate entries for both games.
This game seems like
a great fit for convention play. Does your personal imprint or Osprey
Games have convention support for GM's?
There’s nothing
available that’s focused on convention play, but this is a great
idea and may be worth visiting before the conventions begin next
year.
What projects are
you working on that you can tease?
I can’t tease
much, but I’m continuing to support my successful Deep Space RPG,
I’m in the process of completing an adventure for a huge license
which you’ll find out about in the next few weeks, and I’m
building a whole new game for a client which we’ll see by March
next year. That’s all I can say!
James Everington
If you could write
the official RPG for any existing IP what would it be?
Right now,
there’s only one I’d write with a passion; Robin of Sherwood, the
HTV show from the 1980s. I’ve already approached the license
holders for it and they have decided not to proceed with a tabletop
game as it’s not part of their plans for the IP, so we won’t see
one any time soon. Which is a shame because I’ve pretty much
written it!
If ‘Those Dark
Places’ was your Alien and ‘Pressure’ your Aliens, what can we
expect from your Alien 3? (Obviously there’s nothing after that,
since they rightly stopped the Alien franchise after 3 films….)
I’ve been
giving that some thought and, considering that the entire universe is
now opened up as a setting in the Pressure rulebook, I’m not sure
where else I can take the concept that you can’t already do with
the options I’ve already given.
Saying that,
there is a hint that players can reach something called ‘Elite
status’ once they’ve maxed out all of their skills, and that this
leads to a career in something beyond the realms of both Those Dark
Places and Pressure. I think I know what I want to do with that
concept, but it will probably require a whole new approach to the
game and an entire new game system. We’ll see!
How can new players
be best brought into the TTRPG hobby without it being by D&D?
Honestly, I think
D&D is probably the only way that many new players get into the
hobby, and while that’s a shame for many smaller games I don’t
think it’s a terrible thing. We can’t get away from D&D being
the juggernaut that it is so the best we can do is to make sure that
new gamers see us jumping up and down behind the stack of D&D
media, and that they see us waving our games for their attention. If
we write it, they will come.
Would you have gone
back for Jones?
God, no. I love
my cat but let’s be honest…
From Jim Stryker
Why are Con and
Ranged Specialist skills? It seems counter-intuitive.
Specialist skills
require training or some kind of experience to use, and I felt that
you would need training with a gun in this universe considering
they’re coil weapons so need to be handled differently. To be
honest, if you put any gun in my hand right now I wouldn’t have the
slightest idea what to do with it other than what the movies have
shown me, I’d need training.
If you were to try and intentionally
con someone successfully then you must have had some experience or
honed that skill to be effectively dishonest or misleading. Con
artists spend a time perfecting that skill to be convincing and it’s
not something that comes naturally to everyone.
Saying that, I
played a game of Pressure recently in which I dropped the need for
specialisations and everyone had access to the skills, rolling their
basic attribute if they didn’t have any skill points spent. It was
a great game and gave it a much more adventurous feel, as well as
helping the PCs in situations they would have otherwise struggled.
The rules as written, though, are meant to focus on individual
strengths and weaknesses, which means that groups have be much more
focused on a good spread of skills.
