Whilst they're all relatively new to the adventure writing game, the two titles that they have out Song for the Dead, and 666: Number of the Beast (available on DM'sGuild) have been quite popular with Song of the Dead being funded in 12 hours.
Here we had the chance to chat to one of the group about who they are, what they're doing and of course who inspires them, here are Nathan's answers:
Totally Pawsome: As a creator of modules/systems for TTRPG's, what inspired you to write the one you're most proud of?
Nathan, Greedy Gorgon Press: I’d say the one we’re releasing for our first Kickstarter project, Song for the Dead. I play a 5e homegame with my two daughters, 9 and 7, and my wife, and it’s mainly improvised. Well, my 9 year old is a total min-maxer (lol) and runs a totally OP barbarian. I threw too much at them, and ended up killing both her and my wife’s PCs! I was not popular. I run a level 5 cleric, but didn’t really want to cheapen the moment by just using revivify – the spell where you bring someone back to life immediately – so, instead, cast gentle repose – the spell where you preserve the body for 10 days – and announced I had no diamonds – the material you need for revivify – but there was a diamond mine 10 days journey away so we need to leave. Right now! It turned into one of our favourite adventures together!
TP: What would you say is the best selling point of your TTRPG's?
NGGP: They’re funny. I’m quoting feedback here, but I think the phrase “cheeky as hell” has been mentioned. Also, we like to add just a little bit of heavy metal flavour!
TP: Why the TTRPG space?
NGGP: It’s such a creative, diverse space. There’s such range and imagination that it’s just lovely to be a part of this space. The community is wonderful, and it is a genuine delight to meet, chat, share ideas and have a laugh with so many people who come from so many backgrounds and yet share this passion for TTRPGs. It’s this passion that’s so apparent that makes the TTRPG space so unique. It’s a bit different and, dare I say, a bit more grown up that other spaces of passion, like if you say you like a particular type of music or a band, people will genuinely walk away from you if it’s something they don’t like or don’t know. TTRPG people are all like, “oh, wow! Tell me more about this!”
TP: What is your favourite product that you produce and why?
NGGP: We’re still pretty new to the game, so only have a handful of products out there, but, I’d say I really enjoyed putting together the 100 Heavy Metal Feats – the title alone tells you a lot about us! It may as well be called 100 silly dad puns about rock music and DnD!
TP: What is your current work in progress and what can you tell us about it?
NGGP: As I mentioned before, our next adventure is Song for the Dead, the campaign being launched on Kickstarter. It can be played as a long one-shot or a side quest, or can be incorporated into people’s ongoing quest. It gives an alternative to revivify, which is the worst spell in the game as it robs all the drama out of death.
It kicks in the moment a PC dies (although it can be run as a side quest where you are tasked with revivifying an NPC). You have ten days to cross a range of increasingly difficult terrain, with masses of possible encounters (all determined on rollable tables) before you get to a – totally not ominous at all – abandoned diamond mine. Why would a diamond mine be abandoned? (It’s really hard not to spoil it here because the answer is not exactly what you are expecting!)
Most importantly is time, which is the key commodity in this quest. The maths geek in me has really enjoyed working out exactly how to set it up so that there’s no guarantee you’ll make it to the mine on time! This really ups the tension in the game.
Part of the drama, or part of the absolute slapstick shenanigans depending on how you DM it, is that you have to transport the body/bodies with you. That’s why my one-line pitch is: Song for the Dead – a 5e Weekend at Bernie’s speed run.
NGGP: I’ve played and play tested my adventures with very differing groups, from my family as mentioned above, to the rest of the greedygorgoncollective (waves! Hi guys!) and we’ve always had a lot of fun. If you like 5e, you’ll like our stuff. If you like childish humour and classic rock, you’ll love it!
TP: Where do you see your TTRPG writing career taking you in 5 years?
NGGP: I can dare to dream, right? The long term goal is being able to do less of my day job and more of my side hustle – mainly because TTRPG writing is something I find so very rewarding, and, as I’m sure we all know, ticks a lot of those self-care boxes. But a little less long term than that would be to begin to work with other systems outside 5e (we’ve got a number of forged in the dark and Mork Borg ideas a brewin’) and beginning to get to a place where we can collaborate with some of the talented artists, cartographers and other writers whose work we follow so obsessively.
TP: If you were given the time and opportunity to develop something unique, what would it be and why?
NGGP: This is an awesome question. We are having a lot of fun making DnD x Rock music crossovers, so, and this kind of leads on from the last question, we’ve some ideas about producing non-5e games with the same vibes. One idea is (and I’ll sue the pants of anyone who nicks this!) Roadie – a solo journaling adventure whereby you play the roadie of a 70s superband. The big, big project though is a TTRPG based on putting a band together, and rising to the top during Rock’s Golden Age (1969-1984 – change my mind!) – though this involves perfecting our own system. So yeah, big ideas!
TP: Who do you admire in the Independent TTRPG writing space and why?
NGGP: Gosh there’s so many! I will say that I was totally agnostic about social media – I’m a dad, so I’m convinced the second my daughters go online they are getting cyber bullied and groomed by far right wack jobs – but since taking the leap and getting involved I have to say it’s been a delight. There are so many wonderful, supportive people out there (and I am totally including you in this!) but I am going to have to limit my shoutouts to the following five, whose work is absolutely stunning as well as them being lovely:
@RPCraft_publish – who ran a wonderfully successful campaign for Book of Conflict, but still takes the time to give advice and support to us little guys.
@gwritepretty – who is my DM’s Guild Sherpa! Check out his subclasses – they are perfect!
@PennyBlake1827 – who is not only one of the most positive, supportive people in the game, but whose own creativity leaves me breathless – check out BunnyJacks!
@JAMGAS_Games – who I absolutely vibe with, and whose solo adventures are metal af!
@YFTechno – Kyle is, again, not just a game design genius, but a genuine supporter of the community.
Seriously, there’s a lot of people that I could mention here, but will limit it to these five!
TP: What got you into TTRPG's in the first place?
NGGP: I love that you are asking a backstory question last! In terms of a lot of the people I know, I’m a relative noob. However, myself and the other greedy gorgons who all found TTRPGs at the same time all agree that everything we’d done previously kind of fed into falling in totally, complete love with TTRPGs.
Greedygorgonpress is made up of three best friends and English teachers whose love of games and stories was boosted by lockdown. During this time, meeting your friends for a chat and a drink became totally normalised. So we did. And we started to game together on a Friday night. And we started with … Yahtzee. Who knew Yahtzee to be such a gateway drug? That developed into us playing boardgames online, and, as lockdown lifted, starting to meet up to play boardgames together face to face. It was just prior to one of these meet ups that my wife, most fatefully and, from her point of view, possibly not without some regret, asked if I’d heard of this game where you make your own fantasy characters and go on adventures together? Would I like to try it? Well, I picked up the starter kit (Oh Phandelver and your mysterious mines!) and, as they say, that was that. Since then, one of us hooked us up with his friend, who has been our DM for years now (god love you, @ShadowRoadDm, and I promise we’ll stop doing that thing we do to the horses with mage hand … one day) and we’ve had a brilliant group running pretty much every Thursday since.
From this, for a bunch of English teachers, it’s not too much of a stretch to try our hand at beginning to write our own adventures. And an adventure it has been!
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