A Year in the 5E Driver’s Seat for Chris Doyle In late 2020, Chris Doyle joined Goodman Games full-time as the Director of Product Development for our 5E lines. It’s hard to believe he’s been with us for a full year now! With Michael Curtis coming on board to handle DCC product development, Chris is now his own half of a supercharged design leadership team, and it looks like Goodman Games has great things on the horizon. We recently cornered Chris to ask him a little bit about what this first year of full-time design work has been like. Chris, you’ve been Director of Product Development for 5E at Goodman Games for a little over a year now. What have been the highlights of that first year? CD: Where to start? I enjoy the flexibility of working remotely. In my previous career, I had to travel all over the Northeast. Many days I’d spend 5 or more hours driving to and from a site, or sitting in traffic before my “workday” even started. It’s great to get all that time back. Another highlight was putting out an open call for 5E writers and editors. We received over 100 applicants from one web post! Culling through them was a task, but we ended up with a solid team of 5E contributors. And, of course seeing Temple of Elemental Evil through editorial, artwork and layout was rewarding. I can’t forget the joyride that was the Crypt of the Devil Lich, from the 5E conversion to all the playtests, and then an exciting Kickstarter campaign.  Tell us about a day in the life of Director of Product Development. How much do you game, how much do you write, how much time do you spend in meetings? CD: I’d say I spend an hour or so each day in Zoom meetings, corresponding to emails and lurking on discord. Its most of the latter two, with very few Zoom meetings. The rest of the day is spent writing, planning, and reviewing others content. Some days I spend six hours or more writing, other days it’s more project planning, Twitch Show Prep, scheduling, etc. when I was a freelancer, there was always a crunch to get things done, due to real-life intruding on design. Now, I have the freedom to plan, write, do more planning, tweak things, etc. It’s a much more conducive creative process, which is refreshing. Playtesting is probably the best part of the job. I’ve played more 5E the past year than the previous 5 years combined! Nothing grows your foundation in a rules system than seeing the rules in action.  What big projects are taking up a lot of your time right now? CD: Right now, it’s all about finishing the 5E conversion of Dark Tower. So many NPC stats that need 5E write-ups. I underestimated those, despite Jennel’s warning. And Dungeon Denizens is moving along through the latter stages of editorial and artwork. Plus, directing a team on the early stages of Project Stomp. I understand you like to give code names to future products. Can you tell us about anything that’s still in the code-name phase? CD: I love to give future products code names. It adds a certain level of mystique. For OAR #1, its code name was Project Into the Unknown. Back in the day, Castle Whiterock was called Project Black Osprey, a play on words from Greyhawk. Generally, the project name has something to do with the theme. Project Stomp, for example, prominently features giants. Everybody keeps asking about Dungeon Denizens. What’s the latest update there? CD: I’ll be honest, a full-color book of 500 monsters...