We sat down with Chris Doyle and chatted about his contributions to the RPG world, his work on the orginal Castle Whiterock, as well as his recent work on The Shard Vault & An Illustrated Journey Through Castle Whiterock. Here are the highlights:

(Chris Doyle): I’ve been working as a freelancer in the Tabletop Role Playing Game space for over 30 years. If I recall correctly, my first publication was for TSR, in Polyhedron (the Role-Playing Gamer Association (RPGA) news zine. I then had a few adventures published in Dungeon Magazine for TSR, and for the Star Wars RPG, which was owned by West End Games back in the day. To this day, I’m still a rabid Star Wars fan. During the early 2000’s and the “Wild West” of the d20 days, I was published by several companies, including Atlas Games, Goodman Games and Wizard’s of the Coast. But I found a particular comfort working for Goodman Games and their Dungeon Crawl Classics line of 3E/3.5E adventures. That led me to the original co-design of Castle Whiterock, plus a host of other titles. I even wrote 4E adventures (we don’t speak of those) and the Fifth Edition Fantasy line following 2014. And of course, the Original Adventures Reincarnated, of which I penned #1, #2, #4, and led the effort on #6. In 2020, I joined Goodman Games as the full-time Director of 5E Design and Development. During that tenure I had the pleasure to work on many cool products, such as OAR #7, 8, 9, and 10, plus the 5E conversion of Crypt of the Devil Lich, Dungeon Denizens 1 and 2, plus Terror from the UnderDeep. I certainly prefer adventure design! Last year, I “retired” although I’m still active in the TTRPG space as a freelancer.

(CD): After I finished up DCC #15, The Lost Tomb of the Sphinx Queen, Goodman Games wanted a true mega-dungeon, inspired by Castle Greyhawk. I pitched my idea for Castle Whiterock, and signed a contract to produce a 96-page softcover book. After a year of design, I realized I had way more content (and ideas!) that could fit in a mere 96 pages. I asked for another designer on the project, Adrian Pommier, and got the green light to proceed, with the infamous refrain, “Word Count be Damned!”. But we also got a 6-month deadline. Well, Master Pommier and I embraced that battlecry! For the next six months, we immersed ourselves into more design, and brought on Harley Stroh to design the Kingdom of Morrain and the city of Cillamar. I served as the project lead, navigating the design between the various writers, art requests, editing and layout. It was a rush, but we were able to get the now 768-page (!) boxed set published just in time for GenCon. The GenCon that WotC announced 4E…

(CD): Just one? Let me see. . . . Adrian [Pommier] and I both lived in New Jersey at the time that Castle Whiterock was being designed, which was a defining moment to fold him into the design process. This was the mid-2000’s, before the days of jumping on a . . . video call, which makes collaboration so easy these days. Instead, we gathered every other week at a local New Jersey diner, grabbed a table in the corner, and spread out our hand drawn maps and print-outs of our latest designs. We discussed plot, the history of the dungeon, maps, and artwork, etc. And of course, we ordered pie. Lemon meringue, apple, key lime and of pumpkin. Much pie was consumed at those design meetings. I’m sure we got many strange looks when discussing the stat box of certain monk/wizard (diviner) lich, and the undead status of General Koborth from both the staff and the other diners. But after a few weeks, the staff got accustomed to our several-hours long meetings and kept the pie and soft drinks coming. I ate much pie over those winter months….

(CD): At some point Aaron [at Studio 9 Games] mentioned this project to me as part of Mega-dungeon month, and I thought it was cool, and unique to the market. . . . Aaron asked if I could provide commentary for each level. That sounded like fun, exactly the type of passion-project I wanted to work on in my new role as semi-retired game designer. I got right to work. During that process, I was leafing through Crypt of the Devil Lich . . . and came across the part about the Clockwork Academy (sub-level 4A) getting a shard of True Death to guard for the Alliance of elves, gnomes and dwarves that opposed the Devil Lich. Wouldn’t it be cool to design that sub-level of Castle Whiterock? I pitched the idea to Aaron, and he jumped at it! I few weeks later I sent him the draft.

(CD): For Castle Whiterock: An Illustrated Journey, this is easy! The art! The original Castle Whiterock included a booklet of handouts, which was a big part of its popularity. These were letters, puzzles, pictures of magic relics, and Tomb of Horrors-style pictures of “You open the door, this is what you see.” Having these handouts available to share with the players at the game table elevates the play experience. Castle Whiterock is an epic adventure, so there should be epic props to show (not tell) the players what they see, to help them immerse themselves into the story and the encounters. This is that product! Truly unique, but a valuable tool for any GM to add to his toolbox when running adventures.

(S9G): And how about The Shard Vault?

(CD): For The Shard Vault, it gave me the opportunity to design a gnomish clockwork-themed mini-dungeon. Master Pommier designed the original Clockwork Academy sub-level, and over the years it has become my favorite level of the dungeon. It was expertly designed, had an evocative backstory (which inspired Harley’s DCC 51.5, The Sinister Secret of Whiterock), fun encounters, several key handouts, and all the gnomish trappings. Finally, almost 20 years later, I got to put my design chops to these gnomish halls. The result is a heavily guarded vault of clockwork traps and guardians concealing a powerful relic. Once the characters start penetrating the outer defenses of the vault, it will become obvious something very valuable is sealed inside. And don’t worry, you can always replace the shard of True Death with another powerful MacGuffin, so you don’t need any knowledge of Crypt of the Devil Lich to use this fun mini-dungeon. Enjoy!