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July 4, 1976 Cover of 2008 Judges Guild History (8.5x11" 36 pages) Cover of 2011 Judges Guild History (13x11" 80 pages) Bill Owen today in Belize Misc. tour group & game design sites at www.g-design.us Bill Owen's Tour Group & Game Design are located now in San Ignacio, Belize in Central America where he lives. He is still associated with Tour Group Planners and Atlas Travel in the Decatur Professional Plaza at the NW corner of Decatur & South Main Streets: 363 S Main St Ste 175, Decatur IL 62523. His US phone is 217-619-0202 bill@game.fan.org Date Last Modified: Updates since my time at Judges Guild When I left the Judges Guild partnership in 1978, I stayed at the fringes of JG for awhile while running a more general-interest game company called Game Design. I published a travel-related game called Going Places which sold about 5,000 copies to dozens of travel agents that what used as Christmas gifts to their clients. By 1979, I then went back into the travel business full-time with my family (I had always been part time). I then sold Franklin Travel's 3 officees in Decatur, Springfield & Champaign, Illinois in 2003 to Rio Grande Travel Centers Inc. From 2007 I started a tour company focused on group tours only and software to help agents, banks, churches etc. build and publish their tours. In December 2009, we sold the covered shopping mall that was Judges Guild's first public location from 1976-1978 and our various travel businesses' location from 1968-2009. The building's shell still exists at 304 S Franklin St, Decatur IL but its "City State" decor has been swept away. Continuing as an independent contractor with Rio Grande, as of 2009 I also work through Atlas Travel and is located in the back of their office (see address at lower left) and successor to local tour group planning business, Tour Group Planners. November 12, 2011, my wife and I moved to Belize where I telecommute and continue to arrange tours and design fliers and web pages for tour leaders for the business Tour Group LLC. This long-distance work is made feasible by my TourGroupPro software. Military history tours I have designed include 1991's MILLENNIUM OF MAYHEM tour with James F Dunnigan and Al Nofi, the 1997 Tanks For The Memories, 2003 WARGAME YOUR WAY ACROSS EUROPE, 2010's European TOUR OF BATTLE hosted by Al Nofi & Francis Garnier plus Mike Mathews' Napoleonic Re-enactor tours to Austerlitz and Jena/Auerstadt. Click for my next military history tour, July 15-22, 2011 the Civil War Train with military historian, Al Nofi, in vintage 1950's train cars to Civil War battlefields out east (sold out with 45 people in 5 cars). A 2nd Civil War trip will go in September 2012 via Vicksburg, New Orleans, Atlanta, Chickamauga and Washington DC--a big triangular loop. Latest tours can be found at www.tourgrouplist.info. After leaving JG, the only product that I published with Bob was the Treasury of Archaic Names in 1979 which at least had enough staying power to warrant a reprinting and face lift in 1991. I also promised Bob that he would have right of first refusal on my Battle Brigades of Civil War or Great Battles of Civil War (nom du jour or in this case nom du generation). Unfortunately, I could never quite get it finished enough to suit me... even though it's 98% typeset and ready to upload! This miniatures ruleset was remarkable at the time (1976) because it presumed a figure scale of around 100-125 men each so each 5-figure stand is a regiment. I now prefer Frank Chadwick's new Volley & Bayonet (2nd edition) as each stand is a brigade... even bigger battles, faster. The ACW ruleset is also relevant to JG because it was the "cover" we used when we called TSR to ask if we could come up and see them in June1976! For some reason, that I cannot remember now, we didn't want to just come out and say "we want to do play aids for D&D". And once we got there Dave Arneson said, "Sure go ahead, no one will buy them any way." (!!) April 19, 2008, my buddy, Bob, died. On November 2, 2008, I released a 16,000-word, full-color history booklet of Judges Guild and my early game days plus my later time with Bob. It has 132 pictures (selling 75 copies by 11/21/08, then 85 copes as of 5/4/09). On Acaeum's JG page, Jeff G. gave this feedback 11/24/08, "Just read mine, great book about the early days. Very easy to read. I really liked it. Thanks for sharing Bill :)" The history is currently in 3 editions with a 4th, expanded large-format edition just released in late November 2012: In summer 2008, we added some JG items now that Bob Jr. has continued the joint venture that his dad and I went in on: www.cafepress.com/judgesguild ...namely a FULL COLOR classic Tegel Manor map; actually THE original Tegel Manor map that Bob used in our middle-earth based campaign that started in 1974. Plus some memorial items about Bob that will raise some money for the local Arts Council. I wrote a 1,500 word article about my time in JG with Bob for the 11/19/08 Issue #3 of Fight On! My biggest game project ever was my (10) 23x35" Normandy maps (60 square feet of detailed colored maps in 4 different hex scales) which I made for our Command Decision "Test of Battle" games. This took 7 YEARS because of the burn-out associated with using primitive software (1997 Illustrator didn't even have "layers" which I had to dummy up by tediously grouping like items) and the fact that this was a typical unreimbursed gamer project. Anyway, I have since seen what people can do with Campaign Cartographer fairly "quickly" (okay, 10 hours instead of 30 hours!) Campaign Cartographer may not be good enough to go to offset printing with with (but I would like to hear from someone who has) but amazingly nice for at-home use and perhaps the extra tweaks needed would not take so much longer. I may have to try this product some day. You can see a picture of the whole map series here. I made a Game Reference Chart at CD:TOB which comes as a part of the robo-chartmaker (unit stats charts) that Matthew in England designed. I designed the symbol art for CD-TOB's order cubes. Redrew a giant boardgame map (33x44") for the publisher of a Battle for Berlin wargame (at right) redrawn in Illustrator when the original artist seems to have made it in Photoshop and then enlarged it (causing to look fuzzy). Made a General Quarters version 3 turn gauge for their WWI naval edition, Fleet Action Imminent with other naval play aids here. So I have had fun helping out at the fringes of the wargame hobby and none of the investing and failing. Like at left, the replica German Schmeisser SMG (I got from Bob via $50 credit towards my royalty payment); went for about $1400. A copy of Chainmail ruleset (not shown here) originally paid $4 in about 1971, sold for $1900. At right, not a $1000+ item but sold some JG records to David Witts like the oldest known accounting that re-established timing of when we went to TSR for license permission in July 1976. I was interviewd for a podcast by the Save Or Die folks January 2011. Starting around the mid-2006, under the eBay moniker GameDesign4u I have been (still going as of February 2011 with 506 100% satisfied customers) selling off my gigantic game collection, the White Fang Vault containing hundreds of games and hundreds more magazines and play aid from the late 1960's and early 1970's (Bob used to call it the "greatest game collection known to western man") to fund my travel industry software since I am rather risk averse and prefer not to borrow money. I am still in the travel industry which I returned to full time shortly after Bob and I ended our partnership in the spring of 1978. You can see some of the unique items that various JG fans worldwide have bought and uploaded at www.tomeoftreasures.com and www.acaeum.com ...the latter has placed a Bill Owen Q&A topic if you have questions about olden JG items, go to www.acaeum.com/forum/about7116.html |
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