Bill Owen, Judges Guild's co-founder

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.

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 is a regiment. I think I now prefer Frank Chadwick's new Volley & Bayonet (2nd edition) as each stand is a brigade... even bigger battles, faster. But maybe I will publish this finally because Bob wanted me to!

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 the summer of 1976! 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:

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 play aids for a game called Great Battles of World War II.

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. Helped redo a giant boardgame map for the publisher of a Battle for Berlin wargame (the website does not yet reflect my artwork). Made a General Quarters version 3 turn gauge for their WWI naval edition, Fleet Action Imminent with other naval aids here.

I have sold virtually all of my gigantic game collection (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. Click for my next wargame tour with military historian, Al Nofi. 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