My Amazing High Fantasy Adventure (Part 2 of 2)

My Amazing High Fantasy Adventure
Part 2

by

Jeffrey C. Dillow

The next part of my amazing High Fantasy adventure might be hard to believe by most of you. It certainly is hard for me to tell. To get through it, I will rely more heavily on RPG terms. This way you will instantly understand what I am saying and I can move the story along more quickly. You should also know that my character's name when I role-played was Eru, a high level warrior, and my wife's character name was Enchantra. I know, Enchantra....really! It is a name I have long been stuck with using in my books no matter how much I dislike it.

This part of the adventure involves two vast armies, a High Dark Lord, treason and treachery that expands over decades, and a Glamour so strange and powerful it baffles science today. You don't believe me, do you? I don't blame you. It is all true and not just in High Fantasy. It is true in real life. My life. So fantasy gamers, be of stout heart because at the end of this story you will believe.

The year is 1984 and my friend Paul and I are traveling back on a train from New York City. We just had one of the most unbelievable experiences in both of our lives. Earlier that month, we sent a copy of one of my books to be reviewed at a company called Rankin and Bass. This group had done a lot of animation work on Tolkien's "The Hobbit" and more recently The Last Unicorn. Rankin and Bass both agreed to meet with us. The meeting went very well and they told us they were willing to work with us to create an interactive movie. They said they would put up a million dollars if RCA would match it and use NBC to move the product. We were stunned. We had just shook hands on a deal that our "Fellows" in the lab would have to like. It was exactly what we had all been working towards. We were going to make the first interactive video for RCA and it came with outside funding!

We could not have been more wrong. From the beginning, we were met with a lukewarm reception. Our bosses went off to huddle and talk about it. Weeks passed, then months went by while upper management talked it over. In the meantime, my fellow wizards were making "Point of View" bobsled videos, detective videos, and more. I finally pushed for an answer and was told "no!" Not "why", just "no." I was devastated. This was the first time in my adventure when I had met such an obstacle. I quickly became despondent and started consorting with the wizards to try and resolve this impasse. I became so consumed with getting the permissions to make the first High Fantasy interactive movies that I completely missed the two dark armies that were marching against us and the vast destruction they were leaving in their path.

The first army advanced on my publisher, Prentice-Hall. It was called Gulf-Western and at first seemed innocent enough, but things began to change rapidly with my publisher in Reston. Again, I was too consumed and isolated in the comfort of my own lab to pay much attention to what was going on in the outside world. All I knew at the time was that my William Morris agent and my editor could not provide much help in working on a deal. Editors began leaving or resigning at Prentice-Hall. It became very clear Gulf-Western was interested in Prentice-Hall for their textbook publishing. Textbooks were sold by the millions - millions and millions, steadily every year. Computer books and vanity projects like High Fantasy were sold by the tens of thousands. A few short months later, Reston Publishing was gone. It was sacked by the first army and burnt to the ground.

I did not see the second army, headed by the High Dark Lord, approach either. This army and its Prince were well-known, but their movements were more secretive. You see, just a few months after Reston Publishing was sacked, the King of RCA betrayed his kingdom for a few pieces of gold.

To understand this part of the adventure you need to know that the founder of RCA, David Sarnoff, broke away from a company called General Electric decades before. RCA was GE's major competitor in America for consumer electronics. Sarnoff had spent his life fighting off GE and winning.

In a clandestine meeting, Thornton Bradshaw, our King, lowered the drawbridge and opened the gates to a large invading army headed by a High Dark Lord known in those days as Neutron Jack. He went by the name of Jack Welch and earned his reputation for eliminating people while leaving only the buildings standing after acquiring a company. RCA's long sworn enemy marched through the gates without a fight.

Just months apart, both kingdoms were sacked and the wizards in the labs knew they would be coming for us soon.

Two armies and a Dark Prince as promised at the beginning of this blog. Did you forget about the Glamour?

At exactly this time (we are still talking about 1985) Enchantra was stricken by an "unconceivable glamour". Her left side became completely paralyzed. The Great War wizard was stricken and she was going down fast. Multiple sclerosis was wreaking havoc on her nervous system.

Hold on now, fellow gamers. We all have read enough fantasy to know what fantasy gamers do in these bleak situations.

Eru draws his sword. We fight!

The great wizards at the RCA labs flee. These "True Ones" were working on digital codecs to compress video into a digital signal that could be pushed through wires. This is before the internet. These types of magics will not be needed for years! GE had wizards, but their focus was forced on making cheaper toaster ovens. There would be no place for wizards like the "True Ones" at GE.

I grab Enchantra, who has three babies clinging to her robe, and fight my way out. I hack my way from Princeton and head north. There, I find another enclave of wizards in Morristown. These were not as high a level of wizards as the ones in Princeton, but they were willing to take us in and shelter us for a brief time. At that time, I worked for AT&T Electronic Education and Training. These wizards had an idea that the computer might someday play a role in education. They called their magic "Distance Learning."

My focus shifted from fantasy to survival. Day by day, we survived. Days turned to months and then years. I could not stay at AT&T for long. After a while, I ventured out on my own as a "Sellsword".

The greatest medical scientists of our time know almost nothing about MS. There are no potions or elixirs to remove this glamour. But did I mention that Enchantra is a war wizard?

Slowly, the eye patch was put away for good. Feeling and sensation started to come back. The cane, "Shefast" her wizard's staff, still hangs ready if the need arises. Today, for the most part, "Shefast" remains in the mud room.

Everyone is safe again. We are all alright. This is after all, "My most amazing High Fantasy Adventure." In my world, everything works out.

So that at least partially explains what happened and why it has been over 30 years since I have even thought about fantasy. As I am sure we all can agree, "stuff happens". I am sure stuff has happened to you too.

So why now?

Surely I am forgotten; a tiny footnote somewhere.

Well, those clinging babies are grownups now. Now they are starting to ask questions. They got on the internet and started finding references about me. Amazon has an author's webpage that lists some of my books. My daughter, who is a better writer than I ever was, wants to write. The others want to help.

I grabbed some of the old charred manuscripts and began to rewrite. Jennifer, my daughter, has added her voice to this adventure by writing a Young Adult novel.

So here we are back at the beginning. I am, once again, making all of the artwork. "Can't someone help me find that lost Steranko?" I think we can all agree; however, that my covers are a lot better this time. Many of the early RPG developers are gone. It might be time now to take a look back. We plan on releasing two books this month. It might be time to take a deep breath, to dream for a little while and let our imaginations go.

My Amazing High Fantasy Adventure (Part 1 of 2)

My Amazing High Fantasy Adventure

by

Jeffrey C. Dillow

I will be releasing two new books this month from the world of High Fantasy. But before I talk about those books, I would like to give you a few highlights about my most amazing adventure with the role-playing game, High Fantasy. I hope you will find most of this story interesting and very familiar to your own RPG experience. One thing that I have noticed since writing the game in 1974; however, is that "trolls" sure have gotten a lot bigger since then.

My adventure begins in 1974 at Indiana University and then continues today in New Jersey where I have spent most of my life. You see, I am a Hoosier at heart wrapped in the attitude of a Jersey Boy.

Like most of you, I picked up the first publication of Dungeons and Dragons and tried to play it. I found it to be a beautiful concept, but very flawed and nearly unplayable. Now we are talking about the original edition. Slow down "trolls", this is not meant to be disparaging of the well thought out and fun game Advanced Dungeons and Dragons that came later.

In high school, I played every board game available. I also created games, including a world social event game that was taught in my high school as a social studies elective. So, when I picked up the first edition of D&D, it seemed unfair and out of balance. In game theory there needs to be a balance and a fairness for the players. One of the things I saw early on was that the Wizard character was more powerful and not equal in gaming terms with the other characters. Weapons were not historically accurate in their abilities, ranges, etc. Again, these were flaws I noticed among others and as we all know, were fixed in later editions.

I wrote my own set of rules at Indiana and played and tested them with friends at the school's gaming clubs. I had no intention of ever publishing.

After graduating college, two of my closest friends and avid High Fantasy players passed away suddenly in a boating accident. My wife and I took the game to the local copy business and printed up 100 copies with a beautiful orange cover where I drew the artwork. There are two amazing facts in that last sentence; one, I never drew anything in my life until then and the cover looks like it; and two, my wife was one of the earliest RPG female game players. So there non-believers. There were actually good looking women playing RPG right from the beginning.

We took our game around to conventions where we set up a large gaming table filled with handmade castles. We had complete working models of all of the adventures that were published later. We took the money made from sales and reinvested to print more booklets. We started to get noticed. We started to have lines waiting at our booth to play the game.

I think we got up to about 1,000 copies sold when we got our first big break. An Indianapolis company called Twinn K saw us and wanted to diversify their chain of products. Who was Twinn K you ask? Twinn K was the largest distributer of racing tires and accessories in the world. I guess I should also mention I am talking about "slot cars". As slot cars were vanishing, they needed to diversify. Most importantly, through the kindness of the owner we went from selling products locally to suddenly being distributed to every hobby store in America over night! We ditched my hand drawings, went to black and white, and then quickly moved to glorious full color.

Now we were selling! Now we could take those adventure stories we had been playing and publish those, also in glorious color. (Fortress Ellendar and Moorguard)

If you stayed with this story so far hang on because it is about to take off.

Reston Publishing noticed we were selling about 5,000 copies with each printing and offered to take over our publishing. Who is Reston Publishing you ask? Reston Publishing is Prentice Hall. At that time and maybe still today, Prentice Hall was one of the biggest publishing houses in the world. We had no choice but to leave the very good and kind folks at Twinn K and move our publishing. With Reston Publishing in charge, we went from every Hobby Store in America to every Book Store the next day.

That is about the time D&D, who was now being distributed by Random House, took notice. Arneson had left TSR and was suing his co-authors company. This was tough. Random House distribution did not like Prentice Hall distributers and there was a lot of discussion with Book Stores about where and how our books should be displayed compared to AD&D.

Are you still with me? Now the adventure becomes fantastic. At this point in my life my wife and I are still in Indianapolis. We were now making a meager living publishing and expanding our line of books. From my original hand drawn cover we were now starting to commission Jim Steranko for cover art. He did our "Wizards and Warriors" cover and posters. He also did a second commission, but it was stolen from the offices of Reston right before "Goldchester" was published. That is a fantastic story onto itself. I will tell it later.

So a guild of wizards noticed my books in the bookstores. These wizards lived in New Jersey and worked for the David Sarnoff Research Center in Princeton. Wait a minute. I am mixing up my gaming terms with real life. These wizards were actually referred to as "Fellows" and research scientists in real life. What is the David Sarnoff Research Center you ask? It was the premier "think tank" in America for consumer electronics owned by the RCA Corporation.

Why were these wizards...I mean scientists interested in me? Well, if you look through the old reviews of my line of books, I almost always get high praise for my adventures. One of these adventures in particular, "Murder in Irliss," had caught their eye. This is a play-your-own adventure. Unlike other adventures, it is very complex in its making. Even more important than that, I had written another adventure called "Circle of Truth" that was about to be published. It is incredibly complex in its structure. I did not know it at the time, but one of the scientists told me I based the structure of the book on "State Event Processing" whatever that is supposed to mean. All I know is that I wrote it and it was perfect for "Interactive Movie" making. And interactive movies and advancing digital media is what all the wizards were interested in at that time.

My wife and I moved our little family to the Princeton area and went to work on advance uses of interactive media. So what happened? Why did I disappear for thirty years? Why am I releasing a new book now?

It has been over thirty years and I did not even know anyone remembered my books until my grown children found blogs and references on the internet. If there really is any interest I will publish the answers in part two of this blog. I promise I won't wait another thirty years to answer your questions.

In the meantime, dare to start a new adventure by checking out our website at www.highfantasybooks.com and remember to like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/highfantasybooks. Our new books are set to be released on August 25th and will be available on Amazon.

A Gripping Game of Action Packed Adventure

Your humble host is thrilled to discuss High Fantasy, a game which deserves more attention than it receives. Jeffrey C. Dillow created and playtested High Fantasy through the auspices of the Simulation Conflict Club at Indiana University in the mid-70's. As far as I am concerned, this is the epitome of 'old school' – enthusiasts at the dawn of the hobby crafting what they think a role-playing game should be. Dillow self-published in 1978 and, the following year, the game gained a new cover and was distributed by Twinn-K (apparently a supplier to hobby stores). In 1981, Reston Publishing (a subsidiary of Prentice-Hall) came out with a second edition. (It is a copy of this second edition which your humble host owns.) A few adventures were released; one supplement, Adventures in High Fantasy, even included a wargaming system. By all accounts, the adventures – some solitaire, some multi-participant – were of good quality. Things were looking good: quality material, big-time publisher, and then...and then...nothing.

Was the profit margin not sufficient for Reston?  After getting their toes wet, did they decide to forgo competition with TSR and Random House?  Did Dillow – for whatever reason – decide to retire the game?  It seems that Dillow treated the High Fantasy publications as an extension of his hobby rather than as a career.  What little information I have been able to locate about Dillow comes from 'Tome of Treasures'.  It appears that Dillow himself signed up with that forum last year only to write a single message.  In that post, he mentions that the 1983 CBS television series Wizards and Warriors acknowledges High Fantasy

in “the fine print at the end [credits].”  Thanks to the magic of YouTube, we can view this acknowledgement.

"WIZARDS AND WARRIORS"

Specifically, it states, “The title 'WIZARDS AND WARRIORS' is used with the agreement of MATTEL, INC. and RESTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.”  I think it's interesting that they use the word 'agreement' instead of 'permission,' but maybe I'm reading too much into it.  While the television series has nothing to do with the High Fantasy role-playing game, this statement is a recognition of Reston's 'right' to the phrase “Wizards and Warriors.”  You see, Reston had compiled two solitaire adventures that had previously been published separately (In the Service of Saena Sephar and Murder in Irliss) and published them under the title Wizards & Warriors.  It even has a Steranko cover!  Not one of his best, but it's delightful in it's own way.

Image appropriated from The Acaeum

I am of the opinion that the name 'High Fantasy' contributed to the game's obscurity.  I mean, more famously, the phrase refers to a genre; people are much more likely to think of the genre instead of associating the term with a product.  The title 'Wizards & Warriors' may have been an attempt at cultivating a viable brand for the product line.  Alas, the product line was discontinued.  Had Reston published a polished third edition with Steranko quality art and a Wizards & Warriors brand, I think it would have a viable fan base thirty years later.  Even so, the game deserves a reprint – if only from a print-on-demand publisher – for the ideas it presents.