This is Jeffrey C. Dillow’s High Fantasy (1981), the third edition from Reston Publishing. The game was self-published in 1978. It is one of a handful of RPG books published by Reston, a traditional publishing house, an experiment that ended when Reston shuttered as part of a merger. High Fantasy isn’t the first RPG published through a traditional publisher – I believe Fantasy Wargaming holds that honor – but I think it is the first RPG in a smaller paperback format. Although sized for bookstores, it remained unpopular for RPGs until it was embraced by the indie and OSR scenes.
Anyway, High Fantasy is a simple percentile system. Like many designers of the period, Dillow was inspired by D&D to attempt to tinker with rules for roleplaying. Though he landed an actual publisher, High Fantasy feels much like the product of a hobbyist. Compared to other systems at the time, it is light and straightforward (though it features an intimidating looking, though ultimately easy to use, resistance table for combat), which probably did it no favors among most players of the time. Still, it is sort of a diamond in the rough. And someone was buying it – Reston put out several books of adventures, one of which even boasted cover art by Jim Steranko.
The art in this book isn’t so high budget. The cover art is kind of amazing but I can’t quite make out the artist’s name – Larue Wells, maybe? The interiors are about what you’d expect, which doesn’t make them less charming.
Oh, and everything I’ve found about High Fantasy says that the adventures are where it is at. This book has a lengthy (360 entry) solo adventure by Craig Fisher in which you take the roll of Xenon, a visiting noble, escaping the emperor’s palace during a coup. Dillow makes much of its difficulty and there is an elaborate maze to navigate. That said, I lucked my way through without a single combat and escaped rather easily. It was pure accident! Despite that, I found it rather thrilling for what it is and would play it again if it seemed to have more endings (I saw only three potential endings, not including the “you’re dead.”).
