In April 2017, for the first time anywhere, we presented two all-new bundles — Champions 4E Essentials and its companion, Champions 4E Universe — that, between them, gathered the entire Champions Fourth Edition line (1989-2001) from Hero Games — 65 ebooks of superheroic action.
Hero Games published Champions in 1981; it was one of the first superhero RPGs. Champions quickly went through two more editions and grew beyond its roots into modern-day espionage, pulp action, fantasy, science fiction, and giant robots. Hero later licensed the property to Iron Crown Enterprises. In 1988 Rob Bell, the Hero editor at ICE, initiated an ambitious project to reconcile all the diverse approaches of the past as one universal rules set, the all-encompassing HERO System. This led to the landmark 1989 Champions Fourth Edition, known to fans as the “Big Blue Book” for its splendid George Perez cover.
Over the next decade, Iron Crown and two licensees (Gold Rush Games and R. Talsorian Games) published over 60 superhero RPG supplements and adventures for Champions. These books, though uneven in quality, shared a brio, a sense of imagination and excitement, that fans still recall fondly.
These two offers — the largest in Bundle of Holding history — collected all 65 of the 4E superhero books from Hero and its licensees. Many title appeared in .PDF for the first time in these offers, fruits of another ambitious effort by Jason Walters of Hero Games. These titles are also sold individually on DriveThruRPG, but our two super-sized collections were the best way to acquire, at one stroke (well, two strokes), a whole virtual shelf of Champions Universe ebooks.
Questions? Check our companion post on this blog, “About the Champions 4E Bundles of Holding.”
CHAMPIONS 4E ESSENTIALS
[rulebooks and major supplements]
This first offer had all the rulebooks and the major supplements. This Essentials offer’s jaw-dropping Core Collection presented over 1,900 pages of top-quality superheroic roleplaying material — thirteen .PDFs (retail value US$97.50). The 354-page Big Blue Book itself and the HERO System Rulesbook, plus Classic Enemies and Organizations, PRIMUS and VIPER 4E, Normals Unbound and Allies, the Hero Bestiary, and more: With just these books, Champions Gamemasters have run campaigns lasting decades.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got the entire Essentials Bonus Collection with fourteen more titles worth an additional $102.50, including Dark Champions: Heroes of Vengeance for 4E, Golden Age Champions, the 4E versions of The Ultimate Martial Artist and Ultimate Mentalist, The Ultimate Super Mage and Super Mage Bestiary (plus Mystic Masters), Challenges for Champions, and both Champions Presents collections. And we didn’t forget Champions: New Millennium and its two supplements.
CHAMPIONS 4E UNIVERSE
[settings and adventures]
Customer who got the Essentials then made a high-speed Move-Through to this stupendous second collection of thirty-seven supplements and adventures. This Universe offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $98.50) included five Enemies books of supervillains, ten adventures, and the complete San Angelo: City of Heroes line from Gold Rush Games.
The Universe offer’s entire Bonus Collection had eighteen more titles worth an additional $110, including nine Dark Champions books, two collections of Heroic Adventures, Kingdom of Champions and other location books, Foxbat Unhinged, and — yes! — Champions in 3-D, the dimension-roaming campaign book that holds pride of place in every HERO fan’s trophy room.
Together these two Champions collections had a total retail value over US$400. Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) was evenly split between the two charities designated by Jason Walters of Hero Games, the National Down Syndrome Society and the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
