In February 2024 we resurrected two spectacular offers from November 2018 highlighting the early years (1981-87) of the Hero System RPG lines from Hero Games. The Early Champions Bundle had .PDF ebooks of the first three editions (1981, ’82, and ’84) of Champions, The Super Roleplaying Game plus all their superheroic supplements, sourcebooks, and adventures. And the companion revival, Early Hero System, had all the standalone non-superhero RPGs and supplements Hero published in the early 1980s: Justice Inc., Danger International, the first editions of Fantasy Hero and Star Hero, and much more, including Lands of Mystery and Mythic Greece.

These are good-quality .PDF image scans of the original 1980s hardcopy books with OCR (optical character recognition) applied. Some text is light, but it’s all readable and copiable. A few covers show wearing, price stickers, handwriting from the original owners, or other minor artifacts.

Questions? Check our Early Champions & Hero System Bundles FAQ.

1. EARLY CHAMPIONS [from Nov 2018]

There were fifteen titles in this revived November 2018 Early Champions Bundle‘s tremendous Core Collection (retail value $73.50) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the Champions core rulebook in its First (1981), Second (1982), and Third (1984) Editions (plus the introductory adventure “Viper’s Nest” and the original “Rose’s” combat map); the jam-packed rules expansions Champions II First Edition, Champions II Second Edition, and Champions III; no less than five collections in the popular Enemies series (Enemies First Edition, Enemies Revised for Second Edition, Enemies II, Enemies III, Enemies: Villainy Unbound, and Enemies: The International File); the Gadgets! book of weaponry and equipment; and the Gamemaster Screens for First Edition and Third Edition, the latter including the insert booklet with the Third Edition version of the famous Champions scenario “The Island of Doctor Destroyer.”

Those who paid more than this revival’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Bonus Collection with twenty-one more titles worth an additional $110:

2. EARLY HERO SYSTEM [Nov 2018]

This revived November 2018 Early Hero System offer presented the standalone non-superhero games, together with all their supplements and adventures. All these games use the Hero System rules and are compatible with the various early editions of Champions.

There were five complete standalone RPGs in this revived offer’s Game Collection (retail value $73.50): Espionage! and its superspy successor, Danger International, plus the introductory Espionage! adventure “Merchants of Terror“; Fantasy Hero First Edition; Justice Inc. (1920s pulp roleplaying); Star Hero First Edition; and Robot Warriors.

This offer’s Supplement Collection added thirteen supplements, sourcebooks, and adventures worth an additional $77.50:

Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to these two Hero System revivals’ designated charity, the Diana Jones Award Emerging Designer Program. Each year, the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, amplifies the voices of up-and-coming game designers by featuring them during an expenses-paid visit to Gen Con. The global Emerging Designer Program focuses on creators from marginalized communities.

The Bundle of Holding sells time-limited collections of tabletop RPG rulebooks and RPG-related titles in .PDF and other digital formats.

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