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:
- Three famous genre sourcebooks: Strike Force and Super-Agents by Aaron Allston and The Golden Age of Champions (the version for Champions Third Edition) by Chris Cloutier
- Five Organization Books: PRIMUS and Demon, The Blood & Dr. McQuark, The Circle and M.E.T.E., CLOWN, and Red Doom
- Early adventures for First and Second Edition: Deathstroke, Escape From Stronghold, and The Great Super-Villain Contest
- Adventures for Third Edition: Atlas Unleashed, The Coriolis Effect, Neutral Ground, Scourge From the Deep, Target: Hero To Serve and Protect, VOICE of Doom, and Wrath of the Seven Horsemen
- Autoduel Champions, the licensed supplement from Steve Jackson Games that combined Champions and Car Wars.
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:
- Three Justice Inc. books: Aaron Allston’s pioneering lost-worlds campaign supplement Lands of Mystery and the two-fisted pulp adventures The Adventure of the Jade Jaguar and Trail of the Gold Spike
- Five Espionage!/Danger International books: Border Crossing, Here There Be Tigers, Mugshots 2, SHADOW Over Scotland, and the Origins Award-winning campaign sandbox by Michael A. Stackpole, Stormhaven
- Three Fantasy Hero supplements: Magic Items, Mythic Greece: The Age of Heroes, and The Spell Book
- The original version of the Hero System Bestiary, written for the pre-Fourth Edition rules. (We presented the 4E version of the Bestiary in our April 2017 Champions 4E Essentials offer.)
- Robot Gladiators, the sole supplement for Robot Warriors.
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.
