Games - Hero Games

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Hero Games (DOJ, Inc dba Hero Games) is the publisher of the Hero System, a generic roleplaying rules set that can be used to simulate many different genres, and was the co-developer of the Fuzion
system.

History

In 1981, George MacDonald and Steve Peterson, from San Mateo, California, printed 1000 copies of a 64 page rulebook for Champions, their super-hero role-playing game, to take to a Bay Area gaming convention. It sold very strongly, enough to recruit Ray Greer as their sales and marketing partner, and form Hero Games.

In the next years, the company published two more editions of Champions, two dozen adventures, and several self-contained role-playing games using the Champions core rules as a universal role-playing system: Danger International, Justice, Inc., Robot Warriors, Fantasy HERO and Star HERO. The games were very compatible, but each differed slightly, using new rules or costs. Hero Games used the term Hero System to describe them all.

But ongoing production and financial troubles plagued the company, and in January 1986, Hero Games made an arrangement with Iron Crown Enterprises, publishers of Rolemaster and MERP. Initially this was only to handle the game production and distribution, leaving creative tasks to Hero Games, but in 1987 ICE also took over editorial. During this period the company was led by Rob Bell.

The original partners found new interests: Greer worked for Steve Jackson Games, and later he joined a Los Angeles movie special effects company. MacDonald became Senior Game Developer at the software company Strategic Simulations, Inc.. Peterson also went into game software and technical writing, but remained most connected with Hero Games of the original three.

On August 25, 1996, ICE's role handling publishing and distribution was taken over by R. Talsorian Games, just before Iron Crown itself suffered financial difficulties in 1997. During this period, the company was run by Bruce Harlick, who had been the first official hire of Hero Games in 1982, then worked his way up to Line Editor and President. This collaboration also resulted in the Fuzion system, which was successful in itself, but an attempt to publish the Champions game under the new system as Champions: The New Millennium was roundly criticized.

In 2000, Hero Games was bought by Cybergames.com, a computer game company which Steve Peterson was working for. Cybergames.com subsequently folded, and in December 2001, a new company called DOJ, Inc. acquired all rights to Hero Games, keeping none of the remaining original staff. DOJ, Inc., consisted of two people, Steven S. Long (Line Developer) and Darren Watts (President). It was formed specifically to acquire Hero Games. The title came from "Defenders of Justice", Watts's Champions campaign.

Current Publications

Role-playing games

Besides the Hero System itself, Hero Games is also the publisher of the game Champions
, a role-playing game where players can create and play superheroes; Fantasy Hero
, where characters operate in a fantasy setting; Star Hero
, which uses science fiction settings; Dark Champions
, which simulates various forms of the action-adventure genre; and many other games. Champions, originally published in 1981, was the catalyst for the creation of the Hero System.

All of the above games, as well as nearly all games published by the company, use the Hero System as their basis. While early editions included the system rules with each genre book, this ended with the Fourth Edition of Champions
. Currently, the Revised Fifth Edition of the rules is a separate book, and the "genre books" show how to use the system to reflect the conventions of superheroic, fantasy, science fiction, and other adventure genres.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Hero Games ]

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