Hero Games
game design company
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 1,000 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 form a company, Hero Games. Later, the pair recruited Ray Greer as their sales and marketing partner.
In the following 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.
Ongoing production and financial troubles plagued the company, however, 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, followed by Monte Cook, and finally by Bruce Harlick.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hero Games” is game design company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Hero, Games and game, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5742666. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 1986 and 1987.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hero Games” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.