(25/41: 1981) STEVE PETERSON
The Convention Floor, 1981
In the summer of 1981, at Pacific Origins in San Mateo, two men sold roughly a thousand copies of a 56-page staple-bound booklet from a print run of fifteen hundred, hand-collated. The booklet was called Champions. Within five years, the ideas inside it—comprehensive point-buy character creation, effects-based power design, disadvantages traded for power—had been absorbed so thoroughly into RPG design DNA that their origins in that convention-floor debut seemed almost impossible.
George MacDonald created the engine. Steve Peterson made it run.
The Partnership
The attribution story is clean, well-documented, and unusually amicable. MacDonald was the mechanical innovator—he began by modifying Superhero 2044’s system during college lectures, eventually creating an original powers framework and the point-buy character creation concept that would redefine the hobby. Shannon Appelcline’s Designers & Dragons identifies MacDonald as “the primary creator of the Champions system.”
Peterson’s contribution was different in kind but not in importance. He typed up MacDonald’s ideas and spent hundreds of hours reviewing the rules, organizing a creative explosion into something publishable. Darren Watts’s account establishes they “each had half of the game,” with MacDonald designing the power-buying mechanics and Peterson systematizing the rest into a coherent, playable whole.
This distinction matters. Not because it diminishes Peterson, but because it precisely identifies what he was: an architect, not an inventor. MacDonald imagined the house. Peterson drew the blueprints, poured the foundation, and made sure the walls were load-bearing.
What They Built Together
Champions introduced three mechanical concepts in 1981 that became industry standards.
The fully developed point-buy character creation system was the most consequential. Earlier games had experimented—Superhero 2044 let players distribute points among attributes, The Fantasy Trip used point allocation for stats—but Champions was the first to apply point-buy comprehensively, covering attributes, skills, powers, and disadvantages within a unified cost framework. Steve Jackson explicitly credited Champions as the direct inspiration for GURPS, which became the most commercially successful universal RPG ever published.
The effects-based power design system was perhaps the most elegant innovation. Rather than listing named superpowers, Champions defined powers by their mechanical effects—an “Energy Blast” is mechanically identical whether it represents a laser, an ice bolt, or a magical spell. No clear precursor exists. Mutants & Masterminds and Aberrant both adopted this approach directly.
The disadvantages-for-points mechanic structured character creation as a bidirectional economy: base points plus additional points earned by taking flaws. This simultaneously incentivized richer characterization and provided mechanical balance. The concept became standard across dozens of RPG systems.
These innovations weren’t Peterson’s alone. They were the product of a collaboration where MacDonald supplied the conceptual spark and Peterson built the framework that made the spark functional. Both contributions were necessary. Neither alone would have produced Champions.
The Architecture
The Hero System that grew from Champions is one of the most internally consistent RPG frameworks in history. Its core principle—that everything from superpowers to magic to technology is built from the same point-cost toolkit—creates genuine mechanical coherence across genres. The 3d6 bell curve produces predictable probability distributions. A unified Endurance cost governs power usage consistently.
The system supported six editions across more than four decades. It sustained multi-year, hundred-session-plus campaigns. The point-buy framework scales from street-level 75-point characters to cosmic 500-point entities using identical mechanics.
It wasn’t perfect. Strength was systematically undercosted, producing near-universal high-Strength characters. Disadvantage gaming provided essentially free points. Character creation could take hours for experienced players, far longer for newcomers. High-powered characters rolled fifteen to twenty dice for a single damage attack.
But the architecture held. Six editions. Forty years. The bones Peterson helped design proved strong enough that others could build on them for decades after he left.
Who Built on It
The propagation evidence is specific and documented.
GURPS is the most significant direct descendant. Steve Jackson began developing it the same year Champions debuted, announced it in 1983, and published it in 1986. Jackson specifically credited Champions as the inspiration. GURPS adopted point-buy creation, advantages/disadvantages, 3d6 bell-curve resolution, and the universal system concept. As Darren Watts acknowledged: GURPS learned from first-edition Champions, and Champions stole back for the third edition.
Mutants & Masterminds traces a direct lineage. Designer Steve Kenson wrote material for Champions before creating M&M, which adopted point-buy creation and effects-based power design. The influence also ran through White Wolf’s Aberrant, whose power construction system was shaped by Champions.
The third-party ecosystem was substantial: BlackWyrm Games, D3 Adventures, and others published supplements. Hero Games produced two periodicals—Adventurers Club and Digital Hero. The fan-produced APAzine Haymaker ran for over two decades. Champions expanded into comics through Eclipse and Heroic Publishing, and into digital gaming through Cryptic Studios’ Champions Online MMORPG.
Ron Edwards, co-founder of The Forge, Kickstarted Champions Now in 2018, calling first-generation Champions “the first role-playing game to hand you and a few friends a creative studio.” Monte Cook served as company lead at Hero Games during the ICE partnership. D&D 3rd Edition adopted point-buy as an alternative character creation method in 2000—a concept inconceivable before Champions demonstrated its viability.
The system Peterson helped build didn’t just survive. It propagated.
Five Years
Peterson’s active tabletop design career lasted approximately five years.
From 1981 to 1985, the output was intense: Champions through three editions, Espionage!, Justice Inc., Danger International, and the one solo-authored game—Fantasy Hero. After that, Peterson left Hero Games for Electronic Arts around 1986, transitioning to marketing and production in the video game industry.
He returned briefly for Champions 4th Edition in 1989 with MacDonald and Rob Bell. He returned again for Fuzion in 1997, a merger of the Hero System with R. Talsorian’s Interlock system. Fuzion was a critical and commercial failure—fans criticized it for combining the worst elements of both systems.
Between these sporadic returns, Peterson’s career took him through marketing roles at EA, Capcom, Activision, and Wizards of the Coast. He founded two companies. He wrote for GamesIndustry.biz. His own professional bio describes him as “an award-winning game designer, a marketer, an executive, a lecturer, marketing consultant, and journalist.”
Game design was one chapter. The most consequential chapter, but a chapter.
Fantasy Hero: The Solo Proof
Fantasy Hero (1985) matters more for what it proves than for what it contains.
It’s Peterson’s only confirmed solo design credit—a 160-page genre adaptation of the Hero System for fantasy gaming. He stripped out superhero-specific mechanics and built a fantasy-appropriate magic system, creature rules, and medieval skill set from the shared engine.
This demonstrates that Peterson could independently architect a complete genre adaptation. He wasn’t solely a refiner of MacDonald’s ideas. He could take the framework they’d built together and extend it into new territory on his own.
The work is competent, professional, and complete. It is not a revelation. It doesn’t show a designer pushing beyond what the system already promised. But it shows a craftsman who understood the architecture thoroughly enough to redeploy it solo.
One game. One proof of independent capability. That’s the entirety of Peterson’s solo catalog.
The Honest Assessment
The draft research is thorough and the propagation evidence is strong. The corrections the methodology demands are about separating Peterson’s specific contribution from the collaborative achievement.
Invention holds at 7 because the primary innovations—point-buy, effects-based powers, disadvantages-for-points—were MacDonald’s conceptual contributions. Peterson organized and systematized them into publishable form. Essential work, but organizational rather than originating. The innovations were widely adopted (which normally indicates an 8), but the primary credit for the inventions themselves goes to the co-creator. Peterson contributed to something that changed how people designed games. He wasn’t the one who imagined the change.
Architecture earns an 8—Peterson’s strongest pillar—because the Hero System passes the dual test. Quality: one of the most internally consistent RPG frameworks in history. Propagation: GURPS, Mutants & Masterminds, and others explicitly adopted structural elements. The distinction from Greg Porter’s Architecture 7 (brilliant system, zero propagation) is the documented adoption. Others didn’t just notice Peterson’s architecture. They built with it.
Mastery lands at 5 because the methodology weighs solo work heavily, and Peterson’s solo output is one game. Five years of concentrated design followed by departure. No demonstrable craft refinement over time—the system evolved additively, not transformatively. The one major departure (Fuzion) failed. Professional quality throughout, but the body of personally-authored work is too thin to evaluate higher. The 10,000-hours line is met. The master craftsman threshold is not.
The Scoring Case
Invention (7):
“People noticed.” Peterson co-created Champions, which introduced comprehensive point-buy character creation, effects-based power design, and disadvantages-for-points—innovations that became industry standards. But the primary mechanical innovation credit goes to George MacDonald, identified by Shannon Appelcline as “the primary creator of the Champions system.” Peterson’s confirmed personal contribution was systematizing revolutionary ideas into a publishable, coherent framework. His sole work (Fantasy Hero) is a genre adaptation, not a new invention. Essential contribution to something that changed the field, but the originating spark belonged to the co-creator.
Architecture (8):
“Serious engineering others noticed.” The Hero System is one of the most internally consistent RPG frameworks ever built—unified point-cost toolkit, interconnected subsystems, scalable across genres, sustained across six editions and forty-plus years. Others adopted specific structural elements: GURPS adopted the point-buy framework, M&M adopted effects-based design. Third-party publishers built supplements within the system. Known balance issues (Strength undercosting, complexity) don’t compromise the fundamental architecture. Quality and propagation both documented.
Mastery (5):
“Working designer.” Five years of concentrated full-time design (1981–1985) with sporadic returns (1989, 1997). Only one confirmed solo design credit (Fantasy Hero). Nearly all work collaborative with George MacDonald. No demonstrable craft refinement—additive evolution of a stable system, one failed departure (Fuzion). Professional quality throughout. The 10,000-hours line is crossed. The body of personally-authored work doesn’t support a higher score.
Adjustments (+5):
- ■ Longevity 10+ years: +1 (Published designs span 1981–1997, 16 years across the span.)
- ■ Full-time career: +1 (Co-founded Hero Games; game design was his livelihood 1981–1986.)
- ■ Awards: +1 (Champions inducted into Origins Awards Hall of Fame 1999 and ENnie Awards Hall of Fame 2025.)
- ■ Branded name: No. Non-gamers have never heard of Champions.
- ■ Cross-genre success: No. All designs are tabletop RPGs. No board games, card games, or wargames.
- ■ Commercial success: No. No single title generated $10M+ in lifetime retail revenue.
- ■ Design propagation: +2 (GURPS and Mutants & Masterminds explicitly built on Champions’ approach. Peterson was co-creator from day one, not a later contributor—the Trap 6 exclusion for polishers does not apply.)
The Hidden Pattern
Peterson’s career reveals the difference between building and inventing.
Inventors create something that didn’t exist. Builders make it real. Both are necessary. The methodology measures them separately because they require different skills, different temperaments, different evidence.
MacDonald was the inventor. Peterson was the builder. Together they produced something that changed how an entire industry thought about character creation, power design, and system architecture. Apart, MacDonald moved on to video games at SSI, and Peterson moved on to marketing at EA.
The collaboration lasted five years. The architecture they built together has lasted more than forty.
What Remains
The point-buy framework. The effects-based paradigm. The disadvantages economy. Six editions of a system robust enough that others could extend it for decades. GURPS learning from Champions. Mutants & Masterminds inheriting the effects philosophy. D&D eventually adopting point-buy as an option.
Peterson didn’t imagine the revolution. He made it publishable. He drew the blueprints for a house other people would live in for four decades.
That’s not the same as inventing it. The methodology is honest about the difference.
It’s also not nothing. The methodology is honest about that, too.
Total: 25 points. Year: 1981.
Total: 25 points. Year: 1981.