HERO GAMES EMPLOYEES AND FREELANCERS

Here at Hero Games, we've got one of the most talented, creative, and clever groups of owners and employees in the gaming industry - not to mention an equally awesome pool of freelancers who work for us from time to time. Here's who we are:

OWNERS AND OPERATORS (A.K.A. "THE POWERS THAT BE")

Darren Watts, President of Hero Games

Darren Watts was found wrapped in swaddling clothes on the front steps of a Hungarian monastery in the winter of 1821. Raised in a barn, he learned to read and write while serving as an apprentice to a cruel barrelmaker named Heinrich. He ran off to join the circus at twelve and worked for many years as a contortionist and knife-throwing target. He learned the secrets of the fakirs and even today tends to turn invisible when his concentration slips. He spent the late 18th century swindling wealthy widows in France and Denmark by claiming to be the lost Dauphin, which may actually be closer to the truth than he himself understands. In the mid-1930s he was shipwrecked on a small island off the coast of Mexico, where he developed phenomenal archery skills and found a silver wrestling mask that he wears everywhere to this day. Most recently, he was written out of continuity in a big summer crossover event and came to work in the game industry. This is the only photograph we have been able to find of him, since he firmly believes that cameras steal the soul of their subject.

You can reach Darren via the Contact Us page.

Steven S. Long, HERO System Line Developer

In addition to being one of the owners of DOJ/Hero, Steve also works for the company as HERO System Line Developer. That means he's the chief creative person - the guy in charge of planning, writing, editing, and developing manuscripts for publication. In addition to doing a lot of writing and design himself, he reviews proposals from hopeful writers, contracts freelancers to write books for Hero, and things like that.

Steve's been involved in the gaming industry for nearly ten years. He got his start right here as a freelancer for Hero Games. He wrote Dark Champions, Justice Not Law, An Eye For An Eye, The Ultimate Martial Artist, The Ultimate Mentalist, Watchers Of The Dragon, and lots of articles for Adventurer's Club, The HERO System Almanacs, and the like. He soon branched out into working for other game companies, such as White Wolf Game Studios.

In 1997, Steve quit his job - he was a practicing trial lawyer - to try game writing and design full-time as a freelancer. Thanks to skill, determination, and luck, he soon had plenty of work. During this time he wrote for lots of companies, including White Wolf, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Steve Jackson Games, Last Unicorn Games, and Chameleon Eclectic. His work on Last Unicorn's Star Trek RPG lines soon earned him a full-time job with the company as Deep Space Nine RPG Line Developer. He held that job for about fifteen months, until Wizards of the Coast bought LUG. He then became a Designer for WOTC, working on (among other things) the Wheel Of Time RPG.

After leaving WOTC in December 2000, Steve was hired by Decipher, Inc. to work on its new Star Trek and Lord Of The Rings RPGs. He contributed substantial portions of the two Trek core books, but spent most of 2001 writing almost all of the LOTR RPG. (All told, as of late 2001, Steve's written, co-authored, or edited/developed over 70 RPG products.)

After becoming part of the DOJ team of investors that bought the Hero Games assets, Steve's now got his dream job, HERO System Line Developer. It's a lot of work, but no one's heard any complaints out of him. ;)

Steve, who's in his early 40s, holds down the Hero East office in scenic Greensboro, NC with the help of his cat Osiris, Small Fuzzy Guardian of the Universe. He's a graduate of Duke University and Duke University School of Law (go Blue Devils!). During those rare moments when he's not doing something related to gaming, his hobbies include origami, calligraphy, reading, complaining that all the good women are taken, and being a young curmudgeon.

You can reach Steve via the Contact Us page.

The Secret Masters

The other owners of DOJ choose to keep their identities secret at this time, but we may reveal more information about them in the future....

HERO EMPLOYEES

Darren and Steve certainly can't run Hero on their own - they need some talented employees to help produce and market their books. And those folks are:

Tina Walters, Office Goddess

A rags to riches to rags story:

Tina was born the son of a poor black sharecropper. When she was 18, her mom said to her, "Ya know you ain't really our son."

No, wait....

Tina Walters is the Hero Games office manager and warehouse manager - or as we like to call her, the "Office Goddess" or "the brains behind the operation." ;) Unlike most residents of the Bay Area, she was actually born and grew up there. Once upon a time, there was a dot-com boom in San Francisco, and her husband's business was doing so well that she got to be a housewife for a couple years. Then the dot-coms crashed and she had to look for a job.

Her husband, Jason "Secret Master" Walters, happened to be in Darren Watts's gaming group. They had recently met Darren through a very strange dot-com drama that you can ask her about sometime. She had heard Darren mention he would need an office person soon, so she put her name in the hat, was hired, and started working at Hero Games in May of 2002.

In 2007 Tina and Jason moved to Nevada, where the Hero Games warehouses are now located. She keeps everything organized and everybody paid so Darren and Steve can write more books. In her spare time (what spare time?), she plays with her dogs Snap and Michelle, watches movies, volunteering at the local high school along with her husband Jason, and generally causes havoc. ;)

"That's my story and I'm sticking to it." - Tina

You can contact Tina via the Contact Us page.

FREELANCERS

Aaron Allston

Aaron, a game writer and Hero fan from way back, is perhaps best known these days as a New York Times bestselling author of various Star Wars novels and other great works of fiction. He wrote the 5th Edition Champions genre book for us.

Scott Bennie

Scott Bennie is a long time Hero contributor, whose first Hero work, "Nova," was published in Adventurer's Club #4 in 1984. Since then his Hero work includes editing and developing Villainy Unbound and Classic Enemies, co-authoring VIPER with Cliff Christiansen and VIPER: Coils Of The Serpent with Steve Long, and writing Day Of The Destroyer, Villainy Amok, and Champions Of The North. He's also written and produced Gestalt: The Hero Within, a Champions campaign setting published by BlackWyrm Games.

Scott seems to like the system.

Jim Cambias

Those of you out there who haven't heard of Jim don't know what you're missing. He's one of the best writers in the gaming industry today, and he has a background in hard science to boot. His credits include being the co-author of the Star Trek Roleplaying Game from Last Unicorn Games and GURPS Castle Falkenstein from Steve Jackson Games, and the sole author of GURPS Planet Krishna and the forthcoming GURPS Planet Of Adventure and GURPS Mars. Additionally, in 2001, two of his short stories, "A Diagram of Rapture" and "The Alien Abduction," both of which appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, were nominated for the prestigious John W. Campbell Award. Naturally, with a resume like that, we got him to write the 5th Edition Star Hero for us.

Bob Greenwade

A resident of Corvallis, Oregon, Bob is a sort of "Jack Of All Artistic Trades." Besides writing game supplements and articles he composes music, writes and acts in plays, builds artificial "constructed languages" (conlangs), and regularly makes creative suggestions on the viewer message boards for the TV shows Junkyard Wars and Full Metal Challenge. His first published gaming work was "Fibber McGee's Closet of Caltrops" in Grimtooth's Traps Too from Flying Buffalo; he later went on to also make larger contributions in Flying Buffalo's CityBook II: Port O'Call and CityBook VI: Uptown!, as well as providing two characters for Gold Rush Games's Denizens Of San Angelo. His work for the 5th Edition HERO System, The Ultimate Vehicle, is the first book with his name on the front cover. He's also written numerous articles for Hero's Digital Hero PDF magazine.

Michael Surbrook

Michael Surbrook started playing Champions in 1985 and hasn't looked back since. Before "turning pro" he wrote for the Haymaker! APA for several years. His first paid work was the Kazei 5 anime-cyberpunk-style setting for the 4th Edition of the HERO System. For the 5th Edition, he's the author of Ninja Hero and both volumes of The Asian Bestiary. He's also written numerous articles for Hero's Digital Hero PDF magazine.