''Systems Failure'' is a
role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out ...
written by
Bill Coffin and published by
Palladium Books
Palladium Books is a publisher of role-playing games (RPGs) best known for its '' Rifts'' series (1990–present). Palladium was founded April 1981 in Detroit, Michigan, by current president and lead game designer Kevin Siembieda, and is now b ...
in July 1999.
Contents
The fictional premise for the game is that during the "
Millennium bug
The term year 2000 problem, or simply Y2K, refers to potential computer errors related to the Time formatting and storage bugs, formatting and storage of calendar data for dates in and after the year 2000. Many Computer program, programs repr ...
" scare, actual "Bugs" appeared. They are
energy being
An energy being is an alleged life form that is composed of energy rather than matter. They appear in paranormal/ UFO accounts, and in various works of speculative fiction.
See also
* Anchimayen
* Angel
* Demon
* Divine spark
* Inward light
...
s from beyond Earth (whether another dimension or another planet is not clear) that invaded at the end of 1999, leaving a
post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; astronom ...
world in their wake. The Bugs feed on energy and are capable of transmitting themselves through modern power transmission and phone lines.
The Bugs come in several varieties. There are the drone-like Army Ants who have only basic intelligence, the more intelligent Assassin Bugs who can replicate human speech, though imperfectly, and the flying Lightning Bugs, amongst others. All of them are able to turn themselves into energy or rapidly call up reinforcements. In addition to these, there are "brain bugs", a variety that can invade human minds and turn them into zombie-like servants of the Bugs.
Players take the part of survivors of this invasion ten years after it occurred. Some groups, such as
survival-oriented militias, were well-prepared for something to go wrong and so form the nuclei of stable societies and resistance to the Bugs. Military units have converged on
NORAD
North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ; , CDAAN), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and pr ...
which is using genetic engineering to create new weapons that the Bugs cannot gain control of, and to create super-soldiers, both those that have
psionic
In American science fiction of the 1950s and '60s, psionics was a proposed discipline that applied principles of engineering (especially electronics) to the study (and employment) of paranormal or psychic phenomena, such as extrasensory percept ...
powers and those who have been
mutated
In biology, a mutation is an alteration in the nucleic acid sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA. Viral genomes contain either DNA or RNA. Mutations result from errors during DNA replication, DNA or viral rep ...
into insect-like supermen using Bug DNA. In addition, there are people who have been driven mad by the stress, those who have joined gangs and seek to exploit others, and those who trade their skills as mechanics, medics, scientists, or merchants.
The gameplay utilizes the standard Palladium ruleset, the
Megaversal system
The Megaversal system, sometimes known as the Palladium system, is a role-playing game system used in most of the role-playing game
A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, or abbreviated as RPG) is a game in which players as ...
.
Reviews
*''
Pyramid
A pyramid () is a structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be of any polygon shape, such as trian ...
''
References
External links
*''Systems Failure'' official discussion board a
Palladium Books ''Forums of the Megaverse''*''Systems Failure'' a
RPG Geek Database*''Systems Failure'' a
RPGnet Game Index
{{Palladium Books
Megaverse (Palladium Books)
Post-apocalyptic role-playing games
Role-playing games introduced in 1999