Inspired by the Dark Age of Comic Books, Aeon Flux, and the political and social upheavals of the early 1990s, the game attempts to inspire social and political debate among its players as well as provide entertainment through playing renegade superheroes. In it, players typically play unemployed, genetically enhanced veterans of corporate wars.
The future timeline of Underground begins with a UFO crash in 1996 in the FloridaEverglades. The UFO was a small escape pod from a larger interstellar starship and contained a pair of lobster-like aliens, codenamed Alpha and Omega. While officially a secret, the entire world witnessed the crash and the secrets of the UFO leaked to the entire world within a year. Apparently, the alien technology was based entirely on manipulation of amino acid chains and advanced biotechnology, which started a revolution in genetic engineering. This resulted in major corporations and the wealthy gaining even more power and becoming far more decadent, while the poor remained oppressed even more so.
Rapper-activists Flavor Flav and Chuck D are assassinated on August 11, 1998, in Columbus, Georgia by a psychotic off-duty policeman. Their untimely deaths are commemorated in a national holiday called "Chuck D Day", celebrated on the first Monday in August.
World politics are dominated by the Second Cold War, which is a three-way deadlock between the North American Confederation, China, and the European Community.
In 2003 the United States has annexed most of Canada as the 51st through 58th states and Puerto Rico and Cuba are absorbed as the 59th and 60th States. Quebec separatists managed to form an independent Quebec and absorbed the Maritime Provinces right before the American annexation, creating the People's Republic of Quebec, a communist state allied with Neo-Deutschland. The United States, Mexico and Central America (minus the Neo-Vatican) join to form the North American Confederation.
Apartheid in South Africa didn't end until 2010, when the entire nation went into bankruptcy from worldwide boycotts. South Africa has been replaced by "New Providence", a gigantic nationwide vacation resort staffed by the South African population.
On August 1, 2011, popular Liberal Independent president Raymond Milkovich is assassinated at a "Chuck D Day" rally in Los Angeles. His vice president Saul Stevens loses to Plutocrat candidate Daryl F. Gates in 2012.
Dressing up in costumes on Halloween is now banned nationwide after an incident in which a couple dressed as Leopold and Loeb went on a killing spree, shooting anyone with a "stupid" costume. People violating the ban (like homeless "boosted" veterans) can be shot on sight due to a fear of copycats.
Computers now run on "wetware" drives that store data on artificial brain tissue. Cheap drives are run on scavenged human or animal brains. There is a black market for "wetware" provided by "brainjackers" who steal people's brains, usually by ripping their heads and spinal cords out of their bodies. People can sell their brains and get mechanical artificial intelligence computer replacements that make them happier and more productive. Entertainment media like TV is optimized to cater to people (and sentient robots) with certain brands or models of artificial brains (like the 64-MB XM70).
In 2016 the G.I. Bill is redrawn to provide either an education, or job training, or housing for up to three years to a demobilized "boosted" soldier. The Fair Housing Act of 2017 created "veterans only" housing projects; these became run-down, poverty-stricken, and crime-riddled ghettos controlled by "boosted" criminal gangs. These were concentrated in urban sprawl areas of large cities on the west coast so the veterans could be segregated and easily controlled, making Los Angeles home to the largest "boosted" population in North America.
Cannibalism is extremely popular, first gaining prominence at secret underground restaurants in the late 1990s. Instead of signing an organ donor card, people sign a card which gives their next of kin a token fee and consents to having the deceased's body processed into food when they die. The most popular fast-food chain in the world is Tastee Ghoul, which exclusively serves human flesh and gives away disposable polymer handguns in its Happy Meals.[3]Sweeney's is an upscale cannibalism theme restaurant chain (like Bennigan's, TGI Friday's, or Chili's). Boosted mercenaries who die in their employ are featured as a "Daily Special".
This is paired with psychological conditioning (the Bushmiller Process) in the form of a virtual reality simulation (called "Dreamland") that teaches them how to handle and use their new powers. The virtual world looks just like a "four-color"Silver Agesuperherocomic book, except it's ultra-violent and merciless to simulate combat conditions and desensitize the recruits to violence. Subjects are made to believe that their fictional life in the virtual world was real, then are later deprogrammed and normalized into accepting mundane reality after their discharge.
A Player Character begins as he's discharged from service as a genetically enhanced warrior who had been conditioned to think of himself as an ultraviolent superhero with a bizarre origin story and a dramatic past. They tend to see the world in the uncompromising black-and-white ethos of superhero comics filtered through the mental illnesses and phobiastriggered by the process that grants them their powers. They are dumped in the decaying ruins of an American culture with civilians who fear and hate them and a corrupt and totalitarian government that ignores them (an intentional reference to the state of Vietnam veterans coming home after the Vietnam War). The fact that they were brainwashed by the corporations that employed them and were betrayed by the governments that hired them often makes them distrustful of authority. It is presumed that the player characters join and form various "Underground" movements to oppose the government, giant corporations, or other tyrannical forces in the world.
System
The game rules for Underground is an adaptation of the Mayfair Exponential Game System, originally developed at Mayfair Games for the earlier DC Heroes roleplaying game depicting the DC Universe. However the rules were modified to depict lower-powered characters in a deadlier setting.
The Underground game books had color-coded text. Each line of text in the books was colored differently if it was part of the rules, an example of game play, optional rules, or fiction and exposition for the setting.
As part of the political and social nature of the game, and to encourage games to be about righting the many wrongs in the setting, the designer included Parameter Rules. This is a mechanism wherein the players could change the entire setting. The rules allowed the players to change the parameters of an area, or even the country or the whole world. The drawback is that affecting one parameter (like Quality of Life or Education), would adjust another (like Take-Home Pay or Wealth). Because they are heroes the players can, with enough time and effort, change parameters without penalties if they perform actions that lead to change.
Robin Jenkins (1993) Hell Bent was published by Atlas Games AG5400 isbn 978-1-56905-063-7
Reception
Chris W. McCubbin reviewed Underground for Pyramid #2 (July/Aug., 1993) and stated that "Any super hero GM with a nasty sense of humor (and in my experience, that's most of them) is advised to buy this book for the excellent background material."[4]
Underground won the 1993 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Adventure.[5]
^A sourcebook that detailed this part of the setting, "Steel Deep," was one of the last Underground products produced.
^The book contains grisly art of what the meat lockers in the back of a Tastee Ghoul franchise look like, and the unfortunate teenagers who work there as a first job.