Bill Coffin

Bill Coffin is a writer of novels and role-playing games in the fantasy and science fiction genres. Perhaps best known for his work at Palladium Books from July 1998 through May 2002, he made significant contributions to several of Palladium's game series, most notably Palladium Fantasy, but also Heroes Unlimited and Rifts, and created his own game, Systems Failure.

Bill Coffin is a well-received author who made many books for Palladium Books from 1988-2002.:196 He was a contributor to Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing and Rifts.:162 In his post-apocalyptic game Systems Failure (1999), Y2K was real.:161 However, due to a conflict with Kevin Siembieda, the president and co-founder of Palladium Books, Coffin left the company, much to the disappointment of his fans. Coffin was let go by Siembieda due to editorial differences and general discontent with the Rifts Coalition Wars (which Siembieda and Coffin had co-authored).:162 At the time of his departure, Coffin was the lead author of six titles in the final stages of production. He was subsequently demoted to second- and third-author status on two of these books prior to their release, and the other four were ultimately shelved and have not been rescheduled for publication. In addition, having only received limited support from Palladium, Systems Failure has since gone out of print.

In March 2007, it was revealed that Coffin was working on Septimus, a new campaign setting for the D6 Space core book for West End Games. However, due to financial concerns, the publisher cancelled the project in March 2008. Shortly thereafter, Coffin declared that he would release the game as a PDF under Evil Hat Productions' FATE system. In May 2009, West End Games announced that they had agreed to publish Septimus again and that it would be released August 2009. Eric Gibson released Bill Coffin's Septimus in 2009 as a PDF, which became West End Games's last product.:196 He is currently working on The Dark Britania Saga and will have the third and final book out hopefully before 2014.