setting and situation revealed for untitled zombie political thriller

This is a short description of the setting and situation for my game. I have a lot of ideas about mechanics, in particular about tools for structuring scene framing and creating fallout, which are in pretty solid shape. I'm still kicking around ideas about conflict resolution, character effectiveness economies, metaplot management (yea, this game has a freaking metaplot! OLD SKOOL REPRESENT!) Secret keeping and secret revealing, and other stuff.

Also, I've got custody of my darling daughter from now till Monday, so posting until Monday night will be slow to nonexistent.

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Situation: A person infected with Fury, a highly contagious strain of rabies which was spread throughout America in the aftermath of 9/11 (it takes the place of the anthrax mailings in actual history), escapes from a federal quarantine camp. An FBI agent, now assigned to the office of homeland securities new special situations task force, hunts down the escapee. But the infected in on the trail of secrets that could rock the new American security state to its foundations. Secrets men would do anything to keep.

Setting: The game takes place in late 2001, around Thanksgiving to Christmas. In late September 2001, mail bombs using a heretofore unknown and extremely contagious strain of rabies as a biological warfare agent detonated in the offices of senate leader Tom Dachle, NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, as well as a high school in East Orange, New Jersey, a corporate office in suburban Chicago and a hospital in LA. The ensuing outbreaks of what the media came to call “Fury” threatened to overwhelm the nation until on October 1^st, President Bush declared limited martial law in areas of know infection and began the process of quarantine. In the following month and a half, the nation has stood in shock, fists clenched, half ready to kill, half ready collapse in despair.

A note on Zombie symbolism

The reason that the Romero style zombie became the predominant pop cultural symbol in the years after 9/11 is that the zombie represents the failure of the state to protect us. One day you are going to work, minding your own business, the next thing you know people are running down fifth avenue screaming and all the shops are closed and why did no one stop it is this not what we pay policemen and the army for and who by God will protect me now?

The greatest zombie movie of the post 9/11 era was 28 days later because it depicted both the fear of the state of nature but also the danger of authority which has become no better than the beast it is supposed to protect us from. When my kid asks me what this time in history was like I can do no better than show her that film and say it was like that, sweetie. It was just like that.

I think one can say the same thing about the Regan years and Neuomancer, or the Nixon years and Parallax view.

Day one.

Things I did today for game chef:

1) Finalized the concept. The game will be about an FBI agent pursuing a person infected with Zombieism pursuing a conspiracy/cover up in the days following 9/11/01. Kind of Planet Terror meets the Fugitive.

2) There will be three highly defined character roles in the game: The infected, the investigator, and the game master. The investigator chases the infected. The infected runs away from the investigator. Both try to uncover the mystery of the conspiracy/ cover up. Both players run into trouble, which can be caused by the other player or brought up by the GM. Trouble can slow the player down, cause zombie outbreaks, cause the agents superiors to interfere with the investigation.

3) This will not be a board game, but there may be a game board.

For tomorrow- parts one and two of the big three.