Setting: (FTL Now setting, modified by me)
The premise is that an FTL/space drive was invented immediately after WW2; the engine is based on a simple concept never pursued in our own.
Politically, events continued in a lockstep to our own, except that the Cold War fueled space exploration and the establishment of colonies on Luna, Mars, and out-system worlds. When the Cold War ended, so did colonial efforts as well-its been 14 years since a new colony was founded. There are perhaps 20 million people living outside the Sol system, and around 8 million off Earth in the Sol system.

9/11 never happened.

In First World nations the power grid is based on huge satellites beaming down power to collection grids. Cars are mostly electric, and a growing (but small) percentage are ground-effect. Waterborne ships still serve the Third World; jet engines likewise are still seen there. Weapons tech has just reached caseless, and medical tech is about a decade ahead of today, but otherwise things are pretty much as today.

Space navies are exactly the same as those we have today, in terms of ship types and capabilities (The Royal Navy has two small CVs, no cruisers, etc).

Premise: An outbreak of what comes to be known as the 618 virus (blood-saliva borne) erupts in NYNY, LA, Capitol of Brazil, Paris, Athens, Moscow, Bombay (I use the proper name in the set-up, but forget it here), Beijing, and Tokyo. The virus kills the young (below 15), the old, and the infirm. Those who survive it (known as POCIS), are akin to 28 Days/Weeks later (primitive sociopath), except that 15% retain varying degrees of intelligence. They cannot pass for normal, but they are cunning, and the less-bright obey the more intelligent. No POCIS can speak, or use any but very simple tools. This is a simplistic description. There is no cure for people who are infected, and the disease takes 24 hours (in two phases, one six hours, the other eighteen, hence the name).

The government has suspended Habeas Corpus and is shooting infected people. The US gov't is setting up safe zones, and evacuating people into them, surrounded by miles-deep free-fire zones (Patriot Homesteads).

Several fringe and radical groups are in armed opposition to gov’t operations, for reasons ranging from the left to the right to the lunatic fringe. Plus the usual criminal exploitation of the situation.

First World nations have snapped up virtually every FTL and waterborne ship belonging to the Third World to further their own evacuation and counter-POCIS operations. With one or two exceptions, the Third World is toast.

Outside major population centers, the USA is not completely over-run, but the virus in uncontainable; the secure power grid helps a great deal, as does the industrial capability that is in orbit. However, the time is fast approaching when all uninfected population will have to be within secured perimeters. Fortunately, the POCIS are fairly useless against dug-in troops, and helpless before mechanized or armored units.

Party Situation: We are 15 sessions into the campaign, with 35+ to go. The PCs have reached a safe zone, been hired as salvage operators for a corporation with an out-sourced gov’t contract, have recovered a small starship (a small on-off container ship, using Noble Armada’s excellent deck plans), recovered their families, and are running missions in support of their corp’s salvage contract.

The PCs have rather innocently started (in-game) Web sites to document their fame. The result of this was an independent wanting to do a documentary on the PCs, follow them around getting live footage, that sort of thing. The indie has a contract with HBO for a 54 minute documentary.

Question: I have written a script for the documentary, which I will reveal to the players when its done (and the NPC is safely out of their reach).

But I'm stuck. I'm wanting the documentary to give the players/PCs a look at themselves, good and bad; my gamers tend to immerse into the game, but in a head-down fashion-they 'live within the group'. This is a unique opportunity to give the players an 'outsider's view of their group.

However, the end of the doc is giving me trouble. I want to have the indie make a comment upon the evacuation operations (lifting groups out of over-run areas into the Patriot Homesteads; they are disarmed and screened beforehand), and particularly how those who get slated for out-sourced evacuation ops (by the government and/or Corporation) tend to be middle+ class types.

But I do not know how.

There is where the incomplete documentary is posted; while its linked to the campaign support site, the support site is not linked to it:

http://ygatdoc.blogspot.com/


The campaign support site is here:
http://coldcitysw.blogspot.com/

Heddy is the film-maker.

Chip is based (appearance & general personality) on Hugo from the Series Lost; Jack is based on Miles, of the same series.

Help Needed:Look over the script in general, but specifically, tell me how to pose my evacuation commentary and how to set up a conclusion.

I want to think about this before giving a solid answer, but something about the campaign has struck me. The "zombie apocolypse" you have going here is definitely a crisis of monumental proportions - so much so that I wonder if economic class distinctions would be maintained among the survivors. Are these distinctions that important to the theme of your campaign or can their dissolution be used as an indication of how great the disaster is to the Players?

Quote from: jeff37923;310401I want to think about this before giving a solid answer, but something about the campaign has struck me. The "zombie apocolypse" you have going here is definitely a crisis of monumental proportions - so much so that I wonder if economic class distinctions would be maintained among the survivors. Are these distinctions that important to the theme of your campaign or can their dissolution be used as an indication of how great the disaster is to the Players?

Class distinctions are maintained to some level-the rich were privately evac'd (one PC's wife is from a wealthy family who not only got their family to orbit, but also their belongings, down to house furniture) to stations in orbit.

Banking records are in orbit, so wealth remains.

It is a time of some easing, of course. All but one or two PCs are lower-middle-class, and their activity holds long-term promise of wealth.

As to my campaign, I've had the inner-city poor be the quickest to be written off-the high density of population there would make the virus much more effective. Much like Katrina, the affluant have much higher mobility, allowing them to flee to points where they can be evac'd. The Third World is a complete write-off.

But class distinctions isn't something I've given a great deal of thought to.

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;310393But I'm stuck. I'm wanting the documentary to give the players/PCs a look at themselves, good and bad; my gamers tend to immerse into the game, but in a head-down fashion-they 'live within the group'. This is a unique opportunity to give the players an 'outsider's view of their group.

However, the end of the doc is giving me trouble. I want to have the indie make a comment upon the evacuation operations (lifting groups out of over-run areas into the Patriot Homesteads; they are disarmed and screened beforehand), and particularly how those who get slated for out-sourced evacuation ops (by the government and/or Corporation) tend to be middle+ class types.

It is a documentary, so just show and not tell so much.

Show the decision making process behind the decisions of which rescue ops are considered "good" or "bad". Include shots of the top managers and supervisors deciding upon which portions of the remaining population are considered valueable enough to be worth the risk to be rescued and which are not.

Show survivors being taken through the screening process and include a shot of the screeners looking at the income records (tax records, bank statements) of the survivors and then seperating the survivors out based upon them.

Let the Players come to their own conclusions based on these video clips. Just like how the viewing audience would be left to come to their own conclusions based upon the video clips that the documentarian would have left in (yes, this can be done as biased reportage if you want to explore that angle).

Quote from: OneTinSoldier;310393But class distinctions isn't something I've given a great deal of thought to.

Not telling you how to run your campaign, but you might want to consider it in a spare moment. Not inside a "Class Warfare" kind of template, but in how the "Class Warfare" template has been removed by the seriousness of the crisis for those most affected by it.

Think of people subjected to ethnic cleansings, be it Bosnia or WW2 Germany, the ones who survived the ethnic cleansing were usually left penniless regardless of whether they were rich or poor. So the remaining population didn't so much divide itself on economic lines as it viewed itself as survivors while the rest were victims who were killed. The economic differences were wiped away when they all had to start again.


One More Thing...

I don't know if you are planning a Part 2 to this campaign, but once the crisis has reached a manageable level there are going to be repercussions to dividing the survivors between those who remain planetbound and those who escape to space. I can easily see two different cultures arising who are going to ba antagonistic and resentful of each other.

Quote from: jeff37923;310465It is a documentary, so just show and not tell so much.

Show the decision making process behind the decisions of which rescue ops are considered "good" or "bad". Include shots of the top managers and supervisors deciding upon which portions of the remaining population are considered valueable enough to be worth the risk to be rescued and which are not.

Show survivors being taken through the screening process and include a shot of the screeners looking at the income records (tax records, bank statements) of the survivors and then seperating the survivors out based upon them.

Let the Players come to their own conclusions based on these video clips. Just like how the viewing audience would be left to come to their own conclusions based upon the video clips that the documentarian would have left in (yes, this can be done as biased reportage if you want to explore that angle).



Not telling you how to run your campaign, but you might want to consider it in a spare moment. Not inside a "Class Warfare" kind of template, but in how the "Class Warfare" template has been removed by the seriousness of the crisis for those most affected by it.

Think of people subjected to ethnic cleansings, be it Bosnia or WW2 Germany, the ones who survived the ethnic cleansing were usually left penniless regardless of whether they were rich or poor. So the remaining population didn't so much divide itself on economic lines as it viewed itself as survivors while the rest were victims who were killed. The economic differences were wiped away when they all had to start again.


One More Thing...

I don't know if you are planning a Part 2 to this campaign, but once the crisis has reached a manageable level there are going to be repercussions to dividing the survivors between those who remain planetbound and those who escape to space. I can easily see two different cultures arising who are going to ba antagonistic and resentful of each other.

Interesting; definately food for thought.

Video clips of the rescue-op decisions isn't an option, because Heddy, the one making the documentary, is assigned to the PCs, and can only shoot them. I'll have to try another angle.

And the screening process that the PCs oversee is just disarm, pat-down, and an eye test to insure that the subject isn't infected. But Heddy could interview some of the evacees while they wait-it takes hours to run a couple hundred people through the process.

I'll think about the class distinctions, although the PCs have already been on ops to rescue family members of other Corporate employees. While I haven't made a 'policy decision', in the fifteen sessions to date I would say that the overall theme of the rescue efforts the PCs & their parent Corporation have been involved in, the bottom line has been the bottom line, as it were.

The PCs actually prefer not to be involved in rescue operations, preferring salvage and recovery ops because the mission pay is higher and there is more prestige involved; they are one of the top Crews in the Corporation, and that is very important to them.