Interesting... you're looking very deeply into the concept, Doug, seeing some ideas in there I didn't think I'd managed to get across. This makes me hopeful that pursuing this concept will be creatively rewarding.
I'm reluctant to invoke invincible entropy on the level of the supposed post-holocaust players. You see, because the game is really all about the supposed post-holocaust players, I don't want to focus on them at all. What pretends to be about us through their eyes, is really all about them through our eyes -- but in a way that can only be conveyed indirectly. I don't want any explicit discussion of "how the holocaust happened" or to add much more than I've already written about what post-holocaust life is like or commentary on what the future of that future is likely to hold. The distorted view of present-day life, though presented crudely and even humorously, should say something about the nature of the damaged mirror giving rise to the distortion. ("Have mercy on a people who can dream like this," one memorable Al Stewart lyric says.) While at the same time being very open to imaginative interpretation. [For instance, you see the supposed post-holocaust players as struggling to preserve those trappings, by playing the game. Another might see them as trying to distance themselves, using the game to trivialize our colorful historical era just as we trivialize, say, the era of Charles the Bald.] And of course to be effective at this level at all, the game must be successful as a playable game.
One of my main inspirations is the novel Engine Summer by John Crowley. It's a masterful application of the (relatively common, in speculative fiction) technique of commentary on modern life by means of "misinterpretations" of that life by outside observers (such as alien anthropologists, post-holocaust inheritors, or far-future archaeologists). In fact, it's my single favorite novel of all I've ever read. Part of its power is that ultimately it's more about its own characters, especially its first-person narrator, than about us or our own world. (Actually, in a way that would be an unforgivable spoiler to describe in detail, it's another layer more subtle and indirect than that).
So no, I don't want players to be deliberately role-playing the supposed post-holocaust role-players. I expect the post-holocaust "players" to have a more powerful presence if you just play the game at face value. Something similar, I believe, often happens with another game that's obviously another major influence here: Hackmaster.
Walt, That's very interesting indeed (as well as giving me another book for my Amazon wish list!)
I totally agree with your decision not to explicitly focus on the post-holocaust players - the thing is, the holocaust (whatever it may be) should always be present, like a ghost at the dinner table. No-one is going to want to mention it, but it shapes the game regardless.
Example: have you read Arthur C Clarke's The City and the Stars - the bok starts in a city full of agaraphobic people, who believe that there is no life beyond the City. One of their hobbies is to play virtual roleplaying games (called Sagas, if I remember this truly). The Sagas are all set in "comforting" environments (such as caves) and when one player tries to explore outside the accepted game space, he keeps crashing the game. Because no-one else wants to explore there, it's undefined. (There's more to it than this, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone either.)
Now, (and this is of course a personal view) I would like to see a way where the (real) players can make inferences about the world of the (imaginary post-apocalypse) players by describing actions and events in the (imagined by the imaginary players) game. All without ever saying anything about said imaginary players or game. Howevwr, that would be a really tall order, and would require a level of play beyond face value - the players are pretending to play at face value.