// How to play
Crisis Room
Deciding under pressure, together.
Get through the crisis with all six indicators — Customer, Cash, Morale, Quality, Time and Reputation — above their minimum. No indicator under the threshold means a stable company; one or two, a company at risk; three or more, a critical situation.
- Players
- 3–20 people
- Teams
- 1–4 teams
- Duration
- 35 min (configurable from 20 to 90)
- Difficulty
- High
- Devices
- Computer or tablet · does not work on phones
La premisa
Nimbo Sistemas is six weeks from launching Faro, its logistics platform. This morning, Transportes Ceibo — the strategic client, the success story they were going to show the market — canceled the project. The crisis committee convenes.
Each role arrives with a different confidential dossier: Leadership knows what the board expects, Finance has the cash flow, Sales knows what clients really think, Operations knows the technical state and how tired the teams are, Legal has the clauses. No one sees the full picture, and the options on the table arrive without saying what their consequences are.
Five rounds, five decisions. Each one moves six company indicators, sets flags that change the events to come, and can trigger news. There are no right answers: there are decisions with consequences, and at the end the company is evaluated on whether it stayed within its thresholds.
Los roles
Cada puesto ve una parte distinta. Nadie puede resolverlo solo.
Leadership
A dossier with the strategy, what the board expects, and what's said behind closed doors. In your permanent file: your vote breaks ties, and in "Leader Decides" mode you confirm the final decision. This year's goal is to launch Faro without losing key people.
Vote like everyone else and, in "Leader Decides" mode, confirm the committee's decision. In case of a tie, your vote decides.
- First minute: ask every role to state their key fact in one sentence.
- Your vote carries weight: save it for the end and use it to break ties, not to open the conversation.
- Don't weigh in before hearing all five: if you speak first, the committee votes with you.
- In leadership mode, only confirm once you've heard all five. If time runs out without your confirmation, Morale takes a penalty.
Finance
The cash flow, the costs, and the margin on every path, with amounts expressed in "cash points." Your file reminds you that the board wants the crisis closed with Cash at 30 or above, and that the costs are this week's estimates.
Vote, ask to speak with "I have a fact," and flag risks. You have no exclusive commands.
- First minute: say how much cash is left and which option is the most expensive. If you don't say it, the committee votes blind.
- Give the amounts, not just the direction: "that option costs 12 cash points" decides better than "it's expensive."
- On medium difficulty, Cash starts at 50 and the minimum is 30 (difficulty shifts the starting point, not the minimum). Speak up when a decision leaves it close to the floor.
- Without your information the committee decides blind how much it can spend. Speak up in the information phase, not after the vote.
Sales
What clients say and what they really value, the market rumors, and what the prospects expect. Your file reminds you that Ceibo was the success story and that two big prospects are watching.
Vote, contribute facts and flag risks.
- First minute: share the real reason behind what happened. It's almost never the one in the email.
- You have the fact no one else has: why Ceibo really left. Share it in the first round.
- What clients say in their emails isn't always what they think. Make clear which of the two you're sharing.
- On medium difficulty the Customer indicator starts right at its minimum, and on high it starts below it: any decision puts it in play from round one.
Operations
The team's real capacity, Faro's technical state, and how much each squad can take. Your file reminds you there are three active squads, that the routing module is the product's technical heart, and that every change in priorities costs days.
Vote, contribute facts and flag risks.
- First minute: say which option is impossible with the people you have, and which one just hides the problem.
- You're the one who knows which option solves the cause and which one just hides it. Say it in those words.
- Morale and Quality are your indicators: speak up when a decision means overtime or rushing a release.
- With four people on the committee you also read Legal's dossier: make that clear so no one waits on a sixth report.
Legal
The contracts: exit clauses, penalties, warranties and commitments no one else sees. Your file makes clear your job is to report risks, not decide for the team.
Vote, contribute facts and flag risks.
- First minute: read out loud the clause that changes the cost of an option.
- Read the fine print out loud and word for word. A summary loses exactly the condition that matters.
- State the risk with its size: "this could cost more than the discount" helps; "it's risky" doesn't.
- Don't decide for the committee: your role is making sure no one votes without knowing the clause.
Una partida, paso a paso
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Lobby
Everyone picks an avatar and a color and marks READY. With several committees, each one plays its own crisis: the conditional events can diverge.
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Briefing
Roles are assigned in secret and the situation is told: Ceibo canceled. Read your dossier before you speak.
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Information (45 s on medium difficulty)
The round's event arrives on the news screen: headline, body and the question to vote on. Your folder opens with this round's dossier: lines and figures only you see. At the top, the phase tells you what to do: "Read your dossier and tell the committee, in one sentence, the fact no one else has." Everyone marks "I read my dossier"; once everyone still in the room has, the discussion begins.
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Discussion and vote (150 s on medium difficulty)
Four or five lettered options on the board, with the prompt up top: "Debate and vote by tapping an option on the board: you can change your vote until it closes." Everyone shares what they know and votes by tapping a card. Votes are public within the committee: you see tokens showing who voted what. The "VOTING OPEN!" banner appears at the top, above the news ticker, so it never covers the question. Depending on the mode, the decision closes once the whole committee has voted, once everyone voted the same way, or once Leadership confirms.
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Consequences (25 s on medium difficulty)
The chosen option gets applied: the screen shows the decision, the rule it closed on, the consequence text, and the change to each indicator. The "DECIDED" stamp lands on the options board, not on the outcome, so it can be read in full. If an indicator ends up in critical territory, a news item with its own effect can appear. The phase's prompt: "Look at what moved and which indicator is close to its minimum before the next event."
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The following rounds
Each round's event depends on what the committee decided before: offer a pilot and a pilot round shows up; give a discount and another client asks for the same thing; say no to a complaint and that client escalates two rounds later. Five rounds in total, with a final launch round.
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The echoes
Almost no decision gets paid for on the spot. An option from round 2 can open a whole event in round 3 or 4, and several late-breaking news items — a penalty that gets triggered, a bank that moves up its review, a client that tells their story — land rounds after the decision that caused them. When something odd shows up, it's worth asking what got decided earlier.
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Close and debrief
Once the last round resolves, the company gets evaluated: stable, at risk, or critical. The results page shows, per committee, where the six indicators landed, which ones fell below the threshold, how many decisions it made, and how many penalties it racked up. The debrief walks through each decision with its rule and its votes, and brings the case's ten questions.
Reglas de oro
Los equipos que ganan hacen casi siempre estas mismas cosas.
- Before voting, have every role state their dossier's most important fact in one sentence.
- Say where what you're saying comes from: "according to my dossier" tells a fact apart from a hunch.
- Bring numbers when you have them. Finance's amounts and Operations' deadlines shift a vote more than any argument.
- Name the option by letter and title when you talk about it: "option C, negotiate an alternative."
- Ask the person who hasn't spoken. A role's silence is information the committee won't have.
- Look at the indicators before voting, not after: the one closest to its minimum is the one to protect.
- Vote before it closes. A round that closes with no votes applies the default option and penalizes Morale.
Errores típicos
Cosas que pasan en casi todas las partidas. Son hechos observables, no juicios sobre nadie.
The committee votes in the first minute of discussion.
Options don't show their effects: the only thing that cuts through the uncertainty is everyone else's dossier. Agree on a round of the table before the first vote.
No one votes and the round closes on its own.
The event's default option gets applied and Morale and Time take a penalty. If the discussion runs long, have someone call out the clock when 30 seconds are left.
In unanimity mode, the committee stays split until the close.
Not reaching agreement also costs something: the most-voted option gets applied and Morale takes a penalty. If it's still 3 to 2 halfway through the discussion, ask what it would take to move one vote.
In leadership mode, Leadership doesn't confirm.
At the close, their vote gets applied if they voted, and if not, the most-voted option, with a penalty. Leadership has to confirm explicitly, not just vote.
The decision gets made looking at a single indicator.
There are six, and every option moves several. Protecting Cash by breaking Morale two rounds in a row ends in a burned-out team and visible mistakes.
A decision gets judged by what happened in that same round.
Many consequences arrive two rounds later, as a new event or a late-breaking news item. Before voting, ask what could come back: it's the only defense against the echoes.
Someone has a fact and shares it after voting.
The information phase exists for exactly that. If you remember late, use "I have a fact" and share it anyway: votes can be changed until the close.
People talk about "the option up top" or "the pilot one."
The options are lettered A through E. Name them by letter: it's the only thing everyone sees the same way.
Glosario
- Dossier
- Your role's confidential folder for this round: lines of information and figures. It changes every round.
- Permanent file
- Your role's three background notes, always available through the folder's FILE button.
- Indicator
- One of the company's six variables, with a value and a minimum: Customer, Cash, Morale, Quality, Time and Reputation.
- Threshold or minimum
- The value below which an indicator counts as broken. Sitting right at the minimum is still stable.
- Flag
- A consequence that gets logged and changes which event shows up later. Offering a pilot, for example, opens the pilot round.
- News item
- An extra effect that triggers when an indicator crosses a limit (treasury on alert, team burnout, visible mistakes).
- Penalty
- The cost of not deciding: no one voted, there was no unanimity at the close, or Leadership didn't confirm.
- Closing rule
- How the vote closed: majority, most-voted at close, unanimity, leadership vote, or tiebreak.
- Default option
- The one the system applies if the committee doesn't vote. It's marked on the board.
- Echo
- A consequence that doesn't land in the round it was decided: an event that opens later, or a late-breaking news item triggered by an old decision.
- Cushion
- The starting margin difficulty adds to or subtracts from the six indicators: +6 on low, 0 on medium, −4 on high.
Preguntas frecuentes
Is there a right answer in every round?
No. Every option has costs and benefits, and none leaves all six indicators untouched. What gets evaluated at the end is whether the company stayed within its thresholds, not whether you guessed the right sequence.
Are the votes secret?
No: within the committee, you see who voted what, with tokens on each option. The idea is for disagreement to be visible and talked through.
Which voting mode should we use?
Majority is the default and the fastest mode. Unanimity forces real negotiation (and penalizes not reaching agreement). "Leader Decides" puts the focus on how listening happens before deciding: votes advise, and Leadership confirms.
Can I change my vote?
Yes, until the vote closes. You can also withdraw it.
Where do the hints come from?
There are two per round: a nudge, which says who's worth asking, and a direct hint, which gives the fact. Plus two general ones about how to decide and how to read the indicators. The Game Master sends them when needed; in solo matches only one arrives at a time, and only after two and a half minutes without progress, starting with the general ones and ending with the direct one.
Does every committee play the same thing?
The first round, yes. After that, no: each round's event depends on what that committee decided, so two committees can end up with different stories. It's excellent debrief material.
What happens if someone disconnects?
The committee keeps playing. Rounds only wait on whoever is still in the room: if someone drops, "everyone ready," the early close and unanimity all resolve with whoever's left, without getting stuck until the clock runs out. The rule's counts, though, still name the whole committee ("Majority: 3 of 5"): an empty seat doesn't get erased from the record. If everyone disconnects, nothing closes on its own.
Are there difficulty levels?
Yes, and they change the rules. Difficulty moves three things: the starting cushion on the six indicators (+6 on low, 0 on medium, −4 on high), the length of each phase (×1.3, ×1 and ×0.75), and how harsh the penalties and bad news are (halved, normal, or one and a half times). Option effects never scale: whatever the committee decides is always worth the same. On high, Customer also starts below its minimum, and some conditional events change, because the indicators start from a different place.
Can you play with fewer than five?
Yes. With four people, Operations also reads Legal's dossier; with fewer, the chain continues. No dossier ever disappears from the committee.
What about more than five?
Roles repeat: two people can both be Finance and read the same dossier. It works well, because two readings of the same report rarely highlight the same thing.
Jugar en solitario
In "Play solo" you take one of the five roles and bots cover the other four, in a single committee. It starts once you mark READY, with no Game Master and a short briefing. You can choose the voting mode when creating the match.
Skims its dossier: it only reads the first half of the lines, so it decides and shares with half the information the same seat would have at another level. It sees each indicator's value but not how far it is from its minimum: it compares raw numbers and can pick the option that looks cheapest even if it breaks a threshold. Votes on the first turn of discussion and only half-listens to what the committee says.
Votes after listening to the committee, shares up to two explained lines, and leaves a three-point margin over each minimum.
Waits longer before voting, shares along with the option and the indicator that worries it, and protects the minimums with a six-point margin. Weighs future warnings more heavily.
- Bots only know their dossier, the event, the options without their effects, the indicators with their minimum, the votes and the chat. They never see an option's real effects or the flags: they estimate the same way a person would, by reading the text.
- They recognize amounts in the form "N points" and always count them as Cash.
- If you defend an option with arguments in chat, bots can shift their vote toward yours, especially in unanimity mode. A vote with no explanation doesn't move them.
- In "Leader Decides" mode, if a bot has the Leadership role, it confirms once everyone has advised or the close is near, and explains why.
- On low difficulty — the one solo mode uses by default — all six indicators start with a cushion, so the dial that separates the levels the most (protecting the minimum) barely gets to show off: what you'll mostly notice is speed and how much they explain. The difference in judgment shows up once an indicator runs out of room.
The other guides
Play Crisis Room with your team
Sessions are set up from your organization's panel: people, teams, scenario and a facilitator. Don't have a space yet? Write to us at larp.latam@gmail.com.
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