What is Crisis?

Think of Crisis as two rooms/two aspects: Front Room and Back room: 

FRONT ROOM:  

• The physical room that you are in  

• Where the delegates talk publicly so everyone can hear and debate issues 

• Where delegates write and pass DIRECTIVES to deal with the issue the committee is centered on, and any other issues that might come up 

BACK ROOM: 

• Another physical room that the conference crisis staff stays in to read delegate crisis notes (I will explain what those are in other pages of this document) 

• This also represents the things that delegates are doing secretly, through their crisis notes.  

  • Ex. Planning to murder someone, gathering secret intel, etc

Crisis committees are very fast paced which might make them difficult. Additionally Crisis has a front room and a back room, especially for your first time navigating the front and the back rooms can be difficult. 

Part of what makes crisis committees so quick is the simultaneous nature of directive-writing and giving speeches. While moderated caucuses are ensuing, delegates also write solutions to the issue being discussed and will circulate their directives around the table to collect signatories as individuals are speaking. Delegates may also have to speak on solutions they are currently writing or have not yet started writing should they be called on before completing their directive. But remember, we are all in committee together, and we want to have FUN! 

Parliamentary Procedure are the rules that govern how the committee debates in the Front Room. Make sure that you review your Parli Pro before the conference so you remember how the debate structure works. 

The back room is where you will send your crisis notes. 

Crisis Notes are the INDIVIDUAL notes that you send to the crisis staff to do ONE thing. These can be related and build up to a master plan or big thing that you want to achieve by the end of the committee.  Crisis notes drive the flow of committee. Each delegate creates their own story-line, or crisis arc, as they accumulate as many resources as possible. Delegates address crisis notes to another character that is not represented by another person in the committee room that can offer them a path to acquire resources. 

Examples of individual crisis note goals include: Accumulating money, killing a person (although that does require other crisis notes to prepare and set that up so you can execute it without getting caught), collecting resources, forging alliances with people not represented in the sim, blackmailing another delegate, getting dirt on another delegate (you could do this by placing a wiretap) 

A Crisis Arc or Web is the master plan that you have for the entire committee, which like I said, you build up to through your individual crisis notes.  

Examples of a master plan including: taking control of the country, becoming the Queen of England, annexing a territory, causing a full blown war, turning your country communist (although that is an overused one), or staging  a coup.