how to operate control room

1. Backroom Stuff

2. Contents
1. Key definitions
2. More about crisis
3. Navigating crisis
4. Essential skills
5. Significance of dossiers
6. Backroom/God’s plans
7. Keeping track of multiple events effectively
8. Directive response
9. + Interactive activities :D

3. Backroom
-Process personal and joint directives
-Write tumblr updates to progress the story arc

4. Key Definitions

5. What is it+How it functions
1. Personal directives
2. Joint directives
3. Press releases

6. Personal Directive
1. When a delegate would like to invoke only their own portfolio
powers to take a certain action
2. Powers include:
a. Sending of funds to people
b. Using funds for certain activities (buying weapons, purchasing
buildings etc.)
c. Sending of military manpower
d. Espionage and spying missions
3. Usually a consistent power that they can keep invoking
a. Businessman to constantly acquire assets
b. Military man to constantly give military commands

7. Personal Directives
- Allow if it aligns with powers, and the guy has enough
personal/ shared resources to do it
- For things that involve money, ask for confirmation
- Note down things that need time to carry out (e.g. moving
things/ troops), and wait accordingly
- For covert directives: If they do not put ‘remain a secret’ or
sth like that, its not covert

8. Joint Directive
1. When a delegate would like to combine their own portfolio powers
with other delegate(s) to take a certain action
2. Combined powers include:
a. Funds + Military movement: More sophisticated military actions
3. Usually done among allies

9. Joint Directives
- Has to be relevant to powers of both involved
- Need to have enough resources
- Each person will have to submit the same directive
- Send email to confirm with all parties if things seem sus
- Whether you allow it or not depends on its relevance,
scope, realism, and language

10. Other types of directives
1. Contacting personal contacts of the portfolio
2. Requests to establish contact with other delegates
3. Requests for further information not necessarily in their portfolios

11. Press Release
1. Done when a delegate would like to publicize a certain piece of
information
a. I strongly condemn this country…
b. I am giving out free pizza at my house, please come on by!
2. Press releases usually posted on update sites
3. Press releases can take any format (including pamphlets), as long as
the delegate specifies that it is a press release
4. Press releases can be sabotaged through directives involving media
control or power outages

12. Other things to note
Chronology
- Don’t allow chronologically inaccurate things to happen (e.g.
Meeting with Mao Zedong. Mao died in 1976…Our Crisis starts
1992…)
Time
- Some directives take ‘time’ to happen after approval. Do be aware
of that, nothing happens instantly.
Cause and Effect
- Earlier directives usually sets the ground for more ambitious
directives later, so if the del didnt foreground his ‘big’ directives
with previous directives…uk what to do!

13. Activity (Discuss)
Which of the three modes of directives would you say is the “best”?
Probably a trick question

14. More about crisis
(For Frontroom and
Backroom)

15. Objectives of Crisis(Technical)
1. Collaboration (sometimes)
2. Backstabbing
3. Strategy (very difficult)
4. Memory and tracking
5. Coherence in writing

16. Objectives for you and your delegates
1. Learn about the events within the crisis stimulation in general
a. Significant events
b. Stakeholders
2. Learn more about how individual stakeholders played a part in the
part of the Cuban Missile Crisis (for ours)
3. Learn what MUN is
4. Have FUN
5. Public speaking and writing skills (writing more applicable to
backroom)
6. Critical thinking and strategy

17. Objectives for you
Frontroom-specific
1. Critical evaluation of delegates’ points
2. Moderation/facilitation
3. Articulation
Backroom-specific
1. Speed
2. Memory and tracking
3. Collaboration
4. Creativity

18. Objectives you have to achieve
1. Make the crisis fun
a. Wacky responses
b. Political actors (more on this later)
c. Wacky updates
Make the crisis academically rigorous
a. Pushing them to write clearer directives
b. Making them understand how stakeholders interacted with
other stakeholders and the situation around them

19. Simplified Objectives for Delegates
1. Learn about Cuban Missile Crisis
2. Learn what their stakeholders did
3. Learn how to achieve their goals

20. Simplified Objectives for Staff
1. Collaboration
2. Quick-thinking
3. Creativity

21. Navigating Crisis

22. Challenges of Crisis
1. Keeping track of directives?
2. Responding appropriately to directives?
3. Trying to make crisis interesting?
4. How to understand strategy?

23. Backroom Work Allocation
Individual
1. Respond to personal and joint directives
2. Keep track of assets in delegates’ sheets
3. Keep track of effects of delegates’ directives
Collaborate
1. Crisis Arcs
2. Main Updates
3. Press releases
4. Shared resources (for blocs)

24. Tools
1. Tumblr/google docs
a. For updates
2. Spreadsheets
a. Keeping track of assets
b. Keeping track of delegates
i. Emails
ii. PIN
iii. Portfolio name
c. Keeping track of directives
i. Create another column for responses
ii. Highlight column when delegate has been emailed
3. More on keeping track of stuff later!!!

25. Form Submission Conventions
1. Delegate drop-down name
2. Delegate PIN
3. Select personal directive, joint directive or press release
4. Type down directive
5. Optional: Purpose of directive

26. Essential Skills

27. Essential Skills
1. Wittiness
2. Creativity
3. Updates and urgency

28. Wittiness Sample

29. Morbid Sample

30. Urgency Sample

31. Other Essential Skills
1. How can frontroom and backroom guide delegates that seem to be
confused?
a. Hinting to them how they can improve their directives in your
email?
b. Getting frontroom to make announcements?
2. What if some delegates are too shy to speak up in council?

32. Understanding the
significance of
dossiers

33. Dossiers/Portfolio Powers
1. Role in the crisis stimulation
2. Power that they have and can use for the stimulation

34. Backroom/God’s
Plans (tumblr stuff)

35. Crisis Arcs
1. They are main events that:
a. Are significant to the whole crisis
b. Will get delegates talking about them
c. Something that the whole council can take action on
2. How to plan crisis arcs:
We got about 4 for 2 hour crisis.

36. Main Updates
1. Backroom planned events
2. Press releases
3. Significant directives by delegates that lead to significant events
a. Successful assassination
4. Poorly-written directives gone wrong
a. Botched attempt at affirmation

37. So what’s significant enough to
post on tumblr?
- Successful Assassinations or Kidnappings (or similar)
- Moving of troops (like large numbers)
- Riots/ Uprising/ Rebel forces activities (if significant enough)
- Story arc checkpoints (when the time is right)
Remember that everything on Tumblr must have a purpose

38. How to keep track
when so many things
are happening?

39. Troops Tracking
1. Map (physical or online works)
2. ‘Risk’ pieces
3. You can choose to give your delegates live maps too
(for WAR)

40. Money Tracking
1. Google sheets
2. Be clear what assets everyone has
3. Keep things simple
a. Money
b. Military
c. Manpower
d. Technology
e. Raw materials/resources
f. Knowledge (not quantifiable)

41. Action Tracking
1. Personal delegate sheet (you can use the assets folder for easy
access)
a. Track their actions chronologically
Sample:
(Insert name)
Directives Sent Effects of Directive Long-Term Changes (if
any)
Copy and paste Mahathir assassinated Malaysia in turmoil
Effects on portfolio:
Personal glory, national
fear
Mahathir’s kids cried
because they have no

42. Directive Response

43. How to reply to directives
- Act as a personal assistant if you want to (but this is usually what is
done)
For approved directives: Use simple language eg ‘Approved’, or longer
sentences if you have the time
For directives that have not been approved: Come up with some story or
reason to explain the directive’s failure, in a funny way if you want

44. General Rules
1. Play with delegates’ responses
2. Respond in a way that:
a. Advances the crisis in the way backroom wants crisis to
progress (do you want a war to break out? Do you want
someone to go bankrupt?)
b. Makes the crisis interesting (remember the guy screaming
through the loudspeakers?)

45. Accept or Reject?
1. Directive lacks relevance
2. Directive lacks specificity
3. Too ambitious
4. Outside of the portfolio powers of the delegate

46. Realism
1. Do directives make sense at this point in time?
a. If you make use of hovercrafts in 1800s, it makes no sense
(haven’t been invented..)
b. Do directives make sense AT ALL?
c. Delegate trying to use black magic?

47. Unrealistic Timeline

49. Nonsensical Methods

50. What makes a good directive?
1. Specific
2. Detailed
3. Relevant to crisis
4. Relevant to portfolio

51. (Hopefully) Specific Directive

52. Backstab/Assassination
1. Sometimes in the interest of the delegate to turn on the people that
supported them

53. Reply Techniques
1. Act as someone’s secretary
2. Can be cheeky
3. Discuss with your fellow backroomers on how to be cheeky
4. If you think their directive is not specific enough, feel free to
interpret it in absurd ways
5. If you think their directive has potential to stir chaos, feel free to spin
it out of control

54. Not-Specific Directives

55. Not-Specific Directives

56. Too-Ambitious Directives

57. COMMUNICATIONS
Between backroom, frontroom and
delegates
Hence for backroom, frontroom

58. Communicating with each
other (for backroom)
- Voice out what you’re going/ not going to approve
- Voice out if you need an additional opinion
Not sure if something is important or not: ask
Want to post story arc on tumblr or anything in general on tumblr?
Make sure everyone in backroom knows
Tell Frontroom after the post is posted! Notify frontroom when there is
tumblr update and when directives form are open. (Frontroom will tell
dels)

59. Communicating between
you and delegates
-Use only the crisis council email to reply to directives (use email to
reply)
-Frontroom chairs are to let backroom know if delegates have questions/
complaints (e.g. directive response too slow)
-If delegates email the crisis email (i.e. not something through google
form), and it’s not a council directive, don’t reply during session (focus
only on directives)
Ill let yall know the email tmr- need to log in!

60. Political acting

61. Political Acting?
1. Definition: staff member acting as a character that is relevant to the
crisis
a. Cambodian farmer
b. Vietnamese soldier
c. Singaporean businessmen
2. Frontroom can always request for political actors

62. When to call for political actors?
1. When directives disproportionately and unfairly impact a certain
population
a. Raging farmer
b. Crying orphan
2. When frontroom feels that debate is going off-track
3. When delegates need more handholding (perfectly fine for
beginners)
a. A military advisor to give updates

63. Thank you!