A tabletop you can assign tonight
Same seed. Two teams. Two after-actions.
Updated August 2026
Students play a locked crisis in the browser, then defend the five slots they took. The engine is deterministic, so you are grading a tradeoff, not a dice roll.
What this is — and is not
This is not a certification and not a live incident-command system. There is no seminar console, no roster, and no live incident-command tool. A seed-locked share code is the whole mechanism: everyone who redeems it on the current game version plays the same scenario, the same difficulty, and the same events.
The briefing may be written by a model. The casualties are not.
How to run a seed-locked exercise
- Start or open a game — any scenario you've unlocked, or the daily challenge.
- Use Share exercise in the game header to generate a code or link.
- Send that code. Participants paste it at /join . Nothing is stored on a server — the code itself carries the scenario, difficulty, and seed.
A code reproduces a run — it does not unlock one. Participants can start it only where their own access allows: story scenarios run in the no-account trial, and everything else needs an account that has unlocked the scenario. The access column below says who can start each recommendation.
Daily challenge is ranked and needs an account. Prefer a facilitator seed for class so the leaderboard does not become the assignment.
Learning objectives
By the end of the week a student can:
- Explain why an action limit (five slots) changes what “doing everything” means
- Trace one cascade across power, water, and health
- Separate a lucky narrative from a seed-locked outcome
- Defend a first-turn allocation in front of peers who played the same seed
Recommended scenarios
For a graded comparison, lock one scenario and one seed for the whole class. Facilitator exercise codes already do this.
| Goal | Scenario | Why | New-participant access |
|---|---|---|---|
| First contact, no account | Industrial Heat Crisis | The story trial. Cooling versus grid versus workers. | Any new account, or the no-account trial |
| Logistics over weeks | Delta Levee Crisis | Slow rise; resource stamina. | No-account trial via its trial link. Signed in: Achieve Master level to unlock |
| Health capacity | Coral Bay Medical Crisis | Scarce hospital and cut access. | Not in the no-account trial. Win 2 scenarios to unlock |
| Fast cascade | Metro Quake | Urban systems fail together. | Not in the no-account trial. Win 2 scenarios to unlock |
| Warning window | Millbrook Dam Breach | Urgency once the breach starts. | Not in the no-account trial. Reach Director level to unlock |
Homework (before class)
- Play the assigned seed to completion or to a failure condition.
- Write 250 words: the decision you would take back, and what you thought it would buy.
- Bring the outcome tier, final turn, casualties, and final trust. Do not bring a screenshot of hidden state. There is none to find.
If a student cannot create an account, they use the story trial (Industrial Heat Crisis). Add a seed in the URL when you want the whole no-account class on one incident. When you send that link, add ?via= with a short class tag so the visit is attributable; links between these pages stay untagged.
Seminar plan (80 minutes)
| Minutes | Move |
|---|---|
| 0–10 | Silent board: “What did you refuse to fund?” |
| 10–25 | Three volunteers walk their first five slots. The class votes which city they would rather live in. |
| 25–40 | Cascade autopsy: pick one failure (grid, water, hospital) and walk the dependency. |
| 40–55 | Trust versus lives: when did a press or political action crowd out an operational one? |
| 55–70 | Same seed, different directors: what actually diverged? |
| 70–80 | Debrief: what the sim sanitizes (no weather-forecast skill, no real legal authorities, no staff personalities). |
Discussion questions
- If you could have a sixth slot, what would that teach — and what would it hide?
- Who is “the public” when trust drops? Who never had a voice in the UI?
- Borrowing saved your first two turns. Who pays the debt?
- Did you optimize the after-action numbers or the city you would live in?
- What would a real emergency director have that this interface does not?
Grading is optional
A suggested split, not a requirement:
- 40% completed run on the assigned seed (or a documented failure)
- 40% 250-word decision memo
- 20% seminar contribution (specific, not “it was hard”)
Do not grade students on winning. Grade them on a defensible tradeoff.
Instructor notes
- AI-written briefings are flavor. If two students see different prose on the same seed, that is expected; the engine state is not.
- Keyboard play exists; do not require twitch-speed clicking. This is a turn-based seminar tool.
- The briefing may be written by a model. The casualties are not.
Permission line for syllabi
Students will complete one run of ResponseWindow (https://responsewindow.com), a browser emergency-management simulation, on a shared scenario seed. The assignment is a decision memo, not a high score.