In Model UN, the Crisis Backroom is the team of staffers operating behind the scenes of a crisis committee who design the storyline, process delegate actions, and inject new developments into the room. While delegates in the "frontroom" debate and pass directives, the backroom decides how the simulated world responds — whether a coup succeeds, an army advances, an assassination is intercepted, or a press leak surfaces.
A typical backroom is led by a Crisis Director (CD) and staffed by Assistant Crisis Directors (ACDs) and crisis analysts. Their core responsibilities include:
- Arc management: maintaining the committee's overall plot trajectory and pacing crises so the room neither stalls nor spirals.
- Note handling: reading delegates' private "crisis notes" (individual portfolio actions) and writing in-character responses from advisors, agents, family members, or rival actors.
- Updates: delivering news flashes, video or actor-driven press conferences, and joint crisis "crossovers" with parallel committees.
- Directive review: adjudicating the real-world plausibility and consequences of committee-wide directives passed in the frontroom.
Backrooms are most associated with the North American collegiate circuit — conferences such as HNMUN, NCSC, ChoMUN, and McMUN are known for elaborate crisis operations — though the format has spread globally since the 2000s. In Joint Crisis Committees (JCCs), multiple frontrooms (e.g., NATO vs. Warsaw Pact) share a single backroom that arbitrates conflicts between them.
Good backroom practice emphasizes responsiveness (timely replies to notes), fairness (not rewarding only loud delegates or punishing creative ones), and internal consistency (decisions should follow logically from prior events and the historical or fictional setting). Poor backrooms are often criticized for "railroading" — forcing a predetermined plot regardless of delegate input — or for opaque favoritism.
The backroom is distinct from the dais, which chairs debate in the frontroom, though the two coordinate constantly throughout a committee session.
Example
At ChoMUN 2023, the crisis backroom for a Cold War JCC coordinated simultaneous updates to the Kennedy and Khrushchev cabinets during a simulated Cuban Missile Crisis escalation.
Frequently asked questions
The dais chairs debate, manages speakers, and rules on parliamentary procedure in the frontroom. The backroom controls the world outside the committee — responding to private notes and generating crisis updates.
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