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Facilitator guide
Back to exercise Captain guide GameMech

ITU · Cybersecurity Capacity Development Tabletop

TTX Facilitator — User Guide

Workshop steps for signed-in facilitators. Admin extras sit at the end.

You cannot break the workshop A missed click does not end the day. Pause if you need time. Extend the timer. Grants and specialist transfer can correct a resource slip. Restart only when the room agrees.

Captains

Play. One signed-in seat per team.

Tables

Talk. The captain enters the agreed plan.

Observers

Watch. They do not coach. They do not use the captain password.

Sign in

Use the facilitator username and password your administrator shared. Usernames are stored lowercase. The exact login is on Prepare → Users & Permissions, not on this page.

  1. Open the exercise URL.
  2. Type your facilitator username and the password admin generated.
  3. Press Enter, or select Sign in →.

You land on Master Dashboard by default.

Help opens this guide in the same tab. Back to exercise returns to the active session without signing you out.

If you see “This account has no password yet”, ask admin to open Prepare → Users & Permissions, generate passwords (or select Set on your row), and share yours.

Facilitator passwords stay static once set, including across exercises and scenario changes. There is no self-service change or forgot-password; only admin can rotate one with Set or Reset under Prepare → Users & Permissions.

MenuWhere it leadsWhen to use it
RunMaster Dashboard, Scenario & Teams, Standings, MessagesDuring the live exercise.
PrepareScenarios, Injects, Cards; Users & Permissions for adminBefore the exercise or when maintaining reusable content.
ReviewFeedback; Past Plays for adminFor evaluation and after-action reporting.
SettingsColor paletteChanges only your own appearance.
HelpFacilitator guide, GameMechQuick instructions or the detailed staff guide.

Select a menu to open it; select it again, click outside, or press Escape to close it. The highlighted menu shows your current work area. Links omitted from a facilitator account require an admin-granted permission. Guides stay in the same browser session, and Back to exercise returns without logging you out.

What you can do

New facilitator accounts get this floor (admin can tighten or widen toggles):

On by defaultOff by default
Activate injects on Run → Master DashboardUsers & Permissions
Start / pause / terminateScenarios
Advance / restartCreate cards
Break / debrief timingInjects (edit definitions)
Resources (±budget / people, specialist transfer)Generate passwords
Play for captains (proxy play)

If a button is missing or you get “You don't have permission…”, ask admin to flip the matching toggle on that facilitator row.

Get the room ready

Typical room setup:

  1. Admin selects a scenario under Prepare → Scenarios (Use this scenario), generates passwords, and shares them privately.
  2. Captains log in and wait in lobby.
  3. Facilitator fills This exercise city + country under Run → Master Dashboard.
  4. Facilitator selects Start exercise (Round 1).

You can re-check team status on Standings before starting. Advance actions stay gated until the exercise has started.

Start the exercise

Session controls

ControlUse
Start exercise (Round 1)Opens Play for captains; starts the clock
+5 minExtends the current round timer
Advance all to next round →After submissions (or timeout forfeit); archives rationales. On the last configured round this becomes Complete final round → and ends play.
Add another turnOnly way past the scenario round count. On the final round: raises the limit so Advance can continue. After the exercise ends: unlocks and starts one more round. Captains stay locked until you add a turn or restart.
Pause / ResumeFreezes captain actions mid-round
Terminate sessionCloses captain tables
Restart exerciseResets play (confirm carefully)
Break / Debrief minutes + start phaseTimed reflection windows between / after rounds

Also set City and Country under This exercise. Use Save current play & start a new exercise when archiving a completed group and beginning another.

Round focus

When the scenario defines it, Session shows this round’s title and short This round brief, plus the facilitator debrief question. Mission objectives stay under Mission progress. Captains see the brief, not the debrief question.

Online presence

Next to each team name, staff see a small status: green dot + online when that team's captain is signed in, or a gray dot + offline otherwise (default until a heartbeat connects). Admin also sees the same online/offline labels under Prepare → Users & Permissions. Captains do not see these indicators.

Login sessions

On the admin page opened through Prepare → Users & Permissions, admin sees current sign-ins (IP, and country when available from the proxy) plus a login/logout activity log. Only one concurrent login is allowed per username — a second sign-in forces the first session out with A new login detected.

Credential security: captains log in with their country or organisation name. Admin can set a static username; it stays until admin changes it. Auto names follow a scenario change and keep the same password. They receive the easy username-### workshop format with three random digits. Once set, those passwords stay across exercise finish, terminate, restart, and scenario changes. Admin rotates them with Generate passwords or Set/Reset on that row. Ending an exercise signs captains out. Facilitator and administrator accounts keep strong passwords and are not cleared by those exercise boundaries. Repeated sign-ins and password-reset requests are throttled, sessions expire, and changing a password signs that account out everywhere.

Messages

The Messages tab is for captain negotiations and staff replies. Captains can message facilitators/admin only when those accounts are online. Messages are saved per exercise session under data/messages/.

Feedback

The Feedback tab collects assessment answers and improvement suggestions from captains only. Facilitators see score averages (0–100%) and written answers grouped under each question. Admin can also open By team / consolidated views, edit questions, and see individual submissions. Stored as JSON under data/ for now (database planned later).

Grants (± budget / people)

On each team card:

Use these for table adjudications and fulfilled aid decisions.

Specialist transfer

Move 1 person between teams:

  1. Pick donor and recipient.
  2. Set negotiated fee ($ thousands) or leave default.
  3. Sell (fee charged) or Donate free — goodwill inject.

Instant sell/donate is facilitator-driven. Captain buy/sell offers appear under Team trade offers (P30 gate applies to both teams).

Open table →

Sit at that team’s Play view (proxy only if Play captains is granted; otherwise treat as observation / guidance).

When a message should hit the tables

The Manual inject console is the primary control for sending the same event to one or more countries, agencies, or organisations (requires Activate):

  1. Choose inject… and select This round or any remaining round.
  2. Select All teams or any combination of team chips.
  3. Use Auto by preparedness, or force 25% preparedness — severe impact, 50%, 75%, or 100%.
  4. If the scenario allows it, choose Standard round guardrails or Full impact.
  5. Review every target’s preview: preparedness, signed budget / people impact, and any round-guardrail note when the applied values differ from the authored ones.
  6. Activate now or queue it for the selected future round.
Auto is team-specific. One inject can affect prepared and unprepared teams differently. Round guardrails reduce early negative money and people losses; positive assistance is never reduced. A signed impact such as −$150,000 · −1 person is calculated separately for each target.

AID1 — Regional emergency stabilization package is unconditional (+$100,000 and +1 person). AID2 — International technical-assistance mission scales with preparedness. Both are flexible: target one team, a group, or all teams. Full impact bypasses round guardrails and is available only to admin, or to facilitators when the administrator has enabled it for the scenario.

When an inject resolves, every targeted captain receives a visual inject card with the event explanation, team-specific outcome, before/after resources and preparedness. The captain must select Acknowledge inject; clicking outside or pressing Escape does not dismiss it. Multiple notices queue and are shown one at a time, so simultaneous scheduled and manual injects are not lost. The scenario’s Captain inject detail setting determines whether exact capability checks appear.

The compact inject control on each team card remains available when you need a quick single-team action.

Labels in the preview / toasts:

LabelMeaning
queued Round NArmed for a later round; applies on advance into that round
already appliedFired earlier this session — you can activate it again if the table needs it
Same-round queueToast: already queued for that round — do not spam Queue

Inject codes (F1–F3 style) are admin-visible; facilitators usually see titles without codes.

Queue, retarget, and calendar

Queued manual injects lists events waiting for a later round. To change recipients, timing, or strength:

  1. Select Load to retarget.
  2. Adjust the inject, recipients, timing, or preparedness in the console and verify the previews.
  3. Select Cancel queue on the old entry.
  4. Submit the replacement queue.

Inject calendar combines scenario-scheduled events with queued manual injects so facilitators can see the round plan in one place. Cancelled entries are removed. Every library inject can be scheduled or fired live, and the same inject can be used again without restarting.

Pre-exercise inject planning

Under Prepare → Scenarios → Injects, the round plan shows every configured round, including rounds with no planned inject. Every inject in the library can be scheduled, regardless of its suggested default. Add or duplicate assignments, choose a round, and use All teams, Countries, Agencies, Organizations, or individual team controls for recipients. Put approved events without a fixed round under Flexible / manual injects so the facilitator can decide when to use them. The starting-position preview uses each team’s starting cards to show preparedness and resource effects; cards built during play can improve the live result. The Checks rail warns if the same inject overlaps the same recipients more than once in one round.

If a team is removed from the scenario, assignments aimed only at that team are removed too; mixed-recipient assignments retain the remaining teams. Review the round plan after structural changes.

Editing inject definitions is Prepare → Injects — it needs Library / manage-injects rights (ask admin). Use Add / Create new inject (or + New inject), complete the fields, then select Create inject.

Handle neighbour aid

Captains send Ask / Offer from Play. The staff inbox is on Run → Master Dashboard:

KindYour actions
RequestGrant +$100k, Grant +1 person, or Dismiss
OfferFulfill transfer (moves the committed resources) or Dismiss

Fulfill only after captains have agreed face to face. Dismissed items log a decline on the team.

Partager la vue

Observateurs de table Après le début de la session, le capitaine ouvre Partager la vue et copie l’URL /app?view=… plus un code de table à 6 caractères.

Les observateurs rejoignent /app sous Vous avez un code de table ? ou ouvrent le lien. Ils n’ont pas besoin du mot de passe capitaine. Ils peuvent regarder. Ils ne peuvent pas jouer.

Capitaine

Identifiant et mot de passe. Joue le tour.

Table

Code de table ou /app?view=…. Lecture seule.

A3K9QX
À faire Ne demandez pas aux observateurs de coacher.

Close the round

Bottom of Session (also mirrored on Admin): Debrief pack — turn rationales.

Prompt captains to fill the rationale box before submit.

After-action report (admin)

After an exercise is archived, open Review → Past Plays → Open report. The report is an evidence-led close-out, not a leaderboard. It separates core and stretch objective progress, identifies unmet capability requirements, summarizes inject exposure and final resources, and preserves each team's round decisions.

Standings

Standings → all teams: budget, people, Built / Ready / In plan / Locked, turn state, Open →.

Same Advance all to next round → control appears here when permitted.

Open Scenario

Scenario is a hub with two sub-tabs:

Sub-tabContents
OverviewRegion scenario image and description, interactive markers when configured, plus per-team profile pages
TeamsStaff team tables (same Open-table style browsing as before)

Deep links still work: open a country profile or region view from Overview; Back to Scenario returns to the hub.

Scenario image (one image + type)

Each scenario has a single scenario image (not three separate media slots). A required type is shown as a badge on Scenario Overview / Profiles (and on the captain Briefing → Map view); an optional Image name (custom title) appears next to that badge when set. When type is Other, Image name is required.

TypeMeaning
MapOperating environment / geography
OrganisationActors or entities chart (countries or national entities)
GovernanceRoles / decision structure
OtherSomething else — set Image name so viewers know what it is

Interactive operational map

When both percentage coordinates are set for a team, its marker appears over the scenario image. Select a marker—or the matching team row—to show mission, maturity, threat context, and live / queued / resolved inject status. This works for a multi-country region and for a single-country multi-agency exercise; the marker represents whatever entity type the team uses.

To position a marker, open Prepare → Scenarios → Teams, select the team, and set both Map marker X (%) and Map marker Y (%). Use values from 0 to 100. Leave both empty when a marker is not useful.

Change image / set type appears only if you have Library (scenarioLibrary) — Admin always can. Use either:

  1. Live Scenario view (Overview → region page): image type select + Change image, or
  2. Prepare → Scenarios → Basics & rounds → Scenario image (same one visual + type; save the scenario to keep Library edits).

Without Library: read profiles for facilitation; ask admin to update artwork.

Prepare content

The Prepare menu links directly to each library. Once inside a library, the sub-navigation under the header remains permission-gated:

Sub-tabDefault facilitatorNotes
ScenariosHiddenAsk admin for Library — editing includes Basics → Scenario image (one image + Map / Organisation / Governance / Other type)
InjectsHiddenNeeds manage-injects and/or Library — Add / Create new inject at the top of the list (create/edit needs manageInjects)
CardsVisibleCatalogue for everyone; custom-card creation/editing needs Create cards. Admin can also edit built-ins through persistent overrides and recoverably delete unreferenced cards.

Select the library you need directly from Prepare. Facilitators see only the entries allowed by their permissions.

Scenario rounds and teams

Choose Multi-country starter or National multi-agency starter for a populated, editable four-round structure, or use Blank scenario. A starter is saved as a draft and never becomes active automatically.

Under Prepare → Scenarios → Basics & rounds, select the exercise structure and expand each round to edit its title, objective, required deliverable, and facilitator debrief question. Under Teams, choose whether each player team represents a Country, Government agency, or Organization, then set its brief, resources, objectives, starting cards, and optional map position.

Expand Mandate, dependencies and negotiation position for the team dossier: mandate, decision authorities, assets, dependencies, vulnerabilities, red lines, and negotiation goals. Captains see only their own dossier; staff can inspect every team profile.

Starting a newly selected scenario creates a clean exercise boundary: round number, total rounds, teams, resources, and queued injects are reset from that selected scenario. Save or archive the current play first if it must be retained.

Card explanation and governance

Open a card to review or edit What it is, What this builds, Why it matters, its team task, costs, tier, prerequisites, unlocks, and artwork. Built-in cards use persistent overrides; deletion is recoverable and blocked while a card is still referenced.

Admin can open Quality review to audit all active cards. The summary checks decision copy, at least two deliverables, facilitator metadata, valid resources/dependencies, and artwork. It also compares the six approved Full77 overlap pairs and flags matching card names introduced later. A documented overlap is not an instruction to delete: edit the related-card field and distinction rationale when the capabilities represent different maturity steps or operating outcomes. Before deleting either card, remove every scenario, objective, inject, dependency, live-session, and documented relationship that still uses it.

Use Maturity tier and Review status beside search to focus the catalogue on a tier, quality exceptions, or related/overlap cards. Existing codes remain immutable identifiers; duplicating a card creates a new custom card whose new code must be unique and whose relationship to the source is visible in the quality review.

On Prepare → Injects, use Add / Create new inject → + New inject to open the editor (code, label/title, effects, prepared/unprepared, required cards). Save with Create inject.

Do not change the active scenario mid-group unless admin directs it. Prefer fixing play issues with grants, injects, and session controls.

Trading (room coaching)

Remind tables:

Typical round loop

  1. Read this round’s title and brief, and the timing.
  2. Start (or resume) the round and watch the timer.
  3. Coach tables; handle aid, trades, grants, and planned or manual injects.
  4. Check map status, submissions, resource changes, and queued events.
  5. When all submitted (or time is up), use the round’s debrief question.
  6. Advance; confirm the next-round brief and queued inject effects.
  7. Repeat through the planned rounds, then close with the Debrief pack and participant Feedback.

Admin extras (short)

Admin has everything facilitators might lack:

Facilitators cannot change their own passwords — ask admin for a reset.

What facilitators normally do not handle

Unless admin grants the toggle:

Demo pack (not the workshop)

Do this Two tables lives in the library. It is not the default. It is not the workshop.

Logins: north / north-111 and south / south-222. Injects: Round 2 isolate, Round 3 press. Use it to practise sign-in, one card, acknowledge, Share view, and close.

Match UI labels in the live app. Source: docs/guides-preview/facilitator.md. Admin: use this guide (Admin extras section) plus optional Captain guide.