Silent Intercept — Telecommunications Sector Edition

Digital Download

Game Creator: Philippe Borremans / RiskComms FZCO

Estimated Time to Play: 90–120 minutes

Number of Players: 5–8 players plus a facilitator

Roles (8):

CEO, General Counsel, Chief Information Security Officer, Director of Corporate Communications, Government Liaison, Board Representative, Regulatory Affairs Lead (optional), Investor Relations Lead (optional)

Game Description:

Silent Intercept is a tabletop crisis simulation built around a nation-state intrusion that sat inside a major US carrier's network for seven months — and the federal intelligence agency that knew for three weeks before the company did, then asked it to say nothing. There's no ransom, no outage, no single dramatic breach moment to communicate around — just a legal notification clock that started the moment the intrusion was confirmed, and a government request, not quite an order and not quite deniable, to let it keep running dark. Players don't get to resolve the tension between disclosure and suppression. Every decision moves one tracker in the room and damages the other; there is no move that helps both.

Features:

•      Two trackers pulling in opposite directions — Government Silence Pressure rises as players push toward disclosure and falls as they accommodate the agency; Trust/Legitimacy moves the opposite way on the same decisions, by design.

•      A real regulatory deadline as the central clock — a publicly-committed 72-hour customer notification window is already running when the session starts, and its expiry mid-session converts every undisclosed fact into an active violation.

•      Hidden back-channel dynamic — the CISO receives private contact from the intelligence agency each round that the rest of the table doesn't know about unless it surfaces in play, creating genuine information asymmetry at the table itself.

•      Ambiguous authority as the core obstacle — the government's suppression request is never confirmed as legally binding or empty; players operate under real leverage (federal contracts, licence renewal, an implicit investigation threat) without ever knowing exactly how much weight it carries.

•      Facilitator-driven escalation — a 10-round, 40-hour clock moving from the suppression dynamic, through independent media exposure, to the hard 72-hour disclosure deadline in the final rounds.

•      Four distinct endgame states — Disclosed but Damaged, Narrative Lock-In, Agency Action, or Proactive Disclosure — with no outcome in which every objective is achieved.

•      Scalable — runs with 5 players doubling up on roles or a full 8-person table; the Government Liaison role should never be cut.

Game requires 1d6 and 1d10 (not included with digital download; free online dice rollers work)