A branching, choose-your-path tabletop built for a regional bank. A system change two years ago quietly started charging customers overdraft fees the bank's own disclosures didn't allow. Six shared injects establish the problem, then the room's own decision — refund customers now on an estimate, or finish the full lookback and agree a plan with regulators first — sends the exercise down one of two independent, fully-scripted paths. Both of them end with a regulator asking why it took this long.
Every detail below is fictional — specific enough to feel real in the room, and generic enough to map onto almost any regulated firm where a technical change can quietly break a promise to customers.
A regional bank headquartered in Pittsburgh with $45B in assets, about 1.9 million checking customers, and ~6,200 employees. Aldermoor is publicly traded and supervised by both banking and consumer protection regulators.
Twenty-six months ago, Aldermoor upgraded its core banking platform. The project was delivered on time and under budget. One configuration change altered the order in which transactions post to accounts. Nobody tested what that did to overdraft fees — until now.
Six injects, delivered over the first 48 hours, that every player experiences regardless of what the room ultimately decides. This phase ends with the decision that splits the exercise in two.
A complaints analyst notices a cluster of customers saying they were charged overdraft fees even though they had enough money when they made the purchase. She traces it to the order in which transactions post.
Compliance confirms the problem: since the core platform upgrade, transactions have posted in an order that generates more overdraft fees than Aldermoor's customer disclosures allow. Roughly 410,000 customers may have been overcharged, by an estimated $38M to $60M.
Internal audit finds the posting-order change was approved through the vendor-led project's change process. Compliance signed off on the project, but nobody tested the fee logic against the disclosures.
Aldermoor's consumer compliance exam starts in three weeks. Its regulatory relationship manager is already asking about complaint trends in overdraft fees.
Quarterly earnings are nine days away. The CFO asks whether the remediation needs to be reserved for this quarter, and how to describe it to investors.
The room has two options. Refund customers now based on the current estimate — about $45M — and fix the details later. Or complete a full transaction-level lookback, about twelve weeks, and agree the remediation plan with regulators before paying anyone. Either way, the posting order will be corrected this week. The room has to decide.
From here, the facilitator runs one of two fully independent scripts depending on what the room chose in Inject 6. Toggle between them below to see how each one unfolds — in a live session, players only ever see the one they earned.
Refund credits post to 410,000 accounts with a short notice. Customers call to ask what the credits are for, and the call center wasn't briefed in time.
Quality checks find that about 8% of refunds were calculated incorrectly — some too high, some too low. Clawing back overpayments would be a second customer harm.
Regulators learn about the refunds from a customer complaint. They ask why Aldermoor didn't notify them before paying, and how it calculated the amounts.
A local paper reports that Aldermoor is refunding customers for improper overdraft fees. National consumer finance writers pick it up.
The ongoing lookback finds that the same posting-order change also affected returned-item fees. A second round of refunds will be needed.
About 60,000 affected customers have closed their accounts. Aldermoor has no current way to pay them, and some addresses are years out of date.
A class action is filed, arguing the refunds didn't include interest or compensate for secondary harms like declined payments and late fees elsewhere.
Aldermoor reports earnings with a $52M charge for remediation. Analysts ask whether fee income was overstated for two years and what other controls might have failed.
Counsel advises that refunds for fees older than a certain period may not be legally required. Paying them would add about $9M and show good faith. The room has to decide how far back remediation goes.
The board asks how a core banking change went live without anyone testing its effect on customer fees, and what other changes from the same project should be re-examined.
The posting order is corrected, so no new overcharges occur. Customers aren't told, because the lookback hasn't finished. Several call center agents ask what to say if customers ask.
Aldermoor notifies its regulators and presents a twelve-week lookback plan. Regulators ask why customers can't be refunded sooner, and request weekly updates.
A former project team member files a complaint alleging the fee issue was raised during testing two years ago and dismissed. Internal records partly support the claim.
A reporter obtains the whistleblower complaint and asks whether Aldermoor is still holding money it owes customers.
Complaints about overdraft fees spike after the story runs, including from customers who weren't affected. The complaint volume itself becomes a regulatory data point.
With earnings next week, the CFO must book a reserve. The lookback isn't done, so the estimate range is wide. Auditors push for the high end.
The head of consumer banking argues the lookback is too conservative and will inflate the refund. The chief compliance officer argues anything less will fail regulatory review.
Regulators signal they're considering enforcement action, citing the length of time customers have gone without refunds and the testing failure two years ago.
The room must decide whether to make an interim payment now to the most clearly affected customers — about 70% of the expected total — before the lookback is finished. The room has to decide.
The board asks how a core banking change went live without anyone testing its effect on customer fees, and why a concern raised two years ago went nowhere.
The two paths are built to converge on the same hard questions, arrived at from opposite directions.
The full Aldermoor scenario — every inject, both paths, and the debrief questions — is available as a print-ready PDF you can share with your own team or board. Enter your email and we'll take you straight to the download.
The Aldermoor exercise is a sample — built to show how a regulatory remediation simulation can branch on the decision that actually matters, and stay uncomfortable in both directions. A simulation built for your organization starts with your products, your regulators, and your remediation process.
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