The Laundry: From First to Second Edition

It has been nearly fourteen years since the First Edition of The Laundry Roleplaying Game was launched. Ah, those carefree days before the events of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN. Times have changed, and so has The Laundry Roleplaying Game. But what has actually changed from the first to the second edition?

The Game System

The most obvious change is the game system. The first edition of The Laundry Roleplaying Game used the Basic Roleplaying System, as seen in Call of Cthulhu. We’ve changed the game system completely, just like taking all of those Windows operating systems out of the Laundry offices and switching them to Linux (trust us, it’s safer). 

The Laundry uses a dice pool that scales nicely from the gritty realism of being a lowly accountant sent out into the field to the more powerful individuals you encounter as CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN looms ever closer. 

It’s pretty simple, really. Whenever the outcome of an action is in doubt, and success or failure would significantly impact the characters and the story, the GM will ask players to roll a pool of six-sided dice equal to their Attribute and Skill. They need to roll equal to or above the difficulty to get successes - the more successes you roll the better you succeed!

Your Assignment

Instead of Archetypes, The Laundry Roleplaying Game has a wide variety of Assignments – these are your ‘day jobs’ while working at the Laundry. When you were recruited, whether it was voluntary or not, your skills and abilities were considered when determining the best place to assign you. When it comes to character creation, it works the other way around - you choose a cool-looking Assignment for your day job and gain a package of Skills and Talents that define what you’re good at. 

You can work in Accounts, Legal Affairs, IT, Archives, or Logistics, or take on one of the stranger roles as a Counterpossession Exorcist, Computational Demonologist, or as a Plumber, Cleaner, or OCCULUS Support.

You’ll team up with other operatives from various departments to venture into the field. 

New Talents

In addition to your usual Attributes and Skills, every character has a number of Talents that reflect their natural abilities or unique specialities that can come in very handy when facing mind-melting horrors. In addition to the expected combat-orientated Talents, operatives for the Laundry often develop a knack for bureaucracy and how to manipulate forms and paperwork to get access to better equipment or bypass all of the red tape that can slow things down. They can have a particular affinity with computers or tech, allowing them to identify rogue coding that could open portals to incomprehensible realms or jury-rig a gadget to get them out of a sticky situation. They could have a natural ability to know where they are in London (not an easy feat unless you’re a cabbie), sense mystic energy lines, or just where a good takeaway is.

New Art

You’ll have noticed the striking and very different artwork we’ve been using and a new full-colour design in lovely hardcovers. We wanted to revamp the layout to give it a striking new design that not only stands out but also evokes the tone and feel of The Laundry. 

New Adventures

Along with a new system, there is a host of new adventures for your operatives to undertake as part of their ‘active duty’. This is most evident in the brand new supplement, Introduction to Applied Occult Computing, which takes a new group of operatives and, over the course of a series of mishaps, they find themselves assigned to the prestigious Milton Keynes field office (established after the unfortunate SCORPION STARE incident). From there, Gamemasters will find a wide range of adventures and plots hidden within the city, which will keep players on their toes for many sessions to come. 

In addition to Introduction to Applied Occult Computing, classic adventures from the first edition’sBlack Bag Jobs have been revamped, revised, and reopened with some new adventures to create Black Bag Jobs Reopened, a collection of missions where ‘Things’ (with a capital T) try to break into our reality. 

The Laundry Roleplaying Game is available for pre-order on our website, where you’ll get access to the PDFs straight away and the two supplements, Introduction to Applied Occult Computing and Black Bag Jobs Reopened. Head over to the Cubicle 7 Webstore to find out more HERE!