Review Summary: A compilation where each adventure is better than the other.
Blurb from the publisher: ' The Laundry - protecting the United Kingdom from the scum of the multiverse. Most of the time, saving the world is a 9 to 5 job. Clock in every morning. Feel your life tick away with each meeting and each pointless bit of paperwork. Stare at a screen and feel your brain leaking out through your ears. Try to keep the boredom from killing you. Clock out in the evening and slouch home.
It's never good when they call you into the office at four in the morning. Any mission that doesn't fit on the standard day planner is inevitably ghastly. They involve things with too many tentacles, people who want to kill you, and secrets that mean you'll never sleep well again. Keep your mouth shut and your head down, and you might just make it through the night. Screw up, and it's entirely possible you just doomed humanity to a fate worse than death.
No pressure.
Black Bag Jobs contains six self-contained missions for your Laundry campaign. From the war-torn hillsides of Afghanistan to the corridors of power in Whitehall, from yoga lessons in Devon to the end of the world, it's time to break in and steal the secrets of reality, like:
- The truth about social networking;
- How to weaponize a shoggoth;
- Management secrets of the undying priests;
- What the Auditors fear;
- How to prepare for the apocalypse;
- ... and what happens after.'
What you get: Your USD 24,99 or GBP 16,99 will buy you both the 128-page, black and white softcover of Black_Bag_Jobs, a collection of six adventures for The Laundry game line, as well as its electronic edition.
The adventure collection can also be purchased in an electronic format only for EUR 12,73 or USD 14,99 or GBP 11,54. The electronic edition is 129 pages long. Quaintly enough, the back cover is missing.
The adventures are rather balanced when it comes to size, ranging from 16 to 24 pages; it shouldn't take more than one long session to complete each. They do not form a cohesive campaign as is, but with minimal work they can be played as one, in a mission-of-the-week sort of style. If played as one-shots some of them can end with major apocalyptic events and tragedies. They are all contemporary, yet they take place in different places. Each includes a number of handouts. No pregenerated characters are included. Most major NPCs get a piece of art. Both fonts and margins are smallish.
Spoiler warning: As much as I am not going to describe, let alone detail the adventures, parts of the scenarios might be revealed while discussing their strong and less strong points. If you intend to participate in these scenarios as a player, stop reading now.
The strong points: Black Bag Jobs is the first adventure collection that came out for The Laundry, and is as straightforward a product as they get. It is not a campaign, it's the Agents doing their every day jobs. Their common characteristic? Each adventure has one kick-ass idea about horror, sci-fi or what have you, that is as fresh in 2017 that I write this review as it was in 2010 when the book was published. Each adventure, no matter how serious it is otherwise, also has at least one scene that should be played with laughs in mind, even if it is the final boss fight.
The self-contained adventures are very different from one another when it comes to either substance or style. There is a moment for everything: for high politics and the evaluation of how international treaties are enforced, missions in war-torn countries (Afghanistan was still on the headlines when this book came out), a whodunit involving internal traitors and the Russkies, and even some R&R which, as expected, goes south. As an example, Case Lambent follows the action-filled tropes of the tight, nail-biting countdown in an enclosed space, taking place in an oil rig. Lost and Found on the other hand is an dark comedy affair about internal professional backstabbing and how it can get out of hand to the point of using occult powers and killing colleagues, and all that while simultaneously sucking up to the minister on the phone. They are also very different when it comes to the rules they are using. I am very happy to see most of them incorporate the equipment acquisition rules that contribute to the bureaucratic aspect of a typical game set in The Laundryverse. If I had to choose a favourite adventure, I would honestly fail to. The Signal has an incredible idea about social networking and some rather unexpected body snatchers, while Lost and Found has the most unbelievable (in the literal sense of the word) ending with the bad guy talking on the phone while fighting the agents in front of him. I can't ask for much more as a Gamemaster.
The horror is fantastic and the humour is unsurpassable if you are into dry, British humour. In which other RPG does your character interrupt a D&D session in progress with Zagor (!) as the antagonist, and gets pelted with polyhedrals by the participants? In proper Mythos spirit, the adventures are lethal and are first and foremost about damage containment, even though in some situations the characters can claim victories. Simply reading the adventures provoked numerous laugh-out-loud moments; they are that well-written. I immediately recognised that the lines that made me laugh could not necessarily be inserted in the session as is, seeing how they were part of the book's directions on how to run the game. Every moment of preparation you are putting on each adventure, irrespective of whether it adds to the horrific, the bizarre, the funny or the kafkaesque, will be a moment well-spent. Don't be sloppy with them, and don't run them on the fly. They deserve your attention, because you aren't aiming towards scares and goosebumps only; you also want your players to honestly laugh.
Do not believe for a second that the humour that is inherent in The Laundry will prohibit these adventures from being played with a straight face; on the contrary. This can happen in either a slightly more serious Laundry campaign, or the system and setting of your choice, standard Call of Cthulhu, Conspiracy X and Delta Green included. You will need a bit of work, that goes without saying.
The art is of a very high quality. There is at least one handout per adventure, and in contrast to publications from other publishers, no space is wasting by printing it twice. Most major NPCs get their own image and a relatively good background for them to be roleplayed convincingly.
The weak points: I don't mind that there aren't any pre-generated characters, I admit however that I would have liked some additional instructions on the skills necessary per adventure at its beginning. The intro in each helps only marginally.
There are a couple of gaps here and there where the GM will have to provide his input. This occurs mostly in between scenes, yet, I can't really complain. The game does not hide that it is not grimdark and that the writer does not aspire to cover everything. In fact, in many situations I was very surprised to see such extensive read out texts, as if the game is aimed towards novice Gamemasters.
As much as there is imagery for most NPCs, this does not mean that all of them are covered. Even more so, there is practically no imagery of the opposition, or at least the supernatural one that the Agents will face in front of their eyes. I could have understood that in a standard Call of Cthulhu game where the baddie is supposed to be hazy and might not be even perceived properly, yet this is the Laundry. At some point the characters will discuss with Deep Ones, pleading for humanity not to be destroyed (or at least the UK). This isn't something that happens every day. Where are the visuals for all that excitement?
There are three bookmarks only on the pdf (which is otherwise of good quality), and they are as irrelevant as they can be. Clearly, this must be a sort of practical joke. This product has been published seven years ago. Nobody bothered to correct such a glaring omission? A Gamemaster's job is hard enough as it is; I don't need to have to bookmark an electronic document to find things in the heat of the session.
Τypos rear their ugly head again. And there was no rejoicing.
Conclusion: Black Bag Jobs is a must-have scenario compilation for everybody who wants to see clever, contemporary horror in adventure format. It doesn't matter which is your system or world of choice. When it comes to conspiracies and the occult, this book should be a part both of your library and of your gaming memories. The moment someone improves the pdf version, the rating will go to the 5/5 this gem deserves.
For more info on Black_Bag_Jobs and Cubicle 7 visit its website at http://cubicle7.co.uk.
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