More Fun Comics #10

We rejoins Sandra of the Secret Service, now involved in a Gothic adventure around a spooky old castle!  Not only would the Black Tower and its secret halls be an ideal hideout, but a Silent Watcher would make an interesting mobster-type to encounter...

Jack Woods demonstrates a climb stunt here.  Also, Pancho Villa's henchmen, previously called bandits, are called brigands here. Another RPG distinguished bandits from brigands, suggesting that brigands were evil bandits, while bandits weren't necessarily quite so bad.  Hideouts & Hoodlums follows this model.

A skeptical reader might wonder about two things here -- why Pancho Villa took the time to knock Jack's gun out of his hand instead of just shooting him in the back, and how Jack managed to grapple Pancho without getting shot first.

If we do assume that bandits are Neutral and not Chaotic, and since Pancho is specifically a bandit here and not called a brigand like his henchmen, then Pancho would be naturally more inclined to take Jack prisoner rather than kill him in cold blood.  It will be important to remember, when running H&H, to make sure that most mobsters encountered have goals other than killing Heroes.

The other question is, how did Jack strike first?  One possibility is an Editor that ignored the traditional order of combat and allowed both missile and melee attacks to be decided by the same initiative roll.  Or, the Editor rolled for Pancho first, missed, and then used flavor text to describe it as Jack getting the drop on Pancho, since it made more sense to describe it like that than a miss at point blank range. H&H has that kind of flexibility.

Though Don Drake is on an alien world full of wondrous things, it's interesting how a simple net trap is what does him in.  It's a big net, so if Don was surprised, there wouldn't be much of a chance to run out from underneath it. I might even give him a -1 penalty to his save vs. science to dodge the trap.

Barry O'Neill is wise to worry about the Secret Service seaplane. That deck-gun is probably an autocannon, which was statted in Supplement I: National, and does a doozy amount of damage.

It's interesting how many targets the paralysis ray can be used on at such a short distance. That's one wide-angled ray...

What's interesting here is that the the paralysis raygun is easily thwarted -- because it's plugged in by wires. When planning to use a hi-tech weapon in your campaign, it's important to consider the power source. This isn't so much an issue with magic trophies.

Doctor Occult explains at length about a magic spell that drains years off your victim's life and adds it to your own. It's not the sort of combat- or hideout exploring-related spell you would expect to need in H&H, so it will probably stay off the spell lists, but on a magic scroll, as a one-shot item to be found, this could be an atmospheric addition to an evil necromancer's treasure trove.

Henri Duval is getting overwhelmed by sheet weight of numbers.  Truthfully -- I haven't figured this one out yet. The H&H rules are more geared towards one-on-one grappling combats. Overwhelming with numbers is something I'll still have to work on.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus at
http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=11615&b=i)