The Funnies #26

This poison dart comes from Four Aces and -- even using the abstract weapon damage rule, where all weapons do 1-6 points of damage -- I hesitate to have this apply to small darts. Maybe the 1d6 could take into account some damage from the poison (you make your save vs. death, but you still take 1d6 damage), but an un-poisoned dart should do 1-3 points of damage at most.

Goat joke #17!  And that bottom panel...both funny and a little disturbing...

Ben Webster is still getting to know a "missing link". As much as I loathe the execution here...the concept of highly intelligent, telepathic cavemen is pretty interesting...

10 cent parking.

This bridge encounter looks like it would be fun to play. How to determine, though, if the car can crash through the barricade of barrels? I would reverse the wrecking things table by figuring a car is equal to a 5th level Superhero (the same distance down the left side of the table and across the top). The strength of the barricade would vary, but I would not make it stronger than "robot" on the left hand column. So the car would either auto-wreck, or possibly need a 4+ or 7+ to wreck.

This is from Bob Baker.  Using a battering ram allows multiple people to pool their chance to wreck things. In this case, since none of the men holding the ram are Superheroes, I would use the non-Superhero wrecking things chart to figure out the door's saving throw, then assign it a -1 penalty per additional man holding the ram.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

The Funnies #25

Okay...I'm a little skeptical about Captain Easy being able to throw a lit torch over a castle wall, but besides that, it's a brilliant plan to get into a castle. And this is just a Fighter -- no powers or spells, no wrecking things. This is the kind of plan that makes you proud when your players come up with it, and you're only too glad to let them succeed.

I'm not a Ben Webster fan, so I hesitate to even share these pages...but the idea of installing an invisibility ray in your foyer, so no one can see who's entering your house, seems like just the sort of over-the-top thing a mad scientist might do. This could be a great deterrent for burglars working in teams, or groups of Heroes looking to raid his house.  "You see your teammate walk in first and -- completely vanish, as if disintegrated!" Of course, you risk your players getting their hands on an invisibility ray...

I don't know what to make of this page. Should "missing link" be a mobster type? Should it really be an intelligent, well-spoken monkey man? I'm open to the possibility, but really want a different model for it than this...

"Delirious from his wounds" sounds like an interesting complication from injuries. Again, I'm skeptical about inflicting complications on Heroes, even though I was at one time planning to have a table of these in 2nd edition. Maybe I still will, but for non-Heroes to suffer...?

Bob Baker's got a bold, but good plan to draw the killer out of hiding. Interestingly, I used this same strategy myself once, when playing the classic D&D module, The Assassin's Knot.

Now, this -- roping two people with the same lasso? This makes me think that maybe I do need to keep the game mechanic of stunts as-is. Mass Roping is not something that should be normally possible in combat, but as a once-a-day occurrence, I could allow this.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #24

The continuing adventures of Alley Oop have him brawling with his ex-friend on the back of a flying pteranodon (the narrator refers to it as a pterodactyl, but it is way too large to be a pterodactyl). Any combat that takes place on a moving animal's back, moving vehicle, or some other terrain where balance comes into play should require a save vs. science from each participant per turn to keep from falling.

According to Alley Oop, pteranodons must have a low Armor Class from frontal attacks because their beaks are so hard (or Alley is just griping because his attack rolls have all been so bad).

If nothing else, maybe Reg'lar Fellers here makes the best case that anyone should have a chance to hypnotize others. But how good a chance? A 1 in 6 chance of triggering a save vs. plot?

Captain Easy has been struggling for the past few months, with its directionless plotting, but here Easy struggles with an issue Hideouts & Hoodlums players may struggle with someday -- how far can you move someone against their will that your character is grappling? I would have the grappler roll to hit and the victim roll a save vs. science and then look at those numbers. If the to hit roll was 5 or more higher than what was needed, the grappler can move the victim a half-Move away. If the save was 5 or less below what was needed, the grappler can move the victim another half-Move away.

The Editor must be careful to remain neutral, especially when the players are bluffing. Sure, the Editor knows that Easy's cannon has no gunpowder in it, but he has to realize that the guards in the truck would have no way of knowing that and should be given a morale save accordingly.

Machine guns have been a trophy weapon available in the game since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, with canons and anti-aircraft guns being added in the more military-themed Supplement I: National. Note that Fighters do need tripod mounts for machine guns, as pictured correctly here, and anti-aircraft guns are not handheld weapons for anyone other than buffed Superheroes. 

As for that antique plane...even I wouldn't be mean enough to give my players transportation that antiquated...

Decades before The Godfather gave this a different context.  This gag filler is called Hold Everything.

This seems to be a clear-cut case, to me, of a stunt I gave the Cowboy class (in Supplement III: Better Quality) called Quick Draw.  Otherwise, I wouldn't even roll for initiative if one side has their guns out and the other doesn't.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

The Funnies #23

I never thought I'd be starting a post here with a Captain Easy image quite like this one, but appropriate language is an issue worth bringing up, I think. There's a word right smack dab in the middle of these nine panels that, for much of comic book history, you wouldn't have seen in print. Now, this is clearly the exception -- I've had 231 posts before this one, reporting on comics that contained nothing this crude/colorful in them. I guess the point here is that, comic book purists don't have to kick that one player who lets slip the occasional crude/colorful word out of their gaming group after all.

Globetrotting Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign face a serious dilemma -- how fast do you gloss over travel? Do you establish a sense of place for each locale at the risk of bogging down the game and losing your momentum? On the other hand, do you rattle off names and images as fast as Roy Crane did here, on a speedy trip across Europe?

Should riders always be able to get their mounts to attack? No, a mount should be treated like any Supporting Cast Member outside the player's control. The Editor should make an encounter reaction roll each turn to judge the animal's temperament and willingness to engage in hostile acts (maybe with some modifiers, like a -1 per level of the Hero?).

Map handouts are useful for your players, even if you can only draw a rough map. It's important to include any relevant information they need to solve the scenario on the map.

This is interesting to me. Jack leaps and tackles Rufe off his horse. Obviously, Jack rolled to hit. Then some other mechanic came into play, like maybe a save vs. science for Rufe to keep from being unhorsed. Now, how I would play it, Jack would then control the action and wind up on top when they landed -- but in the story Rufe reverses and winds up on top.   What happened there, in game mechanics?  Rufe counter-attacked with grapple in the same turn and also hit. But how to determine which has the advantage over the other?

One way would be to compare to hit rolls, with the higher roll having the advantage. Another would be to compare saving throws, with the worst save vs. science winding up on bottom. Or, since both combatants hit their target numbers, and are normally not penalized for not going x number higher than the target number, simply roll a d6, with evens being Jack on top and odds being Rufe on top. You only have to go so far into using dice rolls for fairness; a lot of the time, dice rolls actually represent the chaotic randomness of combat that the Hero can't control.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)