Feature Funnies #17

This is from The Clock Strikes, and that's not shoes in that shoebox -- that's radium!  This is 1939 and not too many people understand how radiation works, so it's not important that it work right in your 1939 campaign either.

That clever Clock figured out a good way to earn an extra 100 xp for a good deed in the middle of the scenario, extorting that charity check out of the good doctor!

This is Espionage -- always a favorite of mine, but I share this page to point out two things. One is the implied license to kill given to Black X. This is one of the good guys, but as of 1939, it was still okay for the good guys to kill. That would make some of my more bloodthirsty players very happy!

Also, using the torn pieces of paper as a passkey like that is a good idea worth stealing for an espionage-themed scenario.

Predating James Bond by 15 years, Black X has a wealth of super-spy weapons such that Q might have come up with, as inventoried in Supplement IV: Captains, Magicians, and Incredible Men.  Here we see the tear gas pen, good for temporarily incapacitating foes at point blank range.

We also see how volatile technology is when it makes a scene more dramatic.  The wrecking things rules has a note about wrecked generators setting hideouts on fire, but really it should apply to any machine, even when being wrecked by non-Superheroes.

This sword fight might be an example of a parry rule in play, or it might just be flavor text -- it's hard to say with parrying. The ability to go "full defense" and get an Armor Class adjustment is still asked for by my players, and Hideouts & Hoodlums will probably keep Parry as a game mechanic.

I'm not sure how jumping out of a high window into your car would negate taking any damage -- although it would, admittedly, look really cool and that's often reason enough for players to want to do something. Perhaps the Editor just rolled low falling damage.

This is from Gallant Knight. The panther's spring attack is more like tripping/overbearing -- a grappling attack that definitely needs to be accommodated in the rules and, apparently, usable by even non-intelligent foes.

This is a rather clever ploy from The Gallant Knight's player -- if he manages a positive or friendly result from an encounter reaction check, he could force some morale saves with this ploy. Since there is a large force of men involved here, the Editor could hand-wave individual morale saves and just say, oh, 30% of the men make their morale saves.

There's nothing particularly adventurous in this installment of Dixie Dugan, but I was struck by the similarity between this scenario and the video game franchise Animal Crossing, where you do favors for animals and retrieve loaned items in exchange for trophies -- and realized that one could play a Dixie Dugan H&H campaign based on this same premise!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)