Planet Comics #3 - pt. 4

We're down to the last feature -- poor lonely Auro, Lord of Jupiter! - but we're not going to ignore it because I have some things to say about this one.

We start with Auro doing a lot of showing off. We don't need game mechanics to handle simple showing off; any Editor should let his players describe any showboating as flavor text without making them roll for it.

But what if we did need to roll? Like, if Auro was competing with someone else for showboating? If Auro was a mysteryman, competing with other mysterymen, they could try to outbid each other on how many stunts they will expend. Other heroes could rely on the skill system, treating acrobatics as a skill. If only one contestant makes his skill check, then we have an obvious winner. If more than one makes it, the one who makes it by the most wins.

But on a d6, there is not much room for nuance there. In which case, we might switch to the unofficial game mechanic of ability score checks; have everyone try to roll under DEX, with the roll closest to the score winning.

This is not just a dragon; a few pages later we learn it is a dragon man. That would be because it can polymorph between forms. It can also breathe fire through its nostrils, but we never see it breathe fire far enough to function as a weapon. It is massive in size and probably has quite a few Hit Dice. Maybe 12?

Morale saves are very easily triggered in Hideouts & Hoodlums; any time your players say "I do this, does it make them run?" you should probably check with a morale save.

I'm amused that Auro feels he's "armed to the teeth" with only two visible weapons. Did he crotch some grenades?

How is there a kingdom within a few miles of your palace, and you don't know about it?

The leopard -- wandering encounter or fixed encounter outside the kingdom? You decide!

I like how the dragon man, as powerful as it is, chooses to throw a rock at Auro. And it's actually the most effective attack it gets in the entire story!

Spoiler - after pages of set up, the dragon man gets killed with one sword thrust, like most golden age opponents. Bleah!

That "scientific explanation of the Earth's origin"...I wonder if there is any truth to that, or if someone just misremembered what they had once learned about the theory of the Moon's origin...?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)