Top-Notch Comics #2 - pt. 3

This is Stacey Knight M.D. still, even though it looks like a more nautical-themed hero's adventure. Here, we see hoodlums in 1940 are still torn between traditional sailboats and modern patrol boats.

Brass knuckles are a popular weapon for heroes in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but there is little evidence of them being used in comics. Here is a rare instance of a mobster using them.

Stacey must have surprisingly narrow hips to squeeze through a porthole. I'd give him a save vs. science or he'd do 1 point of damage to himself and get stuck.

Splash pages were rare things in 1940. The feature is Air Patrol and the narration makes it clear that this was a random encounter with at least 3 aviators. It's also clear that these are Nazi planes by the swastikas, an image most comics shied away from still this early in 1940.

I'm struck, on this page, by how hard it is for people to hit their targets with missiles. The anti-aircraft gun is a powerful weapon, but fired by 1st level fighters, only has a 50/50 chance of hitting (less, if the modifiers for hitting moving targets at great speed, found in 1st edition, are used). The depth charges, against a stationary submarine, should have been an easy hit, but then the same modifiers could apply to dropping from above. Area of effect damage does not seem to impact vehicles, only direct hits.

I offer this page as evidence that skills, like identifying counterfeit money, need to get better as heroes gain experience, like Experience Points.

Not a bad strategy, pretending to be a delivery boy so Swift can listen outside the door of the hideout. Bad guys often happen to be saying something important just when Heroes might be listening.

Joe's not very smart. Tony just told him that there's a cop in the pit, but Tony doesn't seem at all suspicious when he sees Don Carlos below. We've long seen that disguises work really well in comic books, but even here I might give the thug a +1, or even a +2, as a common sense modifier to his save vs. plot to see through this deception.

Here's a nice dystopian future for those who like such things: a New York in the year 2000 where rocket cars race along really high overpasses without guardrails. I think they've solved overcrowding in this future!

Hmm. Now, they just left 1940 because taxis were too dangerous, but they are happy to fight to the death against overwhelming numbers of Martian invaders.

And the Earth forces are so desperate for fighters that they're willing to take in a man dressed like a Viking. This actually reminds me of so many RPG campaigns where the DM/GM/Referee/Editor had a fixed story line and tried to shoehorn all the player characters into it, even though some of the players insisted on making gonzo characters that don't fit into that story line.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #1 - pt. 2

As I move deeper into this issue past The Wizard's feature, it becomes clear that this issue was prepared by the same packager (Chesler?) that produced a lot of the early Centaur books...and has that same level of quality. Still, I found some things worth commenting on.

This feature is Scott Rand in the World of Time and, as a campaign idea, the focus would be on traveling through time and trying to pick up the most unusual supporting cast throughout history you can get. Here, we see Scott and his boss picking up a high-level Viking Fighter. On the following pages, they also recruit a very un-Egyptian-looking Egyptian princess.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums, language is not an issue -- except when the Editor chooses to make it one. In 2nd edition, there's a note about how the Editor can require a Hero to spend one month's time learning a new language, but these Heroes have a work around for that thanks to the timeless limbo their time ship can reach. This limbo also opens up all kinds of other possibilities for breaking the downplay parts of the game, like unlimited time for inventing things.

I think it's interesting to point out that the time ship has to move forward in physical space before it can time jump; it isn't a one or the other deal.

The Doctor Who parallels should also be pretty obvious and need no elaboration.

From Air Patrol, we see the Aviator stunt Find Blind Spot. Also the stunt Find Origin Story?

Interesting, that the dog fight takes almost an hour of game time to resolve. In second edition H&H, an hour is 120 combat turns!  Maybe aerial combat needs to be run at a different speed?

A rare example of "splash" damage from a comic book (I mean the fire "splashing", not the splashing from hitting the water).

This is from The Mystic.  I find it interesting because, despite the trappings of a magic-user, The Mystic appears to only have skills like escape artistry, which makes him more of a Mysteryman. Never be fooled by the trappings.

This is from Manhunters, showing the true crime genre being a poor fit for Jack Cole.

So how hard should it be to vault a 6-foot fence?  The world record for pole vaulting was almost 15' circa 1939, and that's the closest comparison I can think of. If we rounded down to something divisible by 6 and split the feet between pips on a 6-sided die, that would give us: a 1 in 6 chance to vault 11-12', a 2 in 6 chance to vault 9-10', a 3 in 6 chance to vault 7-8', a 4 in 6 chance to vault 5-6', a 5 in 6 chance to vault 3-4', and vaulting 1-2' would be automatic successes.

And that's all assuming the Editor has time to break things down like that. On the fly, I probably would have ruled a 2 in 6 chance, but might have compromised with a 3 or even a 4 in 6 chance depending on how good a case the players made I was wrong.

Okay, there's no way a belt buckle counts as armor, so using it to explain the miss is just flavor text. I think I've used this example, or something like it, from a comic book story before, though. The real reason I like this page is because Sukup is such a comically ridiculous name, as is the line "Alright, Sukup, come along!"

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Star Ranger #6

I've written about both bandits and robbers before on this blog. In Hideouts & Hoodlums, they are two distinctly separate mobster types, but what makes them distinctly separate in the comic books is not always so evident.

Previously, I thought I had plenty of evidence that bandits are robbers of an ethnic/racial stereotype, most often Hispanics. But in this issue of Star Ranger, we see the same ethnic stereotype villains being referred to as robbers!

Regardless of how this one gets resolved, it seems robbers should maybe be extra good at finding concealed money on people's persons -- maybe a 3 in 6 chance?

H&H specifies melee combat as being when you're within 10' of your opponent, but what it doesn't spell out is that there are conditions in which that doesn't apply. Common sense has to be applied to figure out when the environment precludes melee combat, but one example would be when locked behind a door and trying to attack through a barred window. In these cases, you obviously have to lure your opponent right up to the bars before you can attack.

I have yet to meet a player who would pick a hot air balloon over an airplane, but they are in the rules (Book II: Mobsters & Trophies).

H&H is very generous when it comes to lifting weights. Essentially, anyone can lift up to 1,000 lbs. without needing a superpower. Non-Superheroes can even wreck things (the mechanics for that are in Book II in the ebook version, but moving to Book III: Underworld & Metropolitan Adventures in the POD version).


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)