Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 3

When we left off with Socko Strong, he was confronting Monte on the wing of a flying plane about Monte's attempts to kill him. In a clever trick, even though both parachutes are actually fine, Socko pretends he switched parachutes on Monte to give him the "sabotaged" one. You would think Socko would use this trick to make Monte confess, but instead Socko pushes him off the wing to panic him, just to pay him back.

Moving on to Steve Conrad, Adventurer, we find Steve on a cruise where he spots and recognizes 'Singapore Sal,' a notorious jewel thief (perhaps after making an INT ability score check?). When she leaves the deck, Steve is surprised she didn't notice him, suggesting they've met before (and letting us know that Steve had surprise in that encounter?). Sal's partner is called Slick -- he's almost surely a slick hoodlum. Steve comes up with a pretty clever trick where he has his comic sidekick slip a handwritten, signed note by Steve under the door, then listen to the two of them talk about their plans through the door after they read it. 

The next wrinkle in the story is that Steve tries to stop the valuable jewels on the ship from being stolen. The would-be thief appears to be Slick, but he's wearing a mask and, surprisingly, he manages to get away from Steve easily after just hitting him once with a sap (and not even a head blow at that). When Steve confronts Slick he discovers it wasn't him -- Slick is not wearing the same jacket and hasn't had time to change it. Although the wrinkle requires a bit of railroading to let the thief escape, it winds up being a pretty interesting wrinkle. The clue turns out to be the cord Steve tore off the thief; he doesn't know where he's seen it before until he remembers it was holding another passenger's monocle in place (if the player had trouble thinking of this, maybe he was allowed to "remember" after an INT check). 

The only other thing I'm going to say about the Steve Conrad story is that it is extremely verbose with big word balloons in almost every panel.

Am I just going to have to accept that it's a lot easier to throw a missile weapon hard enough to pin it into a wall in comics than real life? In Rusty and His Pals, Rusty manages to throw a spear -- and it's not really a spear, it's just called a spear in the story but it's clearly a lance -- across a room, knocks a man's gun out of his hand, sails right past him, and still hits the wall hard enough to become embedded into it. Did I mention Rusty looks like he's 11 years old? You know...sure, why not. Embedding in the wall is just flavor text at the end of the combat turn that doesn't affect the disarming attack or anything in the following turn. 

Having cleared the bad guys out of the house, they consider the clue they have, that they're supposed to look "behind Stevenson," and then they figure out that there's something in the library behind a copy of Treasure Island -- a clever clue, so long as no one felt like reading it and took it back to their room, of course. Behind the book is a button that opens a secret door. The boys realize they need to consider illumination issues behind the secret door so they all fetch candles. They mysterious passage looks straight out of D&D, leading to a small room with a chair, desk, and a small chest on the desk. The desk contains both a clue, a journal, and a secret clue concealed in a false top -- a single sheet of paper, the contents of which we'll find out next issue.

In Anchors Aweigh, we hear about the trick of putting cotton in your nose to make it look broader, when disguising yourself as someone with a broader nose. There is an interesting wrinkle to the story where Kerry finds out the man he's impersonating has a wife who he has to push away without making her suspicious. The last page, though, is terribly confusing. When the Naval officers burst in on the smugglers' headquarters, they leave the driver tied up in the elevator. The driver, trying to escape, makes the elevator go down with his feet. Somehow, the elevator doors do not close on their own (did elevators not have automatic doors at this time?), so the boss smuggler backs up to the elevator and falls. But...somehow he falls onto the driver at the bottom of the shaft and not onto the roof of the elevator car. Were there ever roofless elevators?

Lastly, Cotton Carver and Deela crash-land in a petrified valley where the challenge of this scenario is finding food! On day 2, they find a tree with edible berries (skill check to identify they are not poisonous?). Hunting for meat, Cotton knows he will run out of bullets soon, so he builds a bow. The terrain gets progressively worse for them; they come across a chasm thousands of feet deep filled with hot geysers, and at their backs they encounter three ape men armed with warclubs weighted for throwing. The ape men seem unusually intelligent and manage to defeat Cotton, then carry them away down to the bottom of the chasm by leaping from branch to branch growing out of the rock wall. Cotton was only stunned and cowardly shoots the ape men in the back (I guess with his last bullets?). Too bad he didn't try to talk to the ape men, because it seems like they could talk. They probably also were responsible for making the stairs they find, and the tall ladders that lead to the top of a volcanic cone. The volcanic cone is dangerous because of poisonous fumes in the air. Both of them make saving throws vs. poison and Deela fails, faints, and falls off the ladder. Cotton grabs her with an attack roll, then makes a Strength check, probably with a significant penalty (-5? More?) to continue climbing the ladder one-handed, while holding Deela with the other.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

  

Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 3

In Anchors Aweigh, Lt. Commander Kerry and Lt. Murphy are on vacation in California when they encounter spies who are armed with rifles and hand grenades (that's pretty dangerous to use against a party of two!). The spies have taken over a cottage because the land is useful for them to reach via seaplane. There are five spies, and they already have a radio room set up in the cottage's basement. Seemingly unknown to them, the shack behind the cottage is the lab for a chemist making another one of those super-explosives, and Kerry uses the explosives to blow up the spies. The one interesting wrinkle in the story is that the chemist initially appears to be a bum just pretending to be smart.  The explosive solution winds up being worth $500,000 to the chemist (good news, since Kerry blew up his house!).

Lastly, Cotton Carver has a new quest in his hollow world adventures -- the pirate chiefs (who are good guys?) ask Cotton to lead them to the mythical land of Sere, which is rich in radium. Cotton thinks this sounds like a great idea, despite the fact the people of Sere seem to be the rightful owners of the radium (Chaotic?), and that the Princess of Barlunda wants to marry him. Or does she? She doesn't put up much of a fight when he leaves ("You need excitement, Cotton.").

Barlunda has advanced airships that travel through unknown means (jets?). He also has a personal flier that looks like a surfboard on wheels (really not sure how that one flies). The flier is tough; Cotton can crash it through a wall without it getting a scratch. It can carry two people in a pinch, so long as one lays on top of the other.

The people of Sere (Sereians?) have advanced tech too; they can control the weather with electrical control staves; a priestess decimates Cotton's ship and his pirate allies by whipping up a tornado. Staff of Weather Control duplicates the mad science machine found in the trophies section of Hideouts & Hoodlums, only is much more portable.

Luckily, the priestess has another quest for Cotton, and when that turns out to be incredibly easy, he gets back to Barlunda and finds that the princess has been kidnapped. Really, if the Editor just put more effort into these scenarios, they would last longer and he wouldn't have to come up with so many of them.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

Adventure Comics #44 - pt. 2

Rusty and His Pals explore Chen Fu's Liverpool opium den. As it typical for waterfront hideouts, there is a trapdoor leading down to a water level, where a motorboat awaits for a swift getaway.

In Anchors Aweigh, Don Kerry is a Lieutenant-Commander (I don't recall what his rank was before, but I don't think it was that high. Promotion through leveling!  In this installment, Don and Red attack gambling boats with grenades and machine guns, showing that your players can never be too ruthless for a Golden Age campaign.

In Cotton Carver's generic version of Pellucidar, he's gifted a magic sword that is explained like this: "encased inside the tiny ridge of the blade was a small drop of mercury. When the blade is held up to strike, the mercury rushes into the hilt making it seem lighter, then when it is brought downward, it slips in to the blade's tip making the blow harder and nearly unblockable."  It sounds like neither magic nor physics to me, but do we really need a better explanation for how a Sword +1 works?

Cotton easily takes out all opponents with his magic sword, but this installment features a rare instance of a Hero losing consciousness from environmental cold damage.

(Sandman read in Golden Age Sandman Archives, the rest read in summary at DC Wiki).

Adventure Comics #42

The adventures of The Sandman continue, and he's got to have one of the best fleshed-out, yet little-known, backstories in all of early comic book history. Here, we learn that Wesley Dodds was in the U.S. Navy Air Corps as of 1933. We also get backstory SCMs for Wes -- Dr. Clyde Dunlap and "Happy" O'Shea. Supporting Cast Members can be assigned like that by the Editor as a story demands, though players should be discouraged from just "saying" they have old friends they can call on for help.

In this case, Clyde and Happy even know about Wes being The Sandman. It does not seem to be implied that the Sandman identity extends back to '33, so they likely learned about it from him sometime since then.

Wes, Clyde, and Happy all have access to fighter planes. Wes is a billionaire in his backstory, but has likely not had time to accumulate the $20,000+ he would need to purchase a fighter plane in game play. This has to be another hand-out from the Editor for this scenario.

The scenario has the three good guy fighter planes up against four bad guy biplanes. The good guys start out with the advantage of surprise and use the aviation stunt Out of the Sun against them. They immediately fail their primary objective, though, to protect an eighth plane in the air full of innocent passengers. Luckily, the passenger plane has more hit points because it only goes down from complications, while the biplanes are weaker and crash violently instead.

Hideouts & Hoodlums will, eventually, be able to play out a scenario just like that.

Wes has a gas bomb -- different from his gas gun -- that he uses for the only time in this story.

In Barry O'Neil's adventure, he uses not one but three aviator stunts -- Wing Walking, Deadstick, and Improvised Landing.

Then Barry picks up a crate and hits two thugs with it at once -- not possible by the H&H rules, unless these are actually weaker hoodlums instead of 2 HD thugs.

Barry passes up the chance to search Krull's ship for loot by blowing it up with mines first. The scenario kind of demanded it, since other ships were in jeopardy, but Barry's player might be ticked off about that.

Socko Strong meets an ape-man (that's getting a stat entry in 2nd ed.) and sails to its lost world island. The lost world seems, for some reason, limited to a valley on the island that you have to climb a cliff and cross a fallen tree over a gorge to get to. The valley is somehow big enough to support both a tyrannosaurus rex and a stegosaurus with food. Both of these dinosaurs will likely be left out of the basic book, for being just too big and dangerous.

Captain Desmo and Gabby are up against cultists (also getting an entry in 2nd ed.). probably with thugs and assassins (another 2nd ed. add) mixed in. The bad guys have a simple deathtrap for Gabby, tossing him into a pit full of cobras.

Anchors Aweigh puts Don and Red in an unusual situation; they find themselves in an unbeatable scenario, if the scenario is wrongly interpreted as a "save the ship" scenario. The torpedo is too close to the ship for them to do anything about, so this is a survival scenario -- at least initially.

Don and Red meet Admiral Cato, our first bonafide Napoleon character (we've seen some mad scientists so far with Napoleon complexes, but they all fit the mad scientist mold better). From the summary I have to read, I don't know what all of Cato's weapons are, but some of them appear to be poison gas bombs.

Don and Red can't figure a way out of this underwater lair they are trapped in, so they come up with a rather clever plan. After sabotaging the oxygen supply for the hideout, Cato's henchmen fail their morale saves and offer to come up with a way out of the hideout for them.

Sometimes the bigger picture of world war is just going to be backdrop for your H&H stories. The Skip Schuyler story takes place in a Chinese city just as it's being bombed by the Japanese -- but the story doesn't really have anything to do with that. The scenario starts when Skip rescues a boy who serves as the plot hook to uncover the kidnapping of an American reporter. The reporter has a guard guarding her (guards were statted in the first H&H module and will be in 2nd ed. too).

Rusty, of Rusty and His Pals, is menaced by yellow peril hoodlums serving a Fu Manchu villain. Fu Manchu is guarded by guards, but Steve -- Rusty's adult pal -- shows up, makes his save vs. plot, and is able to ignore the guards and go straight after the Fu Manchu villain, Chen Fu. Steve still loses, though, and is placed in a complex deathtrap. He's tied on a plank over a pit full of metal spikes, with a pendulum blade swinging down at him from above (I presume Steve is under the plank and the pendulum  blade is to cut the rope and drop him in the pit, though the trap seems like it would work just as well if Steve was on top of the plank and the blade is coming down to cut him).

Cotton Carver has to rescue his friends when they are kidnapped by cultists and taken to be sacrificed. Cotton tracks them through a forest and starts shooting the cultists, but his friends still get dumped into a pit with water in the bottom. He dives in and they all get sucked by an undertow into a subterranean cavern that opens to the sky (? -- hollow world settings confuse me). The "god" of the cultists is a brontosaurus. Like the earlier dinosaurs mentioned, this is way too big and dangerous for the basic book. And yet...Cotton somehow kills it by catching it in a grass fire. Infused with massive amounts of experience points, Cotton and his friends enter a kingdom defended by medieval-esque knights. Do knights need to be their own mobster type?

(Sandman story read in Golden Age Sandman Archives, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Adventure Comics #41 - pt. 2

Anchors Aweigh starts with a wandering encounter instead of a plot hook -- a known spy just happens to walk by! But it's to lure Lt. Com. Don Kerry and Red into a trap. It's a goofy sort of trap, though, as they run into a glass wall that somehow knocks them unconscious. How fast were they running?

Don and Red wake up in a deathtrap an hour later. Sin Yen, the spy, has them in an arena where they'll have to fight monstrous beasts until Don tells Sin what he wants to know. The first opponent is a large ape; at 7' tall, the ape should be 4 or 4+1 HD (being halfway in size between an ordinary ape and a prehistoric ape). Other opponents include a spider-snake (it's a huge spider with a snake tail, I guess, not sure what the advantage of that combination is!), and an octo-dile (a crocodile with eight tentacles -- new version of a carrion crawler, anyone?).  Further complicating the trap is more traps within the trap, including spiked pit traps, and a glass wall that slides down so one half of the arena can be flooded with water.

Skip Schuyler is given an interesting scenario to problem solve his way through: hi-tech cattle rustlers are using planes to make cattle stampede away from ranches, and then rounding the cattle into trucks, and guarding the trucks with machine guns. Interestingly, Skip doesn't even try to stop all the rustlers; he considers the pilot the weak link and goes after the rustler's plane. He engages the pilot repeatedly in a recklessly dangerous game of chicken with a plane of his own and causes enough failed morale saves that he forces the pilot to land. Then Skip hits the pilot with a rock and ignites the gas in the plane so the rustlers can't use it anymore. Skip is apparently fine with letting the local law handle the guys with machine guns...

In Rusty and His Pals, Rusty and his pals are lost at sea and spend three days drifting until a ship bound for Liverpool passes them and picks them up. Plot contrivance, or random encounter? Could the Editor have planned for several options, or even just rolled randomly between a choice of ports? Or was the next adventure pre-set for Liverpool?

I suspect the last option, as there's a bad guy waiting for them in Liverpool with a connection to their last adventure. Indeed, it's often a good idea to have at least one bad guy per scenario with a connection to the last adventure, as it helps keeps the adventures linked into an overarching campaign.

Cotton Carver meets a priestess who takes him through a secret door from the Shrine of Dagan to an underground river and a magic boat that travels on its own with just a command. They reach a magic gate that also opens when a command word is spoken (should I treat that as a trophy item too?). Elara the Priestess takes Cotton to a castle and a tomb where she gives him a magic sword called "Malar". Malar is the only weapon that can kill the Scarlet Seeress -- and that is the quest she gives him! She also gives him a "good luck" bracelet (a luckstone?).

Cotton journeys through an underground forest (how does that work? Is this a hollow world setting?). He is caught in a trap (a giant glass jar) and ...hypnotized? Charmed? ... by the Scarlet Seeress. The Seeress just leaves then to go lead her army towards world domination. Later, an old man uses a magic divining plate (like a crystal ball) to show Cotton where his sword went to while he was asleep, then offers to drive Cotton after the Seeress in his magic flying ...car?

I don't know what to make out of the "dark horde" the Seeress leads. Dark-skinned men? Demons? It's so hard working from summaries!

(Read as summaries at DC Wikia.)

Adventure Comics #40

We've already seen The Sandman once, but here he is, debuting in his regular berth for the first time, Adventure Comics. There's a delightful slow build to the story after Wesley Dodds gets his plot hook. He spends some time mulling it over, while lounging in the dark in his smoking jacket. We meet his butler, Humphries. We get some unusual insight into Wesley's character, when he puts a doll representing himself in his bed, as if psychologically transferring his identity before becoming The Sandman. Before The Batman, The Sandman is the first crimefighter to have a secret underground laboratory (but not an underground lair; that would The Clock).

The Sandman is shown mixing his own chemicals for his gas gun. Last time, I said I was comfortable not giving Sandman levels in the Scientist class, but here he really does seem to be earning at least one level.

There's also a very interesting caption about color. "Then he dons all black apparel", the caption says, yet The Sandman is wearing yellow gloves, an orangish- tan coat, and a purple cape. It seems clear that authors had little input on the coloring of their own characters; the caption was overruled, but the wording was left there anyway.

The Sandman uses stealth (move silently?) to sneak around unobserved, climbing to get to an upper story window, and finds a secret door.

Another interesting detail is that the smell of his sleep gas reminds its victim of violets.

In Barry O'Neill's ongoing adventure, he has just been doused with gasoline and Count Guniff is about to light him on fire - but it turns out he had the wrong bucket and that was just water. A little help from the Editor, or game mechanics? I have had a player suggest the save vs. plot should work like that, with the player suggested an alternate explanation and allowing the player to roll for it. I'm personally opposed to giving the player veto power over the game Editor...but that does seem to be a reasonable explanation for what I've read here...

Steve Carson of Federal Men has fallen far from taking on giant robots to being knocked unconscious by two counterfeiters, one hitting him with a block of wood. I do envision Hideouts & Hoodlums to be a game that can move effortlessly between challenge levels. Maybe I shouldn't be entirely opposed to hoodlums having a special ability of "backstabbing" Heroes for additional damage, and a quick knockout...

Bulldog Martin is overpowered by three thugs (a pretty tough encounter for a solo, low-level Fighter!), but escapes from being tied up by rope by carrying a nail file on him. He foils a plot to murder a racehorse with a fake camera that can shot a poison needle (trophy weapon, but pretty useless to a Hero if you don't allow them to use poison).

Skip Schuyler is in Hawaii, helping a scientist who has made tiny explosives with the power of artillery shells. We also see a good hiding place to search in a scientist's house, the inside of a lampshade.

Rusty and His Pals is at a climactic scene rarely seen in comics -- an earthquake is destroying the island the whole scenario is taking place on, there's a single seaplane that can get people off, and various factions are racing to get to it. One could make a board game out of this scenario. Combat plays a minor part, but it's movement rate that really wins the scenario here.

Anchors Aweigh is on a new scenario. Don and Red get captured by thugs (that seems to happen a lot -- thugs are tough!) and are left in an uncommon deathtrap -- an island that will flood when the tide comes in, and then sharks will show up. They're tied up so they can't swim away, but escape using the old "focusing light with a pair of glasses". I don't think we need an escape artist game mechanic; rather, any idea you come up with to get out of ropes should just automatically work.

There's also an octopus -- and a normal one, not a giant one!

(Sandman adventure read in Golden Age Sandman Archives vol. 1; summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Adventure Comics #38

Yesterday, I was wondering if surprise should not offer more advantages game mechanics-wise. In "The Original Game" that inspires Hideouts & Hoodlums, the side that has surprise before combat not only gets a free turn to act, but goes first in the next turn of combat. I always thought that was inherently unfair, though, and everyone should have the chance to have the advantage of going first, each turn. But...I am seeing an awful lot of evidence in the comic books of surprise giving Heroes big advantages.

Take, for instance, Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard. In this issue, Kent charges through a secret door, sees the secret plans on the table, runs up, grabs the secret plans, and runs back out through the secret door before anyone can stop him. I don't think all of that should happen in just a surprise turn, but even if Kent has the initiative on the following turn, I'm surprised none of the spies at the table get free back attacks on him when he turns to run.

Tod Hunter has the spell Phantasmal Force/Silent Image cast at him, but sees through it (got a save vs. spells to disbelieve) because the bowmen firing arrows at him make no sound.  Without resolving this storyline, the wizard simply disappears and Tod leaves to go exploring elsewhere. He finds a wanted poster that mentions rape, the first time this subject is ever addressed in a comic book. At the end of the story Tod is shot -- and is never seen again!  Tod Hunter is not the first Hero to have his series canceled in comic book history, but he is the first one to apparently die in his last appearance.

District Attorney Steve Malone is handy in a scenario without being present; he tracks reports of fleeing armored truck robbers by radio, compares them on a map, and tries to predict where they are heading next. This could be a good puzzle for H&H players to try and solve (particularly if there is no wrong answer and the bad guys head where ever the players guess).

Captain Desmo's player might be calling shenanigans in this story -- Desmo and Gabby come across Tartar warriors raiding a village and drive them off. Before the warriors all leave, though, some of them somehow managed to get behind Desmo and snatch Marie, one of his new traveling companions. It's a plot device, clearly, but did not need to be. The Editor could have mapped out the scene, placed all the combatants and noncombatants on the map, and made it clear that Desmo had the double priorities of defending the villagers and his own supporting cast. Could Desmo keep from being outflanked?

Tom Brent is in trouble when he is captured by mobster Vic Gano, but Tom talks his way out of it, pretending to want to join Vic's operation, and thereby gets a new encounter reaction roll out of it, modified by Tom's Charisma.

Vic takes Tom to Vic's boss, or at least a swank apartment where a woman speaks to Vic through a wall. Now, Tom could probably follow up on any number of clues at this point, like finding out who owns that apartment, but Tom chooses instead to get invited to a swank party that night, figuring anyone with that swank an apartment would be invited to it. And turns out to be right!

Skip Schuyler is also captured, but in his case he's tied to a chair and whipped until he has scars on his face. Although rare in comics, maybe there is starting to be some evidence here that there should be a small chance of permanent scarring on Heroes.

Anchors Aweigh reminds us of another use for flashlights: sending Morse code messages to each other (and every Hero seems to know Morse code!).

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #37 - pt. 2

Skip Schuyler works for the U.S. Intelligence Service and hunts spies...but when he needs a dictaphone planted in a spy's room, he doesn't do it himself -- he asks for help from a dictaphone installation specialist. That's a type of supporting cast member I never expected to need in the game, particularly since the last time I discussed dictaphones here, I said the odds of discovering one should be entirely random. Since all Skip's expert, Garth, does is hide it behind the radiator, I'm not convinced I was wrong.

Skip also uses a skeleton key instead of trying to pick the lock on his own. I believe I have talked before about adding this as a minor trophy item.

Rusty and His Pals deal with a drunken hoodlum and his superstitious hoodlum underlings -- by having an old man put white powder on himself and pretend to be a ghost. Everyone blows their morale saves but the two main villains, only one of whom is armed with a hunting rifle. This scenario awfully pretty easy, even for 1st-level Heroes.

And lastly, Anchors Aweigh -- which I felt had started so strongly -- seems to have come to a weak finish to its first storyline. Don Kerry guesses the identity of El Diablo on rather flimsy evidence -- that El Diablo seemed to have been trying to conceal a German accent, and there's only one German character who's figured into this story so far. Never mind the fact that it could have been another German Don hadn't met yet, or a clever villain disguising his voice to sound like he was concealing an accent; Don just attacks the nearest German and turns out to be right. It's almost like the Editor didn't even know who El Diablo was and let the player decide for him -- which you could do in your game.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #36 - pt. 2

Tom Brent runs into two bad guys in China who are interesting because of their titles. One is the Russian Count Roloff.  Counts turn up all the time in comic books as bad guys (as do barons). Maybe nobles need to be statted as a mobster-type?  The other is a bandit leader, specifically called General Chang. "General" is a level title for fighters of at least 8th level!  I was more conservative with my entry on bandits in Book II, topping off their leaders at 4th level.

The Golden Dragon serial concludes in this issue. The gold dragon is killed after it shows off some wrecking things skills. The gold dragon does not appear to be Lawful either, nor particularly intelligent. The dragon is dropped by a hail of bullets (JUST like what happened the first time I used a dragon in one of my H&H games).  The dragon guards a treasure room with enough treasure for ten camels (I often take shortcuts like that too, instead of giving the heroes a careful inventory of what all their treasure entails). The one trophy item they acquire is the Seal of Genghis Khan, that assures them safe passage anywhere in Mongolia.

And lastly, in Anchors Aweigh, Don Kerry uses the old trick of throwing sand in someone's face to blind them. This dirty fighting trick should require a successful attack roll, followed by a failed save vs. science, and then the victim is blinded and fights at a -2 penalty for the next 1-6 turns of combat.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #34

Fang Gow purchases a mind control drug in this installment of Barry O'Neill. The drug has to be injected (at least in this form). Worth discussing here is the nature of mind control and what it can and cannot force someone to do. Characters in stories with their minds controlled, even supporting cast, often shake off the effects at the last moment for maximum dramatic effect. In this case, it is notable that Inspector Le Grand is not able to shake off the effect. Evidence of saving throws?

In Tom Brent, the First Mate gets shot when Tom dodges a bullet -- proof both of the save vs. missiles rule, and the dangers of shooting into a melee. The story also involves a shipboard mutiny...Hideouts & Hoodlums briefly touches on Loyalty as a game mechanic, but it is basically just treated as Morale under another name. Loyalty might need to be expanded on in 2nd edition, particularly in terms of how it could cause mutinies among supporting cast members.

Steve Carson of Federal Men goes on a car chase. I've talked before about using hit points and combat for ending car chases, but there needs to be a competing mechanic of evasion at work too. Can Steve make an evasion roll before his opponents shoot up his car? I don't want evasion to just be a single roll, though, because that's boring. Maybe evasion should work in degrees, so the first successful roll moves you from short range to medium, the next roll could move you from medium to long range - or back to short range if you bungle the roll. It needs more thought.

Dale Daring and her boyfriend encounter a trap that consists of a pit/crevice. The unusual thing here is that the pit is not covered or concealed in any way, but the Heroes may fall into the pit because the uneven floor around it is not safe to walk on.

Tod Hunter faces cannibals. I had once considered treating cannibals as its own mobster type, but decided to lump them under Natives instead. There is also an 8' gorilla in this story. In the normal/large/huge/giant categories for animal-mobsters, would an 8' gorilla be large or huge? I would think it would fall somewhere in between, but would probably side conservatively with making it a "large ape", so that "giant ape" could still be something more King Kong-sized.  Also, we know from this story that apes should get a crushing hug attack and a bite attack.

In The Gold Dragon -- we finally see the gold dragon. It's been a long set-up for this (this is the 29th episode), so much so that this is not our first dragon in comics at this point, or even our second. It is the first dragon to fit the dragon types found in H&H, though the gold dragon has, luckily, always been found in the game since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Anchors Aweigh reminded me of several issues this month. One is keeping track of ammo -- because being on your last bullet should be a suspenseful moment for every Fighter relying on guns. Two is fatigue from running. H&H has a fatigue rule that is more combat-oriented; it needs to apply to running as well. Three is when Marshall's last shot fails to frighten off the natives because of their large numbers -- morale needs to be modified so that number encountered affects morale saves.

(Summaries from DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #33

Last issue I'll be looking at from 1938!

In Anchors Aweigh, we're reminded that natives are often depicted as being expert trackers (though in the wilderness, not necessarily in urban environments), and should have some kind of bonus for doing that (or be treated like the explorer class for tracking).

Tom Brent's adventure apparently takes place in a real city in China, Ningbo. Tom pulls the ol' pull-the-rug-out trick on his attacker, which is so commonplace that it should probably only require a straight save vs. plot to avoid. Further, Tom shows remarkable ingenuity at searching bodies for treasure -- even looking inside somebody's glass eye for a missing diamond (and finding it there!).

This issue's Federal Men adventure is the first time in comic books that a starring character suffers amnesia. I suppose every comic book character gets amnesia eventually -- but I would hesitate to allow even a 1% chance per injury of player-Heroes suffering amnesia, as it is difficult to roleplay and disruptive to ongoing scenarios.

The Dale Daring adventure seems remarkable only in that the natives are armed with guns for a change, instead of primitive weapons.

(Summaries of this issue's stories read at DC Wikia)

New Adventure Comics #31 - part 2

Don Coyote is another gag strip, and another one of those "I thought I'd never use this strip as an example" situations.  When Don is challenged to a duel, he is given a knife, while his opponent plans to use a spiked mace, or morning star.  There's also a peculiar encounter with a skunk that Don refers to as a "wood pussy" ...which possibly only makes sense in the context that this is a pseudo-medieval setting and skunks, non-indigenous to Europe, would have gone unrecognized there.

This installment of Tod Hunter, Jungle Master, starts with Tod and company, very sensibly, planning shifts of watch duty for the night while they camp outdoors. Have to watch out for those wandering encounter checks!  They don't encounter anything all night, but they do meet two men on an elephant the next day. Isn't it often like that with random encounter rolls?

In The Golden Dragon, Ken Cockerill, comes to in a prison cell and gets led through an interesting-looking hideout. Outside the cell is a "vast shadowy hall, with towering sculptured forms on the walls. At the far end was something that looked like a huge altar, extending the entire width of the building." The altar has a writing desk by it. On the side of the hall is a "sculpted doorway" that "led into a sort of grotto, lighted by a small low altar covered with candles."  The Golden Age habit of including descriptive narrative captions was unnecessary in illustrated stories, but is gold for using as boxed text to read during adventure scenarios!

In the grotto, Ken sees an illusion, but it's unclear if his captors are casting Phantasmal Force, or if this is some feature specific to the grotto.

In Rusty and His Pals, at the center of the island is a high stone wall, probably meant to be the remnants of a dead volcano. Inside its circumference are trees, a pond, and a two-story house. The house is one big prison cell; all the outside doors lock from the outside, and apparently the windows can't be opened (or easily shattered, though Rusty and his pals don't seem to have thought to try that yet).

Despite the care Fred Guardineer has put into Anchors Aweigh, this strip has been relegated to the back of the issue. Red is captured in this issue and is brought before a hooded man who is apparently the "Diablo" he's been looking for. Interesting, Diablo will not speak directly to Red, to keep Red from having the chance of recognizing his voice.

Diablo's bad guys have a sneaky idea -- they tell Red at knife point that he has to read something aloud because they have members who might recognize his voice, but it's a trick to record his voice so they can use it to lure Don into a trap.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #30

We rejoin Don in Anchors Aweigh as he's lowering himself into the dark hold of a ship and praying "he wouldn't land on anything sharp cornered."  It's true that, while the base damage for falling is 1-6 points per 10' fallen, the Editor is free to lower this for falling on soft terrain, or raise it for falling on sharp, or otherwise more dangerous, terrain.

In the hold of the ship, Don takes a quick look around and manages to appraise the value of the cartridges being smuggled in the hold at a quarter of a million dollars. The first edition Hideouts & Hoodlums rules say nothing about appraisal (the implication being that everyone could do it automatically), but the second edition will treat it as a basic skill everyone has a chance to perform.

The first sailor who comes down into the hold is said to have "the agility of a monkey" and "runs down the rope ladder".  I'm tempted to add sailor as a mobster type, with the ability to climb up and down ropes and ladders faster than an ordinary person (or just give that ability to pirates).

In Tom Brent's adventure, Tom practices that most important of player tips -- when you have important papers to deliver, meet your contact first without the papers on you, in case something goes wrong.

When Tom tries to escape from the clutches of the fake consul, a guard has his rifle trained on Tom. Tom is somehow able to pick up the other guard and throw him at the rifleman before he can fire a shot. Now, it's possible that Tom won surprise, got a free action (the grapple), and then won initiative on the first regular turn of combat. Or, Tom picked up the first guard during his first turn, but the rifleman refused to fire because firing into a melee has a chance of hitting your ally if you miss.

Tom is captured again and tortured for information -- specifically, he is hung from his thumbs and whipped while shirtless. I would not expect an Editor to have to go into that much detail; torture can be glossed over and summarized by a save vs. science to resist. I would, ironically, require this save once per 4-hour "rest" turn.

In the adventure of Steve Carson of Federal Men, our story opens on the trial of three men accused of treason, with the judge saying "I regret that the sentence for treason carries only a twenty year penalty!"  Actually, according to the U.S. Constitution, treason can be punished with death. It is, however, appropriate for the courts to be more lenient in a comic book universe, as this allows a lot more repeat appearances by the same villains (something that will become more of an issue starting with the Silver Age).

A wanted poster shown to Steve shows a $500 reward for a wanted criminal.

When Steve is about to lose a fight, he is saved by a boy who throws a baseball and beans the mobster in the back of the head. I would normally allow a full grown man to do 1-3 points of damage with an improvised missile like a baseball; for a half-pint, I would probably restrict damage to 1 point of damage. Of course, the mobster could be on his last hit point from the unarmed combat with Steve before the baseball hits him.

Later, another half-pint Junior Federal Man thwarts an attempt on his own life by having rigged an alarm system for his bedroom -- anyone climbing the drain pipe outside his window pulls a string that causes a ball to drop and land on the boy's sleeping head to wake him -- after which the boy can bash the intruder with a baseball bat while the intruder is prone and hanging from the window ledge. If this comic strip -- and the movie Home Alone -- has taught us anything, it's that half-pints should be good at setting traps and alarms.

Nadir, Master of Magic, deals with river pirates in his adventure. They are well-equipped pirates, piloting speedboats and armed with sub-machine guns; they might be better statted as robbers than as pirates, since robbers tend to be more hi-tech. Nadir defeats them with a Charm Person spell on their leader, who Nadir gets to sound a retreat.

Later, Nadir is ambushed by peculiar attackers using a noose. I would say that a noose could do normal 1-6 points of damage on a hit, but only if the hit occurs during a surprise attack. If the victim is somehow unable to free himself, he will continue to take damage each combat turn.

Cal n' Alec is a joke strip about two old prospectors, but they remind me of played characters in this installment. Frustrated that their mine was buried in a dynamite explosion, they briefly decide to swear off prospecting. This can happen to players too, who can feel disgruntled by too much failure in a game scenario. In the end, though, Cal and Alec bite on their next plot hook when a stranger runs up and hands them a map -- and stalwart players will often bite on that next plot hook too.

Incidentally, I'm not keen on preparing any game mechanics to determine the extent of a cave-in when a mine is hit by dynamite. There just needs to be things for the Editor to wing as he goes along.

Another example is The Adventures of Desmo and Gabby.  Gabby loses his wallet during a fight. There does not need to be a game mechanic to check for seeing if you lose something from your pockets during fights. Sometimes, players just need to accept that their Editor has a story-based reason to make something happen.

Tod Hunter, Jungle Master, finds rubies worth $5,000 each, which is 10 times what I guessed rubies were valued at in Book III: Underworld and Metropolis Adventures (in the gem table previously found in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies).  Guess I may have to revisit that!

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #29

Anchors Aweigh! picks up where it left off last issue, with our Don Winslow-clone investigating El Diablo. El Diablo has somehow slipped poison slips of paper to Don Kerry's prisoners and the chief suspect is an old friend of Don's. This is a good position to put your players in -- do they stand by their Hero's supporting cast, or turn on them when things look bad?

Later, Don and Red are listening to clues from a nearby group of sailors in a joint, but one of the sailors notices them listening. Hideouts & Hoodlums definitely has a game mechanic for hearing noise, but not for the reverse -- and it does not make sense to simply reverse the mechanic (it should be easier to hear noise through a door, for example, than to hear someone listening through a door). The Editor may have to play this one by ear -- are circumstances right to be observed listening? -- and then resolve it with a save vs. plot for the Hero.

This story also gives us an explanation for why not to have hoodlums immediately use guns in a fight -- for fear that the sound will bring the police.

Don overhears the name of a ship captain who might be in league with El Diablo. But how to find the ship captain? Don asks around, claiming to have a message for the captain from El Diablo. It's a clever and daring plan -- exactly the kind that Editors should give a good chance to work.

Tom Brent's adventure has a crew mutiny, two jewel thieves, a diamond worth $50,000, and a suspect who turns out to be a police inspector doing his own secret investigation. I particularly like this last wrinkle. Could it be a cure for Heroes who shoot first and ask questions later?

The next adventure of Steve Carson of Federal Men is an unusual one in that it takes place just before a Presidential inauguration ceremony -- which means it took place two years earlier in 1936 or two years later in 1940!  Time can be a fluid thing in a roleplaying campaign -- it can take place over days or it can take place over years, but generally campaigns follow sequential time. This does not always need to be the case, as I wrote about in Supplement V: Big Bang.

Nadir, Master of Magic, continues to show an aversion to actually using magic. He gets through a locked door, not with a spell, but with a skeleton key. He gets around by "powerful sedan" instead of by spell.  Instead of turning invisible, he hides behind curtains. He does cast a Detect Thoughts spell.

Captain Desmo starts this new adventure by flying overhead when he sees travelers being attacked. Luckily he has two grenades for his sidekick to toss over the side of his plane. Then Desmo and Gabby use the oldest trick in the book, disguising themselves (in this case wearing Arabic robes, even though this is supposed to be India) so they can get in to see the big boss. The boss is guarded by a fighter who must be at least 9' tall (I would stat him as an ogre, then).

In Tod Hunter, Jungle Master, the primitives we met last time are called tribesmen here (a better name than natives or savages, maybe?). From the arena we observed last time, the prison cells are only reachable via an underground stream that requires Tod and crew to travel by raft. Past the stream is a maze of tunnels that seem to go on for miles. And yet, the trip back to the throne room seems to take no time at all -- perhaps they find a shortcut back. In the throne room are large urns, axes and spears mounted on the walls, hanging masks, and statues -- including a giant statue of the tribe's bald, fanged god that must be at least 30' tall. Tod is able to climb the statue and find a secret door leading through the statue's arm. The statue (I believe we learned it was wooden last time) is hollow and can be navigated inside by ladder. There is a secret room in the head where a crazy old man with a scimitar can speak through amplifiers and imitate the god.

Dale Daring's boyfriend Don is able to conceal a sub-machine gun under a cloak.

In The Golden Dragon, it's very unclear if the men are attacked by undead skeletons, or men dressed to look like skeletons, Scooby Doo-style. Regardless, a woman present is so frightened that she is paralyzed with fright. I'm thinking that everyone, even Heroes, will have to make morale saves when first encountering the undead, and non-Heoes will have to make morale saves when first encountering people pretending to be undead.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #28 - part 1

We're still a bit ahead from this title headlining with the Sandman, so this issue begins with "Anchors Aweigh", a brand new Don Winslow clone (the lead character's name is even Don Kerry!).

Like I observed recently, aviator stunts seem to be something every comic book character masters as soon as they sit in a plane. Here, we see the stunt Power Dive, as described in The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 7. 

Although Hideouts & Hoodlums is the Golden Age Comic Book Roleplaying Game, Editors need not limit themselves to American comic books, or even comic books for inspiration. The "Anchors Aweigh" story seems inspired by the Tintin comic strip adventure "The Crab with the Golden Claws", combined with the Raymond Chandler story "Nevada Gas".

Tom Brent is also a new character debuting this issue. He's a sailor; I have not felt sailors need their own character class yet. The ones I've read so far are either Fighters or (in Popeye's case) Superheroes. Tom Brent is definitely of the Fighter persuasion. The mood of the story is dark, with heroin smugglers being the villains, and a stash of morphine being used to frame Tom. It is also unusual for taking place in Marseilles, France, rather than the U.S. Note that France won't be conquered for almost another two years.

It's only 1938 and it's already been too long since Steve Carson of Federal Men has had a cool adventure. This serial, vs. The Cobra, might change that. We've already got a hideout set-up here, with a concealed trapdoor in the back room of a flower shop leading into a deep shaft with ladder rungs in the wall. At the bottom is a trapped metal door -- touch it and you're shocked unconscious (or forced to save vs. science to avoid being stunned).

A death trap awaits Steve in the lair of the master criminal -- a fight with a large cobra that is not only a poisonous snake but, curiously, a constrictor snake as well (maybe it's a mutant!).  How do we know it's a death trap instead of a normal combat? Because of its placement in the storyline (after Steve is powerless in The Cobra's clutches).

Nadir, Master of Magic continues to go around not using magic.  Sure, he claims he's giving a lady he rescued a potion to dispel the hypnotism placed on her, but I can't help but think that "potion" is really just a bit of brandy, or maybe even just a strong coffee. He does, however, seem to have a magic Ring of Evil Detection and he uses the Crystal Ball again he used in his first appearance.

Captain Desmo continues to vex me; the man fights way beyond the abilities of someone who should, at this stage, only be a first level Fighter. He exhibits the special ability of "combat machine" (multiple attacks vs. weak foes) as a Fighter of at least third level, and I can't easily guess how big a penalty to the die roll to assign to not only a disarming shot, but one that shatters a dagger with the bullet.

In this story, Desmo picks up his first supporting cast sidekick, Brooklyn-born Gabby McGuire, who is probably a first-level Fighter. Desmo also happens to know a Hindu mystic named Seyah Ashear, but Seyah is more of a Detective than a Magic-User, using clues to induce information for Desmo, rather than divination spells. Knowing a Detective as a Supporting Cast Member is very handy for players who aren't good at picking up on clues on their own.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)