Famous Funnies #66 - pt. 2

A bubble genies is... an unusual, modern spin on a classic. The Bubble Pipe of Genie Summoning is not something your players would be expecting, that's for sure!

Sifting through the racism, we get to the bottom and the image of a man swinging a bull around by its horns -- gruesome, if it wasn't so cartoony. At issue here is, did Wahoo have to activate the Raise Car power to do this, and would he have to? What is going on is clearly combat, so whether the bull is airborne or not seems irrelevant and is merely flavor text. Two exceptions I can think of would require Wahoo to activate the power for this: 1) he plans on throwing the bull next, which does require him to be able to lift it into the air, and 2) he is doing this to intimidate the bull and force a morale save, without hurting it any further. Flavor text cannot activate morale saves, so a power would have to be used for that.

 

Scorchy is doing everything right to find the kidnapper -- using aerial reconnaissance, checking maps, watching escape routes, and contacting the authorities.

Krag, on the other hand, doesn't seem to be as smart at setting up traps as Scorchy is. Why would he step on the starter if he thinks the motor is busted? And wouldn't his chief priority still be finding the girl?

The Lone Rider's true identity is revealed in this story -- and soon thereafter he is easily subdued in combat once the mystique of his mask was removed. 1st edition Hideouts & Hoodlums had a rule for superheroes that they could only use their powers in costume...but I'm wondering if that rule was not misplaced and a better fit for the mysteryman class all along. Perhaps the mysteryman should be denied his signature move when not wearing some kind of mask.

It seems a small point, but I thought I would explain that saving a dog from a burning building is still a good deed, and worth just as much XP as saving a person.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Famous Funnies #64

Okay, so this month's Hairbreadth Harry is pretty awful racist -- but it does contain two standout features. One is a pretty awful (but delightfully awful) trap -- our damsel in distress is tied to a giant candle that is going to set her on fire when it burns down. I can just imagine the Adam West Batman being tied to something like this by a villain called the Crime Candle.

And then there's an unusual trophy/treasure item to collect -- a solid gold bell clapper.

This is from Life's Like That. I find it particularly amusing because this seems like just the sort of thing that would happen to me.

Again, yes, racist -- but if we look past that, we see that encounters with wild animals tend to end in violent attacks more often than they would in real life. This fits, of course, with That Other Game where encounters are usually resolved with violence.

Detecting poison - is this a skill Heroes could have, or just their dogs?

Dickie's guardian, Dan, is in a tight fix and seems to have no other choice but to bribe the crew to mutiny. That he's bribing them with money he hasn't stolen yet could mean a penalty to his encounter reaction roll. On the other hand, the high amount and the promise of going free afterwards could cancel that modifier out.

We also learn that you can fit two machine guns and belts into the same crate.

Mike is willing to betray Dan because a) he's a mobster, and b) his reaction roll must have been positive or less (friendly or higher would have secured his loyalty for the mutiny).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Famous Funnies #62

Opening with a joke...

Jack Kirby's Lightning and the Lone Rider reminds us that silencers existed for guns in the 1930s, though here it is called a "muffler". I would think everyone in a hideout would want a silencer, because gun shots echo so loud.

$2 for an airplane ride.

Dickie Dare's Editor needs to stop having his supporting cast do all the hard work for him, or he's going to get over-reliant on them. If Joe had missed a loyalty check, they would have been done for.

And here's a good lesson about smoking. If you smoke, you'll eventually discard a match in a pile of wood shavings and almost burn down the boat you need to get off a deserted island.

I have a write-up for nobles ready for 2nd edition, because evil counts show up so often in comics...but I can't help but wonder if this guy isn't an evil mysteryman, or even just a really capable slick hoodlum...

Oaky Doaks is a great example of Lawful Alignment. I admire his convictions.

From Babe Bunting -- a map!

From Connie -- a good size comparison of a yacht, a sloop, and a rowboat.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #50

Hard to believe we're up to issue 50 of any title already. I'm thinking, of course, from today's perspective and how few titles reach 50 issues these days!

Let's start examining this issue with Hairbreadth Harry.  Now, Harry's adventures are usually pretty dubious, and this one is no exception -- but, there are two useful points to take away from this. One, it doesn't hurt to cut open the occasional dead animal to see if it swallowed anything useful. Two, hunting dogs can be particularly useful to bring along with your Hero -- not so much for attacking, but for spotting things for the Heroes. Of course, bringing hunting dogs into a hideout puts them at risk, so weigh the pros and cons accordingly.

I've prefaced things with "I never thought I'd need to" before, but I never thought I'd need to show Big Chief Wahoo in these pages until now. Big Chief Wahoo is the Indian version of Popeye, needing to swig some moonshine (or whatever that is) to get super-strong. As such, he's one of the prototypes for the Superhero class.


I've been grappling recently with the 1st ed. rule that Superheroes need to be in costume to earn XP as Superheroes, and whether or not this needs to exist in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums. In most cases (Superman, Captain Marvel, etc.), it makes a lot of sense, but then there are obvious exceptions like Popeye and Big Chief Wahoo. And if you had any doubts (like I did) that Big Chief Wahoo was a superhero -- in that last panel he's either using the 1st-level power Raise Car or No Encumbrance (which I might wind up merging into just one power).

Smashing through a locked door is a surprisingly complex game mechanic. If Tubby was a Superhero, he would make a wrecking things roll. Because Tubby is a Fighter, though, the door makes a special kind of saving throw vs. non-Superhero wrecking. At least that's where things stand now.


I'm wondering, though, if bashing open locked doors shouldn't just be a skill that all non-Superheroes get a 1 in 6 chance to do.

"Two shots ring out almost at once" is the most telling evidence so far that, when two parties roll the same number for initiative, it should be treated as simultaneous initiative instead of re-rolling.

This is Oaky Doaks. I'm not a fan, but it does seem to demonstrate that anyone, even people not very bright, should have a chance at tracking.  I may have to make that a general skill for all classes to use too.

Scorch Smith here demonstrates the Aviator stunt, Improved Take-Off/Landing.

As I move away, in 2nd ed., from one-use stunts to skills that always have a chance of success, it begs the question of what to do with the Cowboy- and Aviator-specific stunts. The solution I'm considering is to keep the Cowboy and Aviator as sub-classes that anyone can switch to when in those environments. For instance, when a 3rd-level Magic-User gets in the pilot's seat of a plane, he transfers his XP to the Aviator class temporarily and picks out his aviator stunts accordingly. There won't be room for this in the 2nd ed. Basic book, though.

Examples of the Aviator stunts Coast on Fumes and Deadstick (all Aviator stunts from The Trophy Case vol. 1 nos. 6-7).

Goat joke #16!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)