Amazing Man Comics #8 - pt. 4

This is from Minimidget. Minimidget and Ritty are captured and taken to the island hideout of The Power. The Power uses wealth and influence to take over nations, and it is suggested that he already controls several behind the scenes. His hideout is outfitted with television-phones, as you can see here.

Minimidget barely does anything in this story; he carries the note from a captured scientist and then gets strapped to a bird, but the scientist could just as easily have strapped the message to the bird.

We do get to see what a sleeping bag harness for two tiny heroes would look like strapped to the back of a bird. Previously, I've stated that shrinking heroes don't need separate game mechanics, as their special ability at tiny size is usually being able to do whatever a full-grown person can do. There will be situations, though, like when the tiny hero wants to ride on the back of an eagle, where the Editor will still have to do a lot of hand-waving.

Assuming an eagle's average flying speed is 30 (30 MPH), and the eagle flies for two days before sighting land, The Power's island must be 1,440 miles from shore, or roughly the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

This is Brad Hardy, the really bad Dan Dixon clone. Here's a rare moment of gold and silver pieces occurring in a comic book setting.

I didn't bother including the previous page, but it had Brad being put on a quest to find fire, or at least the special fire that can rekindle their hollow world setting's mini-sun. The natives have been "getting by" on geothermal energy in the meanwhile, but they're doing just fine from what I see. Why not just just stick with the new energy source? One of the benefits of a long quest is that it buys you time to think up rationales for it before it's over, and if you're lucky your players will come up with an even better explanation for you.

The steam seems to cause them only discomfort; perhaps they have to miss a saving throw vs. science to take any damage from it.

The two-headed reptilis doesn't look too dangerous, since it has no claws and doesn't appear to even have teeth. It looks big and heavy -- maybe it flops on top of its victims and crushes them, then swallows them whole?

One thing the reptilis has going for it is a really low (low is good) Armor Class and resistance to heat and fire.

I'm unsure what a steam rifle is. Is it like an air rifle, firing a cartridge or bullet with steam pressure, or is it actually shooting a thin ray of steam? The former makes more sense, except for how the reptilis' heat resistance has anything to do with making it bulletproof. More likely, it has an AC of 4 or better simply because it's hide is so thick and rubbery.

Is Mighty Man not a superhero? Here he doesn't think he has a chance of wrecking through that steel door, like most any superhero would be able to do. Or maybe it's the sleep gas making him too woozy to wreck? That's a good example of combining challenges in a trap.

Here we see giants (10-12' tall) created by mad science (giants created by science must have only a 3 Intelligence). Giants can be encountered in groups of 1-10, apparently.

What is going on here? This is The Shark. Does he now have access to the power Teleport through Focus, like The Flame does? Or is he using some sort of projected image that appears to be coming out of the water? The ghostly look of The Shark makes me suspect the latter.

Here's a rather clever tactic, with The Shark sneaking into the hideout, finds the crooks are out, and before even gathering up evidence he takes all their weapons and disposes of them. When they return, they have no choice but to fight unarmed!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

More Fun Comics #31 - pt. 1

This month's Dr. Occult adventure has him investigating a mine being worked by zombies. The concept of zombies being "exploited" as unpaid labor is glossed over and the plot winds up being an invasion theme (the mine tunnels will come up under the city, eventually). Zombies are said to have "unbreakable" grappling holds, but turn inert when the Magic-User who raised them dies.

Dr. Occult also casts a spell that causes a cave-in. Stone Shape...?

Buzz Brown (yet another Terry and the Pirates rip-off) reminds us that you don't have to know Morse Code for it to be useful -- just hearing something that sounds like Morse Code tells you that someone intelligent is tapping on the other side of a wall.

I'm skeptical about using a blow torch to open a hole in a wall, but I don't know...maybe on board a ship the walls would be thin enough.

There is no game mechanic for determining when women faint, it has to be flavor text whenever it would not affect combat. Likewise, "restoratives" like smelling salts don't link to any game mechanic, and are certainly useless for rousing someone who is truly unconscious (zero hit points).

Similarly, there is no game mechanic to determine when you would accidentally sneeze and give yourself away while hiding. There are rules for determining surprise and, if you don't have surprise, the Editor might as well say a sneeze is what gave them away.

Russell "Alger" Cole did a lot of filler material like this in the early comics. I had once tried to develop a similar style of art, years before even encountering an Alger story. I haven't found an excuse to include him to date, as his pages tend to be stationary figures talking to each other, but this page is really different, as it shows men rock climbing.

The Hideouts & Hoodlums rules don't talk about climbing much, assigning it only to the Mysteryman class as something special they can do. And yet, with enough rope, tools, and a guide, surely anyone could try it? I might allow it with a saving throw vs. science if a Hero was using rope, with a +1 bonus for having help.

This page shows the consequences of missing said saving throw -- falling! Actually, it appears that a snapped rope is responsible for the falling, but since the wrecking things rule doesn't really apply here, then no game mechanic is directly tied to the rope; the failed saving throw is simply explained by the rope snapping.

I tended to be conservative with area of effect for weapons like grenades in Supplement I: National, but here we see a grenade thrown through a window into a room, and passerbys outside are still hurt by it. I'm not sure, though, if the area of effect needs to be revised upwards, or if the Editor needs to adjust on a case-by-case situation (clearly the big glass window plays a large part in the passerbys being hurt).

Incidentally, the convertible is called a touring car on the next page. It was a common term for a car in the times, but is a term that seemed rarely used in comic books.

Now this situation is different -- there's no way that a surprise roll should determine if someone wakes up from their sleep or not. I might allow a save vs. plot (for Heroes, maybe villains -- I'd be very hesitant to allow this ordinary characters) to wake up in time to get a surprise roll.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #30 - pt. 1

Just when I was convinced that "hide in shadows" should be a class-based instead of a race-based special ability, a page like this comes along, where Sandra of the Service is shown to be hiding in shadows.  So what's going on here? Can all humans hide in shadows after all? Should this be a special ability for the Spy class, or is Sandra a Mysterman? Is hiding in shadows going to become a stunt accessible to many classes?

The only thing I can say with any certainty is that the Spy class (an unofficial class from The Trophy Case) will not make the cut into 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums.  It may be too specific an archetype, while Hero classes should be broad enough to be used for more than one. Also I've just received no feedback from players interested in playing one.

Good call, Sandra. If your player had been careless enough to have you shoot into a dark room, crowded with combatants, I would have rolled randomly to hit any target, friend or foe, regardless of how well you rolled on your attack roll.



I'm still unsure if Doctor Occult is public domain or not, so I'm going to continue to err on the side of not sharing these next pages -- which is a shame, because we see a lot of H&H-relevant material in them.

An old soothsayer performs a seance, not unlike the seance ability of the Trickster class (from The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 4). The trickster is more likely to end up as a mobster-type in 2nd edition than a Hero class.

The seance goes wrong and summons an elemental. Elementals, in Dr. Occult's world, are supernatural and composed of ectoplasm instead of an alchemical element.  Elementals can possess people.

We also observe Dr. Occult and the elemental-possessed soothsayer in a contest of wills -- an optional rule for Magic-Users that debuted in The Trophy Case. A slightly altered version just appeared in Supplement V: Big Bang.

Meanwhile, Jack Woods reminds me that I should have made a Cowboy Stunt called Make Shoot at Hat. For 1 turn, all opponents must save vs. plot or shoot at the exposed hat instead of the concealed Hero.

Comic books seldom specify what type of gun is being used, and I now see it as an error that I specified so many types of historical guns on the starting equipment list. That said, this page clearly refers to Jack's weapons as being .44's, and are probably Winchester .44 revolvers.

Some amounts of climbing, like up a steep, rugged slope, or maybe even the side of a building, should be accessible to all Heroes. This, though...climbing a sheer wall, straight out of water? This has to be a special skill -- either performed by a Mysteryman (which Brad Hardy doesn't seem to be) or a stunt usable by Fighters (as Brad Hardy definitely seems to be).

It really seems like Wing Brady's player rolled a fumble in this combat. Criticals and fumbles are house rules in some games, and official rules in others. I have decided to avoid both for H&H -- I would rather the Editor control the flavor text of what happens in combat, bearing in mind the mood of the campaign he is aiming for.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #28

We'll start off discussing this issue with the Dr. Occult story, "Vampire Venom". Occult is the first man in comic books to deal with vampires (and this is his second outing against them!), so this strip should be seen as authoritative on the subject. We see that vampires can appear from out of nowhere (probably had been in gaseous form), and that they can have bat wings even when in human form. It turned within sight of their graves, they flee back to their graves rather than fleeing further.

In Pirate Gold, Dennis (there just aren't enough Heroes named Dennis) uses a whip to disarm. Given how common disarming is in comic books, I'm still inclined to say this is a combat maneuver that should be open to everyone and not a game mechanic specific to whips.

This page from Bob Merritt gives you a good idea of how large the scope of a war on crime could be in your H&H campaign. This isn't an enemy nation's air force in the sky -- this is a "gangster fleet". I'm counting at least 26 planes in that remarkable panel, each probably equipped with at least a machine gun. Looks like a battle for high-level Heroes...

This page of Johnnie Law supports an idea I've been having for an optional rule, where a head blow would have a chance of temporarily knocking out someone, This would have to be entirely different from the hit point mechanic, where being reduced to zero hp means a long recovery. Perhaps the attack roll would have to score 5 or more better than needed to hit, with the stated indication of going for a head blow, and the target would have to fail a save vs. science or be rendered unconscious for only 1-20 minutes?

This panel with "constant firing" is making me think of an optional rule for suppressive, or covering, fire. It would keep combatants from being able to move through an area, while not directly targeting any particular combatant.

A shot, like this one in Jack Woods, I would normally consider as evidence of the Trick Shot stunt for Cowboys.  However, it should be possible to make this shot even in a campaign without stunts or the Cowboy class. It might require a lucky hit roll vs. AC -1, however...

Brad Hardy's environment is a mix of the mundane and the fantastic. The intelligent races tend to be humans of a different color, like the grey people. Animals might be mundane, like pythons, or fantastic, like the bull-boar (which is itself just two animals combined). I would, at a guess, make the bull-board 3 HD, with a goring attack with that unicorn-like horn that would do 2-8 damage.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #27

Sandra of the Secret Service encounters one of the first gas guns in comics, well before the debut of the Sandman. Gas guns are a trophy item statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

This issue's Dr. Occult story is a tricky one. We have seen Dr. Occult (although he was called Dr. Mystic at the time) travel through other planes before, but here the implication seems to be that Dr. Occult can follow "trails" through the spirit world to places he doesn't know. This would seem to combine ethereal travel with a spell like Find the Path, which sounds like it would be powerful enough to at least be an 8th level Magic-User spell. Since I doubt even Dr. Occult should be high enough in level at this time to be casting spells of that level, there must be something else going on here.

I propose, then, a new spell called Improved Locate Object, or something like that, which not only tells you where something is, but allows you to get there twice as fast you can normally travel. The story doesn't actually support that Dr. Occult knows an object from the crime scene, but perhaps there is more going on there that is behind-the-panels. Also, travel through the spirit world could be a flavor text description of how you travel at x2 speed to your destination.  The range would have to be pretty good for this as well, at least twice the range of a normal Locate Object spell.

Dr. Occult battles a new mobster called the snake-god.  It appears to be a giant constrictor snake, but is intelligent and able to hypnotize with its gaze. I'd give it at least 5 HD, and possibly as high as 7 Hit Dice.  The death convulsions of a snake-god are particularly vicious, so that anyone in 10' would have to save vs. plot or take 1d6 damage from being smacked by a dying snake.

 Dr. Occult also casts Enlarge (or Enlargement) on himself, which definitely should increase strength and give a damage bonus in some way.

Moving on, we have this page from the Fang Gow serial, showing Barry O'Neill lassoing a rooftop and crossing that rope hand-over-hand. Lassoing has been talked about before here; what I wanted to bring up was when and when not to require saving throws.  At first, Barry is not threatened or under any pressure to hurry while crossing the rope. He has no encumbrance weighing him down. I would not make him roll any dice to determine if he makes it across safely.  Only once he is threatened -- in this case by the rope being cut -- would I consider requiring a saving throw vs. science to keep a hold on the rope.

This page of Pirate Gold, with its whipping scene and improvised weaponry, strikes me as a solid case against all weapons doing the same 1d6 damage.  If a whip could do 1d6 damage per lash, not many people would get past the first lash!  I also have trouble accepting that a thrown rock and an auto pistol do the same range of damage -- but maybe that is an example of comic book logic that I should not think about so much!

Brad Hardy has been facing a lot of weird underwater threats for awhile now, but this one is a giant barracuda! Curiously, the barracuda looks like a swordfish in the last panel. I would make a giant barracuda 12' long, weigh 800 lbs., and have 4+1 HD.

In The Yucca Terror, we see the Cowboy stunt Summon Posse at work.



(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #24

Sometimes things don't go as planned in a Hideouts & Hoodlums scenario. Sandra of the Secret Service can attest to that. Here, she and her guy-friend have gotten themselves captured again and can't figure a way out of this. What is an Editor to do?  In unsubtle fashion, you let the Heroes find a sheet of paper with instructions on how to find a secret escape route. There's no official game term for this, but you can call it a freebie.

There are freebies, and there are things the Heroes are willing to pay for. Here, Wing Brady's player could have trusted to the luck of the dice on his encounter reaction roll, but he's decided to sweeten the deal and improve his chances with a $5 bribe. As the Editor of this scenario, I'd be willing to give him a +1 bonus to the roll for the bribe.

Roleplaying should matter, though, so I'd also be willing to give him a -1 penalty to the roll for being kind of a dick. "I gave you five bucks to drive the cat, not to ask questions" indeed!

This month, Brad Hardy learns that there is arm wrestling and there's ultimate arm wrestling. The first one to lose a save vs. science and fall off-balance from the bridge lands on the...well, what is that creature supposed to be, anyway?  Some sort of giant catfish with tentacles? It sort of reminds me of the AD&D monster called the aboleth...

One of the best things about reading these old comic books is when you see a cool idea for an encounter area that you've never seen in a game scenario before. Bat infested caverns might be pretty common place, but ones with "sentinel-like stalagmites" taller than the Heroes? Navigating a maze of stalagmites? Sounds intriguing!

We're still months away from the debut of Superman. We've already seen one prototype, in Dr. Occult. Is Bob Merritt another? Here, he topples boulders and collapses tunnels with just a sword (yes, a ridiculously huge sword!). These feats of strength seem more appropriate for the Superhero's wrecking things game mechanic than anything a Fighter should be able to do...

And, lastly, there's Jack Woods, modern-day cowboy. Low XP-value trophies should be items that are only slightly better than ordinary. So, taking a bad guy's car would not net you any Experience Points, but a high-powered car, that might be worth 100 XP?


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #22

This isn't so much a playing tip, but this page of Sandra of the Secret Service amused me, reminding me of my new players in a game of Hideouts & Hoodlums, and how tying people up and hiding them in closets was their go-to plan for a significant portion of our first session...

Hey, look! It's another villain, pushed backwards off a cliff and dies!  As often as I'm seeing this, I'm thinking that a "push back" or "bull rush" combat mechanic isn't the solution here. What this needs is an -

Official for H&H: The Falls off a Cliff and Dies Rule

Any time a Hero is about to get killed because of unlucky dice rolls, and you don't want it to happen (because it will spoil the narrative of the story, send a player home unhappy, etc.), you are free to have the Hero's opponent fall off a cliff and die. It is preferable, but not essential, that a cliff actually be present in the scene. 

The bad guy has the drop on our Hero, Wing Brady, his gun pointing right at him. The Hero's intention is to spin around, pick up a stool, and throw it at the gunman before he can pull the trigger. Our Hero is toast, right? Then you haven't read enough comic books. This is precisely why, instead of a realistic initiative system, we need the abstraction of 2 dice rolls, higher roll goes first.

I have no idea what giant vats of boiling oil were used for in 1930s laboratories, let alone futuristic ones. Regardless, they apparently make for good hideout decor.

Now, immersion in boiling oil could be handled in one of two ways by the Editor. One is random damage (1-6, or higher, depending on how hot the oil is) per turn until the immersed is rescued, and the other is a straight save vs. poison or death. The choice might say a lot about what kind of campaign mood the Editor is going for.

The ease with which a panther is killed by one of the Bradley Boys with just a knife is a good argument for going with same damage for everything, and not scaling to an expanded weapon damage system that penalizes the "lowly" knife.

As common as cannibals are in Golden Age comics, I've shied away from using them as a distinct mobster type. Instead, I've lumped them together with other racist portrayals under "Natives" in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Here Brad Hardy encounters some kind of underwater dragon. The real lesson here is, as long as you can count on your players never to turn around and fight, you can throw encounters as big and spectacle-worthy as you like at them. Of course, then it's beholden on you, the Editor, to provide someone else to do the fighting for them.

Hence, mermen with underwater lightning guns.



In a page of Doctor Occult, not shown here, Jerry Siegel shows off his talent for cleverly playing with science fiction motifs again (as we have already seen him do in Federal Men). In the last issue, Dr. Occult was killed. In this issue, a scientist brings him back to life, ala Frankenstein's Monster, only here the mad scientist is more obviously the villain and the "monster" is more obviously the Hero.

The trophy item used to bring the Doctor back must be a mad science raise dead machine.

Proof that cowboys can climb walls. It's not just a Mysteryman skill anymore!

And lastly, a page of Johnnie Law, included here because it's actually an example of good detective work -- using a clue to narrow down a smaller list of suspects, and then meticulously tail each of them.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #21 - pt. 2

I'm not sure what that is Brad Hardy and his buddy are running away from, but the narrator calls it a "land monster" and it looks an awful lot like a dragon. Maybe dragons don't like water? Kind of makes sense.

Here, Brad stumbles across a hidden land, underwater, surrounded by a coral reef that somehow makes the air breathable down here. This is a perfect idea for getting low-level Heroes into an exotic environment and keeping them safe there (although maybe not safe from deadly fish...).

Jack Woods' player might cry foul here, as a cave-in smacks of railroading the players ("railroading" being a technique where the Editor eliminates all other options from the players to move them in the direction he wants the story to go).

The concealed trap door entrance to a hidden hideout is a nice touch, though.

One could easily spend $3.65 on a taxi ride across town in 1937.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)