More Fun Comics #17 - pt. 1

Am I starting with Sandra of the Secret Service because "Sandra and Lorenz have escaped from the Resbian prison" reads like "lesbian prison"?  No, it's because of the peculiar instance of Lorenz's flesh wound.  Can someone fall forward while running in Hideouts & Hoodlums and take damage?  Most likely not.  It's conceivable that Lorenz fell on something sharp, which could have impaled him like a weapon, but just landing on the ground from any distance less than 10' is not going to cause damage to a full-grown Hero. What is more likely is that Lorenz took a bullet wound, but is just being macho and doesn't want to tell Sandra.

Note Lorenz' regret over shooting the soldiers; this is perfectly in keeping with the save vs. plot rule for Heroes to shoot a person, which in earlier versions of the rules even Fighters had to make.

Thugs were statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

You know, the artwork in Don Drake has been pretty hit or miss so far, but the poses are really good in panel 1 and, in panel 2, you can really tell by looking at him that the whip-snapper with the boulder dropped on him is in a world of hurt.

The rules, as written, are a little harsh when it comes to requiring Lawful or Neutral Heroes to save vs. plot to go around picking up enemy trophies, but that's meant to prevent do-gooders from stockpiling all of those hi-tech whips that, we've already seen, do enough damage to even give Don Drake pause. Betty picking up smoked glasses, though, is really solving the puzzle of how to get through the Room of Blinding Light and not being greedy, so I would definitely not impose the save vs. plot there.



In this installment of Dr. Occult, the good Doctor and The Seven stand in final battle with Koth and his thousands of horsemen.  Again, I have to suspect that Siegel and Shuster are not as concerned with game balance as I am.  Especially when it comes to how easily Dr. Occult turns the tide, simply by activating the final power of his magic belt and summoning -- a Phantasmal Army.

Phantasmal Force is an H&H spell, but one meant to conjure maybe 1-10 illusionary soldiers, not thousands. Phantasmal Army would be a spell of at least the 8th spell level.  Will I include such a spell?  Like robots hundreds of feet tall in Federal Men, I'm inclined to accept that what we're seeing is an exaggerated version of what we can adapt to H&H.

This is from a loose adaptation of Ivanhoe, which you would think would work better with D&D or Pendragon...but this Black Knight sure seems a lot like a superhero here.  It would be interesting to see someone try running a medieval campaign using just H&H!

For a campaign aiming for a darker mood, you could take lessons from Barry O'Neill and Fang Gow.  Players may not appreciate having their SCMs kidnapped and murdered like this, so an Editor should consider it carefully, but killing their butler just to leave a message on his shirt, now that says evil.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #13

September 1936 brings us more of Sandra of the Secret Service, just now starting her second adventure after 12 2-3 page installments. To say Sandra is a master of disguise may seem a bit of a misnomer, and yet people in comic books seem to be frighteningly easy to fool by the simplest of disguises. But, only for Heroes; not just anyone is so good at disguise.

Sandra is likely a member of the Spy character class, introduced in The Trophy Case v. 2 no . 5, which has disguise as a class function right from the start. This will become tricky in the next edition, which I had not intended to include the Spy class in. Will that make Sandra a Mysteryman, then, using a Disguise Stunt?  Time will tell.

Medieval period pieces are not going to receive much coverage on this blog; there are LOTS of other RPGs that deal specifically with medieval re-enactment (or swords & sorcery-fantasy equivalents). This page of Ivanhoe does, however, address the mystery of the crossbow.

The mystery is -- where are they? Crossbows are not that rare in real life; they're still used in hunting to this day. But you'll be hard-pressed to find one in the comics. Why is that? Are they just somehow hard to draw? Note how the text describes the archers on the battlements as using crossbows, but those are obviously regular short bows in use in the artwork. Is it just because the act of pulling back a bow string looks more active than holding a stationary crossbow close to the shoulder? Until this mystery is resolved, I plan on taking the crossbow off the starting equipment list for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

The Crazy Meter still runs high on Don Drake on the Planet Saro, and that's good news for informing a campy sci-fi H&H campaign.  Here, we sort of learn about the contents of the Zetrurian queen's gold flagon. It doesn't spell out for us just how this potion "vanquishes" the monster, but it's clearly dead on the next page. Perhaps it's a powerful contact poison.

Poison, in H&H, does a lot of different things depending on the type, with most poisonous animals each having their own set of mechanics (and what goes wrong if a save vs. poison is missed).  Some poisons only weaken, some render a person comatose for a random length of time, while others are of the save or die variety (with onset time varying).

Now this is curious -- is the poisonous cloud an after-effect of the contact poison, or of killing the land monster? It seems like the queen would be crazy to intentionally give Don a weapon that would endanger her own people, so I have to say this is what happens to land monsters after they die. The poison vapor does not seem to be of the save or die variety, since everyone is just walking to shelter instead of running.



This issue's installment of Dr. Occult introduces the idea of a lycanthropy potion that can be injected into someone via a syringe.

This page of Pirate Gold shows a) pirates (statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies) and b) situational modifiers to hit, such as while backstabbing (which would be a +2 bonus to hit).  If the pirate was also a Mysteryman, this could be a Signature Move and do additional damage.

This page of Sandy Kean and the Radio-Squad features a gangster (treat as a bloodthirsty hoodlum, first introduced in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 6, but then retroactively added to the next edition of Book II: Mobsters & Trophies), a sub-machine gun (treated as a trophy weapon), and a car and motorcycle (motorcycles were originally treated as transport trophies, but were retroactively added to the starting equipment list in Book I: Men & Supermen).

The death in the last panel is awfully hard to figure out, probably because of some slipshod artwork from future Superman creator, Joe Shuster. If the momentum of the car threw the hoodlum into the pole, then the hoodlum's body should be on the other side of the pole.

Regardless, this is an awfully tricky situation to duplicate with game mechanics. How do you give someone a chance of throwing someone off of the running board of your car hard enough to injure or kill them?  The vehicular combat rules in Book III: Underworld and Metropolis Adventures are for assigning damage based on speed if you hit someone with a car. Perhaps this attack would do half that damage, if the passenger on the running board failed a save vs. science?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun #12

As we roll into August 1936, we are reminded that the Planet Saro is an awfully dangerous place, and how eventful any Hideouts & Hoodlums campaign would be if creatures from Saro wound up in an Earth-based campaign.  Here is the latest monstrosity Don Drake has to fight, boringly called the Land Monster. What it appears to be is a cross between a rhinoceros and a dragon, with greenish gray hide, a double horn, double tusks, and fire breath that roars out of its nostrils. I would probably use red dragon stats for this monster, though next issue will tell us how tough it is (since Don has a disentegrator in his hands, I'm guessing not very).

Buckskin Jim presents an interesting problem for a H&H Editor. When the trapper shoots into a melee, he's breaking a combat rule. But how tightly do you want to enforce that rule when Buckskin Jim is about to get killed?  An Editor might be forgiven for treating "no shooting into melee" as a loose guideline, or coming up with a compromise mechanic. An unofficial suggestion would be making a second attack roll against a different melee combatant (determined at random, if more than two combatants) if the initial attack misses by half or more.

Brad Hardy meets a Magic-User with an interesting new spell here. Ball of Fire is a sphere 7' in diameter that surrounds the caster and moves with him. Any combustibles touching the sphere catch fire and anyone trying to melee the Magic-User within the sphere takes 1-10 points of damage.  Further, the Magic-User enjoys a +2 bonus to saving throws vs. missiles made of wood, like arrows. I see this as being a 2nd level spell.



In the Doctor Occult feature, we learn that werewolves cast a wolf reflection in mirrors, even when in human form.

Wing Brady graces this blog again for this deathtrap he's placed in.  After being weakened by whipping, he's dangled by weak rope over a pit of poisonous reptiles. If he struggles too much, the ropes are supposed to break and drop him into the pit.  Of course, taking damage doesn't actually make you weaker in H&H, but being low in hit points will make him more likely to be killed by either the fall or the reptile bites.

In the Wake of the Wander is just one of several stories I've read (or re-read) recently that have made me question my original assumption that languages don't matter in H&H.  Yes, everyone speaks English in comic books (even aliens!), but sometimes you do need to send a coded message that not everyone around you will understand, like Morse code. Expect to see some revision here in the next edition.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

More Fun Comics #10

We rejoins Sandra of the Secret Service, now involved in a Gothic adventure around a spooky old castle!  Not only would the Black Tower and its secret halls be an ideal hideout, but a Silent Watcher would make an interesting mobster-type to encounter...

Jack Woods demonstrates a climb stunt here.  Also, Pancho Villa's henchmen, previously called bandits, are called brigands here. Another RPG distinguished bandits from brigands, suggesting that brigands were evil bandits, while bandits weren't necessarily quite so bad.  Hideouts & Hoodlums follows this model.

A skeptical reader might wonder about two things here -- why Pancho Villa took the time to knock Jack's gun out of his hand instead of just shooting him in the back, and how Jack managed to grapple Pancho without getting shot first.

If we do assume that bandits are Neutral and not Chaotic, and since Pancho is specifically a bandit here and not called a brigand like his henchmen, then Pancho would be naturally more inclined to take Jack prisoner rather than kill him in cold blood.  It will be important to remember, when running H&H, to make sure that most mobsters encountered have goals other than killing Heroes.

The other question is, how did Jack strike first?  One possibility is an Editor that ignored the traditional order of combat and allowed both missile and melee attacks to be decided by the same initiative roll.  Or, the Editor rolled for Pancho first, missed, and then used flavor text to describe it as Jack getting the drop on Pancho, since it made more sense to describe it like that than a miss at point blank range. H&H has that kind of flexibility.

Though Don Drake is on an alien world full of wondrous things, it's interesting how a simple net trap is what does him in.  It's a big net, so if Don was surprised, there wouldn't be much of a chance to run out from underneath it. I might even give him a -1 penalty to his save vs. science to dodge the trap.

Barry O'Neill is wise to worry about the Secret Service seaplane. That deck-gun is probably an autocannon, which was statted in Supplement I: National, and does a doozy amount of damage.

It's interesting how many targets the paralysis ray can be used on at such a short distance. That's one wide-angled ray...

What's interesting here is that the the paralysis raygun is easily thwarted -- because it's plugged in by wires. When planning to use a hi-tech weapon in your campaign, it's important to consider the power source. This isn't so much an issue with magic trophies.

Doctor Occult explains at length about a magic spell that drains years off your victim's life and adds it to your own. It's not the sort of combat- or hideout exploring-related spell you would expect to need in H&H, so it will probably stay off the spell lists, but on a magic scroll, as a one-shot item to be found, this could be an atmospheric addition to an evil necromancer's treasure trove.

Henri Duval is getting overwhelmed by sheet weight of numbers.  Truthfully -- I haven't figured this one out yet. The H&H rules are more geared towards one-on-one grappling combats. Overwhelming with numbers is something I'll still have to work on.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus at
http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=11615&b=i)

More Fun #9

More Don Drake on the Planet Saro fun!  This time we clearly see that Don is fighting what must be a full-sized, 15 HD, sea monster -- which means that Zetrurian Canon must pack a whopping 15 HD of damage!

The next page features those bizarre "winged death" creatures again and, even with a better look at them, I can't figure out how to stat them!  It's almost more like an AD&D modron than a bird or insect. Any thoughts on them?

Poor Wing Brady is dying of thirst in the desert.  How to handle that, though, in game play?  Hideouts & Hoodlums includes rules for fatigue (in Book I: Men and Supermen, the combat section), but no rules for dehydration or starvation.

It is generally said that a man can go three days without water (though this site says some people have gone 8-10 days without water).  So, after 3 days, I would have the Hero suffer constant fatigue and, in addition, make the Hero save vs. science each additional day, or die.

Speaking of bizarre...Brad Hardy here tackles some "ape men" -- though, as anyone with basic zoological education knows, apes don't have tails. Perhaps, if we ignored the tails, these could be the gibbon men statted in H&H Supplement I: National?  The gibbon men only sprang into existence to fill a niche for a weak humanoid creature. Perhaps I should just replace them with monkey men like these in the next edition.

The "ape god" is a statue that just stood up and startled everyone. A stone golem...?

This installment of 2023 Super-Police shows that, even in the future, you can still find subterranean hideouts to explore!  Here we see a cave complex made from old lava tubes, now partially filled with water. The boat conveniently left on the shore reminds me of the classic AD&D module S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

Good thing Kiddlaw has a flare!  Flares are not currently on the starting equipment list for H&H, but it bears consideration.

And lastly, Doctor Occult finishes his first adventure against the "Vampire Master", actually a Mad Scientist with a Thought Materializer Machine.  This machine needs to go into the next edition of H&H, as it's such a handy means of stocking a hideout with all kinds of crazy mobsters!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus at  http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=11640&b=i)

More Fun #8 - pt. 2

The bandit entry in Hideouts & Hoodlums Book II: Mobsters and Trophies ignores this, but the bandits seen in comics, like this Jack Woods installment, are almost always stereotypically Hispanic. There are not a lot of actual game mechanics on display here, though notice the smart combat tactic of bottle-necking the bandits in that gorge before taking a stand with the rifle.

This is a rare first glimpse of magic at work in a comic book. Note that the way things like powers and spells work in H&H is that they measure the effects of the spells, not necessarily the form the spell takes. So, while it appears that the Black Magician is casting something like a Wall of Fire spell, note how the effect of the spell is that it only holds three people in one spot, and does not seem to be harming them. So this is very likely a Hold Person spell in action.

Similarly, the spell that appears to be something like "Summon Flood" is actually just negating the Hold Person spell. So, mechanic-wise, this is most likely Dispel Magic being cast. Now, maybe one could argue that, because of the fire component described in the Hold Person spell, that a water-based spell could cancel it out. This would be a judgement call for the Editor to make.

The Planet Saro continues to be a gold mine for new mobsters. Or is it?  It's hard to say what to do with that "Sea Beast".  Is it the 15 Hit Die sea monster, from Book II?  I'd like to think Don's Editor isn't that cruel.  And yet, Don does have a very powerful raygun at his disposal, so maybe that's supposed to even the odds.

Mobsters do not always have to have the Hit Dice they are statted with in the books. This Sea Beast, for example, might be a young sea monster with "just" 8 HD.

Also worth noting is, dangling from a rope like that, Don should be at least at a +2 bonus to hit for the Sea Beast, and will not get any Dexterity bonus to Armor Class (assuming that rule from Supplement I: National is used).


Meanwhile, the Doctor Occult page continues his very first adventure, against Vampire Master. So far, the Vampire Master appears to be a Mad Scientist (statted in Book II), who uses hypnotism (via a machine generating the 1st-level power, perhaps?), as well as a simple portcullis trap.

I'm...unsure about the legality of sharing the early Dr. Occult material, so I'm going to only refer to it here, and you can always check me yourself by following the citation link the follows...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus at http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=11622&b=i)

New Fun #5 - pt. 1

Although lacking access to New Fun #3-4, I have read #5 and can comment at length on its applicability to the Hideouts & Hoodlums roleplaying game, starting with the cover story.



Jack Woods here demonstrates the Cowboy stunt of tracking. One could argue that he also demonstrates the Mysteryman skill of climbing, although that roof is pretty low and we don't actually know that he didn't just step up on a rain barrel to reach the roof.  One could also make an argument for keen hearing being a stunt from this page.  Normally, all Heroes have the same chance to hear noise, though.

I have had players who meticulously keep track of their number of shots fired, and other players who would just like to wing it. Personally, I feel I have enough things to keep track of during combat besides keeping track of ammo, so I came up with the optional rule that ammo only lasts a random number of combat turns. Either way you play it, it doesn't affect Jack, who can't act on that knowledge until the following turn anyway.

This has got to break a speed record for fastest pacing on a comic book page.  Don Drake is kept awful busy here, killing the Hideous Thing, which saves the Midget-Men of Zetruria and the Women Riders of the Winged Death, turning them both into his allies, only to get plucked up by a Giant!

The Winged Death is a peculiar-looking creature, worthy of a mobster entry in H&H.  It appears to be part giant insect and part giant bird. Other than that, there is little to go on in providing them with stats here. No doubt the installment in New Fun #4 would have yielded more clues, if I had access to it.

Too soon to say what kind of stats that Giant should have.

Trophy-wise, Barry O'Neill is surrounded by a treasure trove, if he survives long enough to start collecting loot. Since we last saw him, he's traded up from a patrol boat to a seaplane. Now he's being attacked by a fighter plane with two machine guns and a motor launch with a machine gun. And, assuming that top panel is honest and Fang Gow is really in China, then there is a very powerful radio receiver waiting for Barry to pick up in Paris.

Machine guns are fearsome weapons, but in the hands of a 1st-level Fighter they have only a 50% chance of hitting the average AC 9 target, and given the rules for vehicular combat they should be suffering a penalty to hit depending on how fast the vehicles are going. As originally statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, machine guns give four attacks per turn, which does make the odds of a hit on Barry's plane substantially higher. More likely, the Editor here is using the revised artillery rules from The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 5, which allows a machine gun to hit up to 8-10 different targets, but only 1 hit vs. each target. While neither version may be entirely accurate to reality, the later revision at least keeps the weapon from becoming an instant kill vs. mid-level Heroes, while playing up its usefulness in mass combat.

A misthrown stone knocking out an Indian           makes much more sense using the original weapon damage for H&H, where every non-trophy weapon does the same 1d6 points of damage.  Using later revisions to weapon damage, the stone would probably be downgraded to 1-3 points of damage -- which still makes this scene possible, if the Indian happened to have low hit points.

There is no game mechanic that would account for a tomahawk falling on a gun and setting it off; this would clearly be a freebie thrown to the player by a generous Editor.

The Indians are unlikely to be surprised in the game mechanic sense of surprising an opponent, since they must know the campers are there. Rather, "surprise" is probably indicative of their emotion when they fail their morale saves during the first turn of combat.

Humor strip Slim Pickens seemed an unlikely source for any H&H goodness, but here Slim is, exploring a haunted house in true H&H fashion. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Screeching Thing will turn out to be a man in disguise in the following issue, but the way its bony hands go for his throat reminds me of the Apparition from AD&D's Fiend Folio. Hmm...


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)                                              

New Fun #3

Moving along, we pause in April 1935 just long enough to cover the only part of New Fun #3 I have access to -- its cover. Here we see the ant people and the "hideous thing" that were statted in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 4.

New Fun #2 - pt. 2

"Don Drake on the Planet Saro" already has some history with Hideouts & Hoodlums; quarterly zine The Trophy Case (v. 2 no. 4) had statted some of the mobsters of Saro, including the midget-men and the bandars pictured here.  The H&H rules, until then, included nothing specific about grappling with nets, so this was the first time anything was written up on the subject. The next edition will likely not include those rules for just anyone to use, but may be noted under specific mobster entries who are likely to use nets.

There was already strong precedent for mobsters to be able to wreck things like Superheroes. Mobsters in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies with as little as 3 Hit Dice, like cavemen, could wreck things. This might be toned down for weaker mobsters (like 3-5 HD ones).

It is, of course, not recommended that Editors give atomic energy guns to 1st level Heroes, though this seems to be a particularly weak one. I would think that an atomic energy gun would at least disintegrate a target, but this one only damages a target and pushes it back. A particularly nice feature of this gun is that it's mounted behind a shield, so the shooter already has light cover.

Jack Andrews is an example of the sports genre in comics. How does the Editor determine if Jack managed to regain his balance or not?  This short selection demonstrates the need for a skill system in a roleplaying game -- and this brief paragraph will explain how H&H skirts having one. Instead, H&H uses the saving throw game mechanic very broadly.  A strong argument could be made that Jack's player would have to save vs. science (gravity and inertia, in this case) to right himself before hitting the ground (a weaker argument could be made that Jack's player should save vs. plot, because if he doesn't land safely, he can't fight the mobster at the bottom of the slope).

The fleeing saboteur is not doing anything particularly sneaky to get away; he was just hoping for a beneficial surprise roll from the Editor. Before an encounter, the Editor rolls for each side to see if it is surprised (usually a 2 in 6 chance).  In this case, Jack surprised the saboteur.

Sooner or later this blog would have to deal with the issue of the blatant racism found in Golden Age Comic Books. Rather than ignore it, H&H has taken the riskier route of staying truer to the source material and tries to incorporate some aspects of this into game play, as inoffensively as possible. These Indians would be statted as the mobster type called Natives in an H&H scenario (in some earlier drafts of Book II circulating, they were still called Savages).  Some players of H&H have had issues with any incorporation of this aspect of the comics and -- in total honesty -- this author has lost some players because of it.  Each individual Editor is, of course, free to use or not use as much of it he and his players are comfortable with.

H&H, as written, assumes a time frame of 1935-1941, but remains abstract enough to be applicable to a broad range of historical simulation, including future scenarios -- particularly the future as it was envisioned in the early 20th century.

In 2023, the Super-Police have planes that are propelled forward at terrific speed with the questionable technology of creating a tubular vacuum in front of the ship with cosmic rays and pulling the ship forward through it.  Their planes are equipped with cosmic ray guns, torpedo detectors, and inertia absorbers -- and completely stattable in H&H.  For a cosmic ray gun, just up the damage (maybe 3-6 Hit Dice, with a chance of wrecking things).  A torpedo detector could be like a Detect Magic spell with a higher range. Inertia Asborbers might function like the Superhero buffing power of Imperviousness. And, while intended for a time just eight years in our future, it is not hard to imagine such a vehicle in the hands of an Ultra Mad Scientist in a high-level campaign set in 1940.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)