Marvel Mystery Comics #5 - pt. 3

Two features left!

Second to last is Irwen Hasen's Ferret, Mystery Detective. In it, we learn that the police code for a shooting is 23. At the crime scene, Ferret gets a good encounter reaction roll and the commissioner on the scene let's him keep a clue. We learn that Ferret's car has bulletproof glass, improving its Armor Class value and shielding Ferret from a lot of bullets as he is chased from the crime scene. Mobsters force him to crash -- treat it as an obstacle in a car chase, but with a save vs. science or a skill check to avoid? -- and he emerges with just a light wound on his arm.

We learn that "they've been doing this in Europe for years. You place a dry sheet of paper over a wet one and write a message with a matchstick. When the paper dries it's blank - but wet it again - presto! A message!" I haven't tested this to see if it really works.

Before going into a suspicious building, Ferret leaves his pet ferret outside, so he can whistle and summon it to rescue him later. Which turns out to be a good thing, as Ferret is vulnerable to the "surprise head blow" trope that fells so many golden age heroes. We learn it takes a ferret 30 minutes to chew through a wall (interior wall, I'm guessing -- or that ferret needs to be statted as a superhero!).

After escaping, Ferret has three hoodlums chasing him. He uses a length of rope to trip all three of them. Okay, I've talked about allowing this before, but giving them a bonus to their saves to reflect how his efforts are being divided. What's unusual here is that only two get back up right away to fight him, while the third takes longer. I've always ruled that it takes 1 melee turn to get back on your feet...but what if it should take 1-2 turns, to stagger how fast your opponents can get back into combat?

Speaking of combat, a ferret, at only 2-3 pounds, shouldn't even add up to 1 hit point, but Ferret's ferret Nosey looks like he does 1 point of damage in a fight.

In a queer bit of slang, counterfeit money is called "the queer" in this story.

In Ka-Zar, Ka-Zar steals into de Kraft's tent and steals all his guns. Rather than use the guns against him, he wants to make for a fair fight, so he wrecks the guns against a big rock (possibly for fighters to do, as guns fall only in the doors category).

Ka-Zar is later captured, though, tied up, and slashed with sharp weapons 100 times by natives. This has to be flavor text, there is no way Ka-Zar has over 100 hit points. Despite having been able to wreck guns, Ka-Zar is not strong enough to snap the rope tying him. Without leverage, he could have a significant disadvantage to his rolls. 

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Marvel Mystery Comics #4 - pt. 3

Ferret is an odd name for a Hero, and a seemingly unnecessary one since everyone seems to know who Ferret is. I suspect what's going on there is that "Ferret" is meant to be protecting the famous author's identity from his the readers, so you don't know who he's meant to be.

Ferret is investigating a murder and the police are focused on a stereotypical clue -- the matchbook in the dead man's pocket. Ferret, however, does his legwork and interviews people from the nightclub. Now, it turns out the first clue was right, but being thorough can help the Heroes from following up false leads, and then blaming the Editor later for letting them spend the whole session on a dead end.

Ferret wears a bulletproof vest. It doesn't protect Ferret from taking the bullet, but he gets pushed back and has the wind knocked out of him instead of being killed. It is more realistic sounding, but it's not how bulletproof vests work in most comic books, and won't work this way in Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Ferret is staked out, watching an apartment, for two hours before he falls asleep. There's no game mechanic that covers that sort of thing. I guess Ferret's player announced he was falling asleep, or the Editor punished the player for yawning at the game table.

When a life is in danger, Ferret has to ditch his plans of being methodical and play on a hunch as to who the killer is. He barges into the nightclub and searches the office for secret doors before anyone can stop him. It's not behind the bookcase, but it looks like it's behind some paneling that slides open, revealing a door. Behind the doors is a short flight of steps that leads down into a lower room with barrels of cement in it.

In Ka-Zar's fourth installment, white men have come back to the Congo where Ka-Zar calls home, with a small army of native porters with them. Ka-Zar goes to their camp to harass them with his bow and arrows, but when a native shoots at him, that's provocation enough for Ka-Zar to shoot him with an arrow and kill him (which isn't possible under normal H&H rules).

Leopards really have it out for Ka-Zar -- again a leopard challenges Ka-Zar and only backs down when other animals come to Ka-Zar's aid.  Maybe Ka-Zar is just unlucky with encounter reaction checks when leopards are around -- or maybe the Explorer class needs an animal with a special enmity for the Hero.

Ka-Zar roars like a lion and it chases some of the natives away; mixed in with the natives might be some superstitious hoodlums.

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Marvel Mystery Comics #3 - pt. 3

In American Ace, Wade Perry rescues a girl and gets a new mission from this plot hook character -- deliver her to her sister, 60 miles away, so she can tell her sister their parents are dead. It turns out to be a super-easy trip, as his plane is fast and they make the trip too quickly for the Editor to roll up any wandering encounters along the way.

Instead of speeding off on another scenario, though, Wade spends a whole week of down time just hanging out with the girls and their grandparents on their farm. Now, maybe Wade's player is just playing it smart...figures a war scenario is too dicey, so he's safer just hanging out here, earning some XP for including supporting cast members in the story, and hoping for more chances to rescue them for more XP. Or maybe his player just really enjoys role-playing.

But eventually, regardless of which it is, he tires of his character having no action here and decides to leave. Now the Editor gets that wandering encounter check he'd been waiting for!  He rolls up three enemy fighter planes.  Three-to-one odds are tough for low-level Heroes and are too much for Perry. Luckily, he survives, and revenge is a good motive to get players into more dangerous scenarios.

The third "episode" of the Adventures of Ka-Zar the Great provides a map showing us that Ka-Zar's adventures are firmly planted in the Belgian Congo. Again, Ka-Zar demonstrates an ability to speak with animals, which either must become a special ability of an explorer class, or just written off as part of the jungle/Tarzan genre.

This is a different adventure for Ka-Zar, as there is no "villainous" person or animal in it. Steve Hardy is a rival explorer, collecting animals for zoos. Ka-Zar is at cross-purposes and wants to free the animals, but without harming Steve. By waiting until nightfall, Ka-Zar only has to gain surprise against one guard and simply open all the cages. Of course, had the dice rolls gone against him, the guard would have woke the whole camp and Ka-Zar would have been quickly outnumbered. Sometimes, the result of just a few dice rolls can determine if a whole scenario is going to be easy or hard.

The wild animals released include a hog, a stork, a leopard, and an elephant. Boars, leopards, and elephants have all been statted for H&H, and storks...probably don't need to be. Curiously, Steve never just follows the tracks of the missing animals. Ka-Zar must have swept all evidence of tracks away?  When Steve goes hunting a rhino (also statted already), Ka-Zar attacks Steve's native porters and makes them all fail a morale save.

Ka-Zar is using a bow and arrow in this scene and manages a wounding shot, being careful not to kill the porter. I've not considered doing this before, but maybe H&H could allow Heroes to set a maximum damage they want to do. Or maybe that would just work with non-firearm damage. It bears more thought.

On his way home from that adventure (presumedly because the artist had another page to fill), Ka-Zar has a wandering encounter with a hostile leopard (apparently not the same one he'd saved earlier).

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)

Marvel Mystery Comics #2 - pt. 4

Namor kills one of the policemen who survived his vehicular weapon attack later by drowning him, racking up a kill total of five over two adventures so far.

The Masked Raider's story begins with intriguing narration -- it describes a hideout in a hidden valley protected by "rocky mountains" -- perhaps meaning the Rocky Mountains?  This could be the only clue we ever get for where the Masked Raider's adventures take place.

The entrance to the hidden valley is protected by a lone sentry, later referred to as a dead shot. I would stat him as an assassin, a mobster type left out of the 2nd ed. basic rules, but will be in the more comprehensive AH&H Mobster Manual.

Rifles are called "smoke poles" in this story, because cowboys always have strange names for things.

Dressing in the hidden valley includes a U.S. Marshal's skeleton, still wearing his white hat and badge. I have white hats and badges statted as Mythic West trophies (badges appeared in Supplement III: Better Quality) and will both appear in the AH&H Editor's Guide.

Late in the scenario, we learn that the Masked Raider is infiltrating the group of outlaws to find out where they have their loot stashed. This is almost the opposite of how most players would play this scenario, preferring to fight the outlaws first and then search the valley for the loot themselves. The secret storage vault is concealed down at the bottom of a dry well, where, admittedly, not every player would think to look. A ladder leads down inside the well, while a tunnel also leads into the vault from another direction.

The American Ace story is an alternate history where World War I was perpetrated, not by the Austrians, but by the French, following a young French queen named Ursula -- only France is here called Castile D'or. Like Napoleon, Ursula is in exile, only Ursula is rescued by her old allies and put back in power. The focus of her revenge is Attainia -- likely standing in for Britannia. Ursula has her own minister assassinated in Britannia as a pretext to declare war, similar to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in WWI. Attania has a king instead of a queen. But all this is simply backstory before Perry Wade, the American Ace, shows up.

In Attainia, Perry encounters a steady string of random encounters: trucks and artillery heading for the front (Attainia is not an island in this world), old, weeping peasant women, children begging in the streets, and an air raid as a random event.

This scenario does not shy away from violence, as the aforementioned beggar children are blown to bits by a bomb. Perry is temporarily knocked out by the bomb, but recovers quickly. And that's all we see of him in this installment!

I don't normally mention text stories, but this issue contains a one-page Angel story that treats (mistreats?) him as if he had Superman's powers.

In Ka-Zar's installment, a jungle explorer only needs low-tech trophy items, as Ka-Zar fights Bardak the Ape for an old mirror.  As they fight over the mirror, Bardak uses a grappling move to disarm Ka-Zar of his knife. Now, normally I would not let dumb animals make disarming moves, but in the jungle explorer genre, all animals seem to have human or near-human intelligence.

African elephants are shown to be able to uproot trees, which should be as difficult as wrecking cars for a superhero.

Ka-Zar avoids falling damage when shaken out of a tree by grabbing onto a branch. Only at the Editor's discretion should there be saves vs. plot to see if some projection can be grabbed onto and protect the Hero from falling.

Elephants are explained to suffer a madness that makes them go rogue. It also makes them a really dangerous encounter in a H&H scenario.

In Ka-Zar's rematch with Bardak, Bardak doesn't seem to have to make morale checks because all of his tribe is watching them fight, and fear of dishonor checks his fear of Ka-Zar.

Ka-Zar kills Bardak with a single thrust of his dagger -- which seems like Bardak must have awful low hit points. Because Ka-Zar falls on Bardak while stabbing him, perhaps it is the transfer of falling damage, coupled with the dagger wound, that delivers enough damage to knock out Bardak. Then it's Bardak's fall from the tree that actually kills him (because he's now at zero hp).

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)