Detective Comics #32 - pt. 1

Batman returns in part 2 of his adventure vs. The Monk. He's in Hungary, or the Latin Hungaria, as it's called here. Batman uses another sleeping gas pellet, thinking that he's using it on The Monk. It's unclear if Batman suspected The Monk was a werewolf yet, though the reader certainly had plenty of clues.

It was actually a woman named Dala that Batman gassed and, not being at all suspicious that Dala was in The Monk's carriage, he brings her to his hotel and lets her bunk with Julie Madison, who is safe now and under Batman's protection. But no one is safe from Dala; she bonks Batman on the head with a statuette and stuns him "momentarily." This would be 2nd ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums' new rule about head blows doing more damage in a surprise attack, Batman being brought down to zero hit points (he is still a low-level Mysteryman at this point), but making his save vs. plot to avoid a longer spell of being unconscious.

It turns out that Dala is a vampire, from which Batman (correctly) infers that The Monk is one too. Dala tells Batman where to find The Monk -- Gardner Fox plays fast-and-loose with geography here, saying that The Monk's castle is by the Dess River, which isn't an actual thing in Hungary.

Batman's autogyro is referred to as a "Batplane" in this story, making it the first Batplane.

The Monk uses a magic silver net that can stretch into the sky, snag the Batplane, and pull it to the ground. Now, the autogyro is just over the tree tops, so maybe the net can only stretch 100-120'. And it stretches pretty fast, because it was probably going at least 30 MPH. And it's plenty strong too; if it can pull a plane out of the air, then non-superhero Heroes will likely be pulled down without so much as a saving throw.

Vampires (or at least The Monk) are shown to be able to hypnotize others and control their charm victims over many miles, but the vampire's control is measured in a broad range of turns (he can control Julie for days, but Batman only for hours). He can also change into a wolf (which is why The Monk still calls himself a werewolf, even though the cat's out of the bag now that he's also a vampire -- vampiric werewolf?). In wolf form, a vampire can summon at least 1-4 wolves. Like vampires, vampiric werewolves have to sleep in coffins during the daytime. Like werewolves, they can be killed by silver weapons.

Batman's gas pellets can affect up to four targets in a 10' radius. He can toss his silk rope upwards about 15' alone, or more like 30' with a Batarang attached to it (though it took him about 12 hours to figure that out).

In Spy, Bart Regan is trapped in the back seat of a car that can fill with sleeping gas (likely stolen from the Raymond Chandler story "Nevada Gas"). Then his death trap is being placed in a giant bell jar that can have the air vacuumed out of it. The spy who trapped him is stupid and let's Bart out when he promises to talk. Bart, in turn, uses the same trap but keeps the spy inside until after he's talked.

Later, when Bart is being shot at, he ducks behind a desk. Somehow, he is able to sneak around the desk without being seen, come up behind the two spies shooting at him, and get surprise on them. Without being able to turn invisible, I don't see that as being possible in H&H.

I don't have much to say about this month's Buck Marshall story, except that Buck makes a disparaging comment about some outlaws, calling them "mail-order bad men."  Which is actually a better story idea than the counterfeiting scheme he really stumbles into.  But the real mystery in this installment of Buck Marshall is the curious use of the word "jigger" to refer to someone Buck knocks out. I am having trouble finding any cowboy-related use of the term. It could refer to a certain type of fisherman, but that's not relevant to the story. It was also once a variation on a certain offensive term for blacks, but the man in the story is colored white, so...

Larry Steele, Private Detective, rescues a damsel in distress on the road and takes her to an old man's house in the country. When Larry goes to call the police, the man says he'll be lucky to catch the operator awake. Back in the days before switchboard automation, this could have been a legitimate concern. Maybe Heroes who need to connect a call quickly should have to make a save vs. plot to succeed when away from the major cities.

Once again, the villain does something stupid to make it easier for the Hero -- this time, a killer implicates himself by accidentally driving to the scene of the murder when he was asked to, without being told where to go.

Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator, starts on a mystery with a great hook -- young women are being found dead on seashores, always with an ivory skull lying somewhere near the body.  And Speed gets a pretty cool villain to battle too -- Skull-Face, who even has a caveman right-hand man. Skull-Face is a mad scientist with a potion that makes women prettier, but it also compels them to immerse themselves in water. The more of the potion they buy from him, the more they are compelled until they eventually drown themselves.

(Batman story read in The Batman Archives v. 1, the rest read at readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #31

This month's Batman story starts with something remarkable. No, I don't mean that it's now "Batman" and not "Bat-Man" any longer. And I don't mean that Bruce Wayne now has a fiancee we've never met before. No, I mean we first see Batman at the top of a utility pole -- from which he hops down and lands safely. That's got to be a 20-25' jump? That's not something you can currently do, by the rules, in Hideouts & Hoodlums. Heck, I'm not sure I'd allow that as a stunt!

Batman still doesn't have a Batcave, but he does have a secret hangar located somewhere, containing a bat-themed autogyro. We also get the Batarang in this story. Luckily, I've already added boomerangs to the weapons list in 2nd edition.

We learn that Hungary is well known for its werewolves. I'll have to put that in the werewolf entry!

The Batgyro makes a transatlantic crossing, which is conceivably possible. The 1942 Sikorsky R-4 autogyro could go 9,000 miles, which is far more than the ocean voyage between New York and France.

When Batman encounters the Monk, Batman makes his save vs. spells to avoid being hypnotized, but is aware of what was being attempted on him.

The plot requires Batman to make some pretty bizarre decisions to get him all the way to France. He allows Julie to go to France in the first place, even though he's suspicious of the doctor who tells her to go. He leaves Julie alone on the cruise ship to France with the Monk. He follows the ship to the docks, but then somehow loses sight of Julie and has to search the city to find her again. There's a lot of room here for Batman's player to make a different decision and throw off the entire scenario. It would make more sense for most of this to be backstory and for the scenario to begin in Paris.

In Julie's room is a huge gorilla. No idea how Batman doesn't see it from the window, other than a good surprise roll by the Editor.

The Monk's deathtrap for Batman is a net that closes up around him, that the Monk can drop into a pit of snakes at his leisure.

In a separate trap, Batman encounters a "gigantic" gorilla, far larger than the huge gorilla we saw earlier. 15' tall? Easily escaping the gorilla with some leaping and climbing, Batman only has a single guard left to overcome before escaping.

Batman saves Julie from her abductors (more normal guys like the guard) with a sleeping gas pellet, like we've seen him use before.

Following the Batman feature, an educational filler page called "Crime Never Pays" talks about bloodhounds being able to follow a trail 135 miles. It would be nice to know if that was true.

Humor filler is drawn by Paul Gustavson -- of Centaur Comics fame -- in this issue.

Buck Marshall sneaks up on a cabin with some outlaws in it by deliberately missing some shots at game fowl to fool the outlaws into think he's no threat. I want to turn this idea around on my players some time -- have the bad guys pretend to be incompetent to fool the Heroes, then turn out to be really dangerous!

Bart Regan fights "cowardly thugs" in Spy. Now that could be an interesting combination of two stat types. Tough as a thug, but with a cowardly hoodlum's low morale?

The cowardly thugs have a bulletproof car. Trophy item!

Larry Steele solves a murder mystery with an unusual clue -- the murderer slips up and describes a man by the color of his clothes, then Larry learns that suspect is color blind.

Speed Saunders, now relegated to the middle of the magazine, has a murder with an unusual murder weapon -- a mammoth tusk! Speed mounts a methodical investigation at a circus, questioning the witnesses, searching their tents, and corroborating evidence off-site via telegram. I'm not sure about the stolen tusk though...would trying a stolen tusk to a real elephant's tusk really impale a man before it broke loose from its bonds? Path of least resistance seems like it would be the latter. And then, doing it to avoid blood on the elephant doesn't make much sense. If an elephant's real tusk is right next to the fake tusk doing the actual goring, I would still think it would get some blood on it. And how would the killer know the elephant would use that specific tusk and not the opposing tusk?

Speed gets whipped in the face with a real whip and has temporary scarring from it -- a rare complication for a Hero.

Bruce Nelson's scenario is a pretty interesting one too. The plot hooks he receives are all intentional bait to lure him away from home. The scenario is faked so a robber can get into Bruce's home while he's busy elsewhere and rob him of valuable evidence from another case. I could see myself using this in my current online H&H campaign, where there are major events going on in two locations -- but I would need to lay out clues in advance that there's something not kosher about one of the two sets of plot hooks.

Cosmo, Phantom of Disguise, is dealing with two trophy item/potions. One is a paralyzing drug. The other is "essence of intelligence" -- someone else's stolen intelligence, distilled into a potion you can drink, and then increases your own intelligence (+1-2 to INT for 1-4 weeks?).

Slam Bradley tries to rescue a photographer at the zoo who falls into a bear cage. Slam pushes the bear away, then grabs the photographer and runs. Shorty is menaced by a bear cub (1+1 HD?), judging from the size of it. Then they find a constrictor snake in their room and Slam has to shoot it. And lastly they have to fight a tiger in the zoo.

All of that is pretty cut and dry, as far as game mechanics go. But there's this weird scene where Slam is clubbed from behind, and he's not knocked out or even stunned senseless, but he's groggy enough that he can attack, seemingly at a penalty.

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1, the rest read at readcomics.net)

Detective Comics #30

The Batman comes back again this issue, and so does Dr. Death, for a rematch. The Batman still doesn't have a Batmobile per se, but drives a "high-powered auto". He is shown easily going over a "high" fence, but at 8', I think anyone more athletic than me could get over that and I wouldn't even ask a player to use up a stunt for that.

Batman uses a silk line for climbing, but without a grappling hook; he lassos a projection from the wall before scaling it. Using a rope to climb would be a situational modifier to a skill check (probably a +1).

The Batman carries a flashlight. He also has potions of sleep that, when their vials are shattered, release sleep gas in at least a 5' diameter. It doesn't last very long, though, as the Mikhail the Cossack wakes up after what seems like only 1 exploration turn.

He hears a "muffled footfall" and keeps from being surprised. I'll have to check to see if I gave mysterymen both a better chance to surprise and a lower chance to be surprised. He also hides in shadows as if using a skill (though thinking to use heavy drapes for cover should probably be a big situational modifier -- maybe +2?).

A flying tackle is really just a trip attack combined with movement, and isn't treated different mechanically (though Batman gets a +4 bonus for attacking with surprise from behind!).  The Batman then trades damage inflicted for distance to push Dr. Death's cossack out the window.

The Batman's kick to the neck that kills Mikhail isn't supported by the H&H game mechanics.

In Spy, Bart Regan jumps out of a car on a bridge and dives into the water. It looks like a suicidal plunge, but Bart lands safely, because it's water and this is a comic book. But bad guys wouldn't know about game mechanics, so they natural assume he died and drive off. Editors, always remember to be impartial when playing the bad guys and not to use knowledge they wouldn't have.

The mad scientist in this issue has built a mind control device he can use on politicians and secret service members. The device is small -- a box that can sit on a tabletop, with a delicate light bulb-like attachment on top -- but it must have a range of miles.

In a rare example of a Hero having a specific injury, Larry Steele is shot and needs his arm in a sling for the rest of his story.

There's a strange escalation of weaponry in Speed Saunder's mystery. The first murder is done with a 13th century antique crossbow, the second is done with an automatic, but then the killer produces a sub-machine gun when she attacks Speed.

Bruce Nelson's adventure starts with a subtler start than normal; a yellow peril hoodlum simply puts a gun in his back and warns him to scram (or "sclam") and there's no fight. Bruce knows this guy is probably in league with some criminals in the area (combining two cliches, this adventure takes place in both Chinatown and a waterfront). But Bruce isn't interested in going after small fish, so he leaves and pursues the lead he was already on. This is so refreshingly different from the play style I usually see in H&H.

It's also worth pointing out that only the Chinese bad guy talks in broken English; the Chinese good guys in the story (and there are two, not just a token one!) talk perfectly normal. Also, kudos to the author (Tom Hickey?) for being the first comic book writer ever to point out that tear gas isn't "very potent in the open air". I've already read so many stories where gas weapons work equally effective no matter where they're used.

The smugglers use speed boats to reach the waterfront from a freighter in this story.

Cosmo's adventure is the opposite of Speed's, in a way, as the threat level deescalates.  A man who looks like Cosmo is shot and killed by the bad guys, who early in the investigation are ready to murder him. But later on, when Cosmo actually knows who the main villain is, Cosmo is simply knocked out and left behind, an easy chance to kill him, or at least put him in a deathtrap, completely missed. It's a sign of an Editor going too easy on his player(s).

(Batman story read in Batman Archives vol. 1; most of the rest of this issue read at www.readcomics.net.)

Detective Comics #23

Speed Saunders investigates a murder committed with a sharpened ski-stick that can be thrown like a javelin. Speed reveals that it has a range of 50', so a javelin would too.

Larry Steele, Private Detective, is hit with a blackjack and knocked out for 20 minutes, after which he wakes up.

The Crimson Avenger runs afoul of zombies in this issue; zombies made by science instead of magic. The science zombies are called "mechanical men" and "zombis", and are driven around by two hoodlums who work for a mad scientist. The scientist has a "giant" king cobra that the zombis are worship (though why they would worship the snake if they were mindless eludes me), but it's not really that giant -- large, maybe. It's also worth noting that they can be fooled by disguises, as The Crimson disguises himself as a zombie and successfully moves among them (definitely calls for a save vs. plot, that trick).

The Crimson also hides in shadows and the zombis are unable to spot him.

Bruce Nelson goes back to his alma mater of Princely University, clearly a stand-in for Princeton. He stops a murder from happening with a blowgun.

Speaking of stand-ins, Jerry Siegel likes to kill off stand-ins for famous people. In Spy, a senator is murdered (no indication as to which, but there's only 100 of them), and then a famous aviator who sure seems to be Charles Lindbergh is killed. The murderer is a mad scientist who has his hunchbacked assistant swap out buttons on the victims' clothes with buttons containing a radio receiver. The receiver buttons trigger heart attacks in the victims, apparently over long distances. the whole set-up is a pretty dangerous trophy item to put into the Heroes' hands.

The assistant, Rutsky, is quite capable. He climbs a tree with cat-like grace, sneaks up on a trained spy like Bart Regan, and almost throttles Bart to death with his bare hands. Maybe assistant should be a mobster type!

To find out where Dr. LaForge is, Bart just has to call the local newspaper office and talk to someone in the research department. The paper has on file what country Dr. LaForge is visiting from and where he's staying. Newspapers sure used to have generous budgets for research departments!

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, has to shoot the head off a cobra to save someone. I'm as yet unsure if I need to distinguish between varieties of poisonous snakes, stat-wise, in 2nd edition, other than perhaps the large/huge/giant distinctions.

Slam Bradley and Shorty explore the distant future of 2 billion AD with the help of a scientist with a time machine (specifically a "time-flier" -- it looks like a plane, but it moves through time instead of space).  The time machine seems to work an awful lot like Wells' The Time Machine, down to history playing out at super-fast speed through a view screen.  Something else to point out is that time machines must be remarkably easy to make; in comic books, a single professor working alone is often responsible for creating them.

It's perhaps easier to send your time-traveling Heroes to the ridiculously distant future so it doesn't have to even resemble the present world anymore. But there's a danger of too powerful hi-tech trophies winding up in the Heroes' hands in any future scenario, as well as the temptation to find out knowledge of the future the Heroes can exploit to their advantage.

The future is sure different in some ways, with a metal sun in the sky shedding green light, and a mysterious body orbiting the artificial sun. Cities surrounded by a screen of death rays. There's still jungles in the future, and wild leopards in them, but if the time-flier hasn't moved through space, then the jungle is at the same latitude as New York City. Anticipating global warming...?

Shades of Gamma World, the future is ruled by humans, living with uplifted/mutant bird-men and uplifted/mutant plant-men!  They live on a monarchical society once again, answering to a prince. The weapons of the future consist of odder fare than Laser guns. They use pipes that can paralyze others with sound, or living missiles -- plants that can dodge in mid-air and spray poison gas.

(Issue read at Read Comics)

Detective Comics #22

The Crimson Avenger makes a very rare cover appearance here.

So far, in my experience running Hideouts & Hoodlums, not too many players put any effort into concealing their other identities. And while it's true that maintaining a secret identity can be a liability during an adventure, it at least seems like it could be a fun thing to roleplay about during downtime.

Since Slam Bradley's adventure is "The Return of Fui Onyui", this might be a good time to talk about racism in Golden Age comic books again. I like to think that I'm pretty good at understanding historical racism in context and not be offended by it -- but even I can't stand the insult names many Chinese characters got. Maybe if you think of them as codenames, intentionally chosen by Chinese agents out of a sense of irony, it could be palatable.

The other way to combat the racist elements, while not leaving them entirely out of your game, is to make sure there is equal representation of good guys to bad from each minority group. This Slam Bradley story does that, teaming Slam up with good guy Yat Sin to battle Fui Onyui.

One more point to consider here is that Fui Onyui is a returning villain -- the first ever in a non-serialized comic book adventure. When Jerry Siegel referenced a story from 21 issues earlier, it was a huge leap of faith that his readership extended back that far -- but in doing so he invented comic book continuity.

I have almost never used returning villains, so far, in H&H (and my one exception only occurred in a sub-plot). For one thing, H&H players I've gamed with tend to be brutal dispensers of justice and leave little room for returning villains. But further than that... while familiar characters are fun to see in comic books, I fear there is a lessening of dramatic impact every time you see a villain return, when the Heroes already know they can beat him because they have before. I'll be testing this theory in my Justice Society campaign later, when they start running into recurring villains, like Brain Wave...

Slam buys a three-cent newspaper and drives a red convertible 100 MPH to try to find out if Shorty is okay. He has a make-up kit in his apartment, which is in an eight-story building.

Slam busts a locked door in with just his shoulder. Do fighters need a chance to wreck things, limited to doors only?

Slam is attacked by assassins, which may become a mobster type. Assassins seem to prefer attacking from the rear and have a chance to sneak up on people stealthily from behind.

Fui Onyui uses a chemical that induces suspended animation ("the living death") in Shorty.

Incidentally, the dentist office behind Slam at the beginning of this story is a Dr. Siegel.

Larry Steele is on one of those adventures where he has to seek shelter in a spooky old house from a storm -- but with the further incentive that the road ahead of him is washed out, so he can't reach his destination. The house has no electricity and the owner sees by candlelight. There are bats living upstairs and this one dark staircase ends at a pit trap. There is a laboratory with two entrances and volatile chemicals inside that can blow up the whole room (but not the whole house). A mad scientist and three madmen (new mobster type?) lurk in the house, though after an hour the madmen turn on the scientist and kill him. In the cellar is a locked cell with the scientist's pretty niece locked in it.

In The Crimson Avenger, Lee Travis deals with the issue of protecting secret identities and hits on what seems like a pretty good idea: offer a $5,000 reward for information on your own secret identity so that, if anyone is getting close to learning who you are, they might come forward. Of course, you're also incentivizing people to try to figure it out, so there's trade-offs there. When everyone thinks the D.A. has information on The Crimson, the mob shows up to lay claim to it.

Bruce Nelson solves a murder mystery where the murder weapon is poisoned throat spray. Instead of a random onset time, this poison always takes effect during the same time during a play.

(Read at ReadComics.net)

Detective Comics #20

Speed Saunders is a prisoner of the Chinese Tong, has no weapons, and no resources other than the suit he's wearing and his wits, and he still escapes from his cell. How? By trying everything. The Editor should always have an "out" planned; in this case, it was a loose grill in the window.

Mandarin Hapsu has a rather devilish trap for Speed too. It requires Speed having a prisoner with him who takes him back to the scene of the crime to show him how the murder happened. The prisoner points out a hole in the wall and asks Speed to look through it. Behind the hole is a gun, set to go off when a concealed button is pressed on the wall nearby. If the Hero is foolish enough to look, I would have the gun shot as if by a 3 HD opponent, but ignoring any DEX bonuses to Armor Class.

In Larry Steele, Private Detective, Delores kills a man by hitting him over the back of the head with a wooden club, with one hit. This is impossible under normal Hideouts & Hoodlums rules, though Book III: Underworld & Metropolis Adventures does talk about campaign moods, and the ability to run a very dark campaign where everyone dies when they reach zero hit points.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, takes advantage of the terrain around him. Rather than approach a cabin where a killer might lurk on foot, he climbs a tree and uses the branches to clear the distance from above. Smart players ask lots of questions about the terrain, and figure out ways to exploit it.

Buck encounters a similar version of the same trap used on Speed -- a shotgun rigged to go off when a door is opened. I have yet to see a Hero actually reset a trap, but Buck here makes it look like he's reset the trap, in order to catch the killer (the man unwilling to go back through the door).

In Spy, Bart and Sally are given an unusual challenge -- they have to protect a senator without letting him know he's being protected, since he refused security. When Bart and Sally find two gunmen waiting to ambush the senator, even Sally gets engaged in the ensuing fistfight (first female in physical combat in a comic book?).

When Bart is going 60 MPH in a car chase, that's about as fast as his car can go.

Drunk drivers need to be on every urban wandering encounter list. Jerry Siegel in particular seemed to consider this a huge problem.

In Doctor Fu Manchu, Wayland Smith is said to have a "pocket-lamp." I don't know if I've ever seen such a thing before, since flashlights are so much easier to hold. A pocket-lamp is similar, but boxier.

Fu Manchu's weapon, the Zayat Kiss, is revealed to be a giant centipede! First one in comics!

This issue marks the debut of The Crimson Avenger, though its main character is only called The Crimson in this first installment. One of the earliest Mysterymen in comics, the Crimson Avenger can climb walls (a skill the Mysteryman was given in Supplement I: National), and wields a gas gun (a trophy item from Book II: Mobsters & Trophies).

Definitely a Chaotic Hero, when the Crimson can't prove a lawyer's guilt, the Crimson tries to murder the District Attorney and then frames the lawyer for the attempted murder!

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, has to take a running leap off the end of a pier to try and reach the speedboat being stolen. Because the boat is pretty far away, his Editor tells him he has a 1 in 6 chance to make the jump. He rolls a 2. Because he was close, the Editor decides to go easy on him and gives him an additional chance to reach out and grab the rail by making an attack roll.

The Slam Bradley story in this issue is crazy. Out of the blue, Slam is somehow an extremely powerful Magic-User, just from having practiced since last month. And he throws spells around like they were nothing. He casts some sort of Teleportation spell on Shorty, then a Telekinesis-like spell to pack his bags. At a meeting of Magic-Users, he casts two Phantasmal Force spells in a row. He uses Detect Thoughts to find out what the hoodlum at his door wants. He casts some kind of grappling spell that holds a man and moves him -- maybe that's just another Telekinesis spell.  Then he uses a spell that somehow allows himself to be at two places at the same time -- Project Image? He casts Invisibility, Charm Person, more Phantasmal Forces, some sort of Push spell (Telekinesis again?) -- and possibly all in the same day!

The only explanation I can think of is that Doctor Occult is pretending to be Slam for some reason.

Slam's rival, Professor Mysto, casts Dispel Magic, but can only cast it once. To then dispel Invisibility, he has to resort to making a brew from a container of spirit-powders. Potion of Dispel Magic? Slam interrupts the preparation of the potion, so we never get to see how it works.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #19 - part 1

This issue starts with another Speed Saunders investigation, and this investigation starts off well with Speed getting a good lead to follow. Speed finds the guy who's been passing around the counterfeit money, but when he needs to find the guy printing the money Speed does what many a player of mine in the past would have done -- just wander around aimlessly and wait for me to throw them bigger clues. Here, Speed just happens to walk past a random building where he hears a printing press inside.

Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard is after a missing invisibility formula -- my first thought was that this would be a potion, but the formula seems to be instructions for working an invisibility machine that works for just 30 minutes. This deviates from the Invisibility spell, but that's okay for mad science devices.

Kent notices that a car is trailing him (keen senses/notice things check?).  He is rescued by a mysterious woman who seems suspiciously eager to help Kent.  Supporting cast members are meant to be actively recruited by the player, but Kent just shrugs and says stuff like "Sure, why not?" when she wants to go everywhere with him. This type of freebie character should not be considered supporting cast for purposes of awarding xp (which Heroes get when their players actively involve their SCMs in the scenario).

Larry Steele's new adventure starts at on an uncharted island "2000 miles due East off the coast of Brazil", which is odd because by the time you're 2,000 miles East of Brazil you're practically to Africa.

Another peculiarity -- Larry sprains his ankle in a plane crash! I'm not being facetious; specific injuries, or complications after being unconscious, are fairly rare in comic book stories. I really wanted a table of complications linked to being reduced to zero hit points in 2nd ed. Hideouts & Hoodlums, but now I'm not so sure.

There's also a really creepy backstory here about the mobsters on the island who kill a 14-year old girl's parents and keep per prisoner for the next 4 years, hoping Stockholm syndrome kicks in so she'll marry the boss mobster. More proof that you can go really dark and still be Golden Age-like.

Bart Regan and Sally of Spy are about to have the first wedding in comic book history when the service is interrupted by a new mission, and this one is...pretty silly. The all-important mission is that a woman is in town who is suspected of being a spy and Bart and Sally are the only ones who can prove she is. But...where is the time crunch here? Is the Chief secretly jealous and doesn't want Bart to have Sally?

Anyway, the lady spy has a mirrored compact she uses to powder her nose that can project invisible beams of wrecking things force, capable of smashing a brick wall (or equal to a Superhero able to wreck up to cars). This is the kind of compact super-science I expect to see Iron Man carrying in 2016 and seems oddly out of place in a Golden Age story. Of course, the item does have a drawback -- if you accidentally aim it towards your face, your face explodes (so, at least 3-18 damage as a weapon).

The Bruce Nelson story starts with a combat turn that does not go the way I normally handle combat. If one side has the drop on the other -- like the bad guy with a gun at Bruce's back -- or some other distinct advantage, I may ignore rolling for initiative. Here, Bruce somehow wins initiative despite his opponent having every advantage.

Bruce would have been killed if that coconut had not fallen on his attacker's head and knocked him out. Now, the skeptical reader might interpret this as an overly lenient Editor, but perhaps not. Perhaps the Editor had merely planned the environment in advance, considered there might be, oh, a 1 in 10 chance of a coconut falling and hitting someone on the head for, oh, 1-3 points of damage if anyone stood underneath those trees -- a sort of natural trap. Bruce's player was lucky enough that his opponent wound up under the trees first.

Once Bruce is in his plane again, we see the stunts Evasive Maneuvers, Increase Speed, and Wing Walking, and possibly a new stunt. Bruce draws attacks to himself to keep his friend descending by parachute from being attacked. Maybe it would be called Draw Fire?

We also see another complication from an injury, as Bruce loses the use of his arm that he was shot in.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #18 - part 1

As always (so far), this issue begins with Speed Saunders, this time investigating a murder -- and that's all we know. We don't know how Speed knows the dead man's son helping with the investigation, and we're given very little to go on why Speed suspects it's murder and not suicide.

If you only have time for a short scenario of Hideouts & Hoodlums, it might be best to jump into a story, in media res, like this -- cutting out the plot hooks and setting up the scene and just lay out what the challenge is in the scenario right at the start. And place any supporting cast your players will need nearby.

As evidence of how combat needs to stay abstract in a comic book RPG, Speed is shot at point blank range, but recovers when a doctor performs first aid on him, and doesn't even have blood on his clothes.

Later, "Speed learns the truth from the glint of fear in the fence's eyes."  There's not a game mechanic tied directly to lie detection or eye reading, but if the Editor really wants to give the Hero a chance to pick up on a clue, then a "notice things" roll should be allowed, just as if the Hero were searching for secret doors.

Later still, Speed wants to go back to the murder scene "to make a more thorough search."  What his player means is he wants more "notice things" rolls because he doesn't think he has enough clues yet.

This installment of Cosmo, The Phantom of Disguise, is suggestive that Cosmo might be based out of Chicago, since he leaves from Chicago to start a vacation.  Cosmo's vacation takes place in the Mythic West, where everyone gets around on horseback, the only way to not draw suspicion to yourself is to dress like a cowpoke, and the town is remote enough that its only tavern is the only place to eat in 20 miles.

It is unclear how Cosmo solves his mystery. It seems he overhears the Mexican in the tavern say something incriminating, but all we're told is that Cosmo overhears the Mexican "babble" to himself. The implication seems to be that the Mexican's "babble" is him talking in Spanish, and indeed the only reason Cosmo seems to find the Mexican suspicious-looking is because he's a Mexican (or, to be fair, the only Mexican in the tavern). Further racism is found in the sheriff's "Negress" servant.

In the Larry Steele installment, Larry and his pal are in a deathtrap -- a dark pit that is being filled with a lethal gas. The way out is to search the floor and find the floor boards are loose enough to be pried up. Below the pit trap is an underground stream with a strong current, leading to a waterfall outside, near the house they were in. Although waterfalls are never lethal in comic books, there are still overhanging branches to grab in case the Heroes don't want to chance it.

Larry's big fight scene breaks down like this:  Larry gets a surprise turn and, because everyone is unarmed, he gets two attacks. He uses them both to swing from the chandelier and kick the two hoodlums, doing enough damage to one of them to knock him unconscious. In the first turn of regular combat, the boss bad guy wins initiative, but the Editor rolls so poorly on his attack roll that he says the boss is still drawing his gun. Larry makes a disarming attack on the boss and wins possession of the gun. Because a weapon is now in play, we switch to one melee attack per turn. On turn 2, Larry wins initiative and clocks the bad guy, doing enough damage to only lightly injure him. The hoodlum who wasn't knocked out, though, fires into the melee. Because firing into a melee is dangerous, there is a chance to hit either combatant, and the Editor rolls that the bullet hits the boss instead of Larry. The remaining hoodlum gets shot on turn 3 by Larry. It's not clear if the second hoodlum and the boss are unconscious yet, or if they've failed morale saves and stopped fighting.

Bosses should maybe be a new mobster type, between hoodlums and master criminals.

If the Fu Manchu adaptation here was a H&H scenario, the Editor would be in for a tricky situation. There is a scene where one of the Heroes is approached by a mystery lady (a female practitioner of the Mysteryman class, no doubt). She gives him an important clue, and then needs to disappear (or she won't be mysterious). Now, the Editor could just make her high enough in level to give her a great roll at becoming effectively invisible through stealth, but that may later beg the question why she doesn't just tackle Fu Manchu herself if she's so high in level. Or, the Editor could fudge the die roll so she gets away, but fudging dice rolls just to railroad through a plot doesn't feel fair to most players.

Now, the trick used in the story to keep our Hero from following her is to have Wayland Smith show up with even more vital information our Hero needs. The problem with this is, Wayland is probably also a Hero in play in this scenario, so the two players will likely be confident they can share information at any other time. For a RPG scenario, Wayland would have to be swapped out for a character not under a player's control.

In Spy, Bart Regan is assigned to recover the Kahoon Ruby, not to keep, but to give back to the Maharaja who owned it. Still, because the ruby would clearly have a monetary value, it is easy to assign an XP award for finishing this scenario. Had the mission been to recover the Maharaja's missing child, the award would not be so clearly quantifiable.  A further wrinkle is that the Maharaja will sign a peace treaty with whatever country recovers the ruby, so there will be lots of rival factions vying to compete this scenario first.

This is also the issue that Bart proposes to his partner Sally. If these were both played Heroes, this is role-playing above and beyond the call of duty.

(You can read this issue at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #17 - part 1

What am I thankful for, on the day after Thanksgiving? More comic book reading!

Speed Saunders has always been a peculiar duck, both in terms of how irrelevant his river patrol job is to his adventures (but, really, how often does a hero's civilian profession come up in a scenario?) and how fluid his adventures have been so far in terms of genre. This month, we find out that Speed's abilities are also pretty fluid in terms of skills. Here, Speed steps off a low roof onto the top of a parked car and lays down on it -- and no one inside the car hears him doing this! This is a level of stealth more appropriate to the Mysteryman class than the Fighter class. Or...the Editor has simply fudged how the surprise rules work. Even if Speed has complete surprise, his free turn of action should only be 1 combat turn long before being discovered.

Now, the hideout Speed finds in this issue is rather interesting. The kidnapper is in a remote cabin, located on a mountain terrace inside a giant gorge. The only way to get down to the cabin is by climbing down, which seems to come with a high risk of falling. The kidnapper does have a rope tied to a tree overlooking the gorge that is used to lower supplies down to the cabin, and Speed uses that to descend safer (though a nastier game Editor would have made this a trap -- rigging the tree branch or the rope to snap).

Speed is saved from a deathtrap by the "fact" that snakes won't cross a rope made from hair. Now, call me overly suspicious, but if one of my players tried this, I would think he was trying to hoodwink me. It does seem like the sort of phony science you see in comic books, though, so if one of my players did come up with this "fact", I might feel charitable enough to give him a save vs. plot to determine if this turns out to be true -- particularly if every other attempt to thwart the deathtrap has failed.

Larry Steele isn't a very good detective sometimes. He's exploring an old castle in Maine this month and notes how dusty the floors are, but completely fails to notice any footprints from the three kidnappers in the castle in the dust. Now, this could be the result of bad dice rolls; Larry's Editor has been asking for keen senses/notice things checks periodically, but Larry's player just keeps rolling too high. Note that the players can ask for checks as often as they want to, but it is the Editor who decides how often they are eligible for new checks.

Larry later makes up for it by rappelling down the sheer side of a rain-soaked castle wall, which you would think would come with some serious penalizing modifiers. Since it's not clear yet in the Hideouts & Hoodlums rules what the chance for a Fighter to climb should be, I can't comment yet on what those modifiers should look like.

One of the kidnappers is a drunken hoodlum!

Sometimes you might want to tone things down from the comic books, for the sake of game balance. This month's installment of Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise introduces an explosive gun, handheld, with a 125 mile range, that wrecks as if an 8th level Superhero. If this weapon isn't destroyed forever by the end of the scenario, I know it's bound to wind up in the hands of the Heroes and there goes any challenge ever for the rest of my campaign.

The Russian embassy serves as a sort-of hideout-in-plain-sight in this story. It would be interesting to run a scenario where the Heroes can't get in without wearing tuxedos, surrounded by foreign dignitaries and spies. On the other hand, the possibility for mass deaths that lead to war...maybe there are safer places to put your Heroes...

Cosmo also demonstrates lip reading in this scenario, a skill not covered by the H&H rules.  It should, I would think, be more difficult than hearing noises, and possibly relegated to a stunt.

This issue begins a serialized adaptation of Dr. Fu Manchu.  Fu Manchu's henchmen make use of poisoned arrows. There isn't much discussion of poisoned weapons in H&H, but it's definitely a practice best left in the hands of villains. I would either outright forbid Heroes to use poisoned weapons, or force a save vs. plot with a -1 or -2 penalty each time to use poison.

Well before Superman tackled the KKK on the radio, Bart Regan, Spy, tackles the "hooded horde".  Jerry Siegel directly labels them a "terrorist organization", which, sadly, remains quite prescient about today's politics.  However, the KKK isn't up to lynching blacks here, but inciting general unrest and wrecking businesses.

Bart Regan demonstrates ventriloquism in this story, even throwing his voice about 10' away!  I've talked about ventriloquism before and feel the same now; that, for Golden Age stories at least, ventriloquism needs to be a basic skill.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #16

We're just six months away from the debut of the Bat-Man at this point, so instead of him -- let's talk about Larry Steele, Private Detective!

This installment of Larry's adventures features a pretty exciting gunfight in a burning warehouse. Caught on a four-story roof ledge with fire behind him, Larry jumps and catches a fire escape on another section of the building to save himself. This is a big warehouse -- four stories tall, with what appears to be an alley running up the middle of it, nearly dividing the warehouse in two (and hence providing the gap that Larry has to jump over). Heroes could spend a whole game session just exploring this warehouse!

It does bring up the question, though -- how far can a Hero leap (without being an alien, or buffed by powers)? The world record for a running broad jump (and we'll assume in this case that the fire was not so close behind Larry that he couldn't back up and get a running start) is over 29 feet -- but I'm not suggesting that every Hero should be able to jump that distance. Indeed, I would say that any Hero trying to clear over 15 feet should have to save vs. science to clear the rest -- up to 29 feet maximum.

There's even an idea here for a nifty trap, when the floor gives way under the bad guy called "Snow", and then the ceiling collapses on top of him and pins him to the floor. Now, in an ordinary building, with 8-foot high ceilings, falling damage between floors would be negligible, because it's less than 10 feet. In a high-ceilinged warehouse, though, falls might be 1d6 or even 2d6 damage (per 10' fallen, of course), with the weight falling on top of them doing an extra 1d6 of damage, and necessitating a save vs. science to avoid being pinned and immobile.

Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise, investigates a case of jewel theft from a museum perpetrated by (spoilers!) fake undead. Night watchmen are being temporarily driven mad or dying from fright when they see a mummy costume, painted in phosphorous, hanging from a pole so it appears to be floating. I'm interested, now, in introducing a new mobster type called undead imposter, who can Scare Good Guys (like the power, reversed) -- but Editors have to be careful with using this. If fake undead can do this, then what would happen in your game if people saw real undead?

Bruce Nelson encounters the world's worst secret door -- it's opened by turning the light switch in the room.

Bart Regan, Spy, demonstrates how easy it is to unlock a door with a hairpin. Very likely, picking locks will become a basic skill for all Heroes -- with the prerequisite of asking a woman for a hairpin.

Buck Marshall overhears the slang term ranny, which I've found out means "cowboy" or "ranch hand".

This month's Slam Bradley confirms that Slam is from Cleveland, same as Superman. Slam not only takes tap dancing lessons for $3 a lesson, but learns to tap dance in only five hours.  Hideouts & Hoodlums has no skill system, nor any game mechanic you could tie directly to tap dancing. You could use a save vs. plot to decide if the Hero tap dances well enough, offering a +1 bonus for every four hours (length of a downtime turn) spent practicing beforehand.

Despite taking place in New York, Chief Gage from Cleveland, Slam's nonviolent foil, returns. This police chief turns up just to laugh at Slam and Shorty and impede their investigation. These characters should not be treated as Supporting Cast, since they have no loyalty to the Hero. Likewise is a new rival character, PI Joan Carter. A rival is looking to complete the same scenario faster (though by the end of the story it appears that Slam has recruited Joan into his SCM roster).

(Available to read online via Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #13

Crashing never seems to be very dangerous in comic books. Here, fighting Speed Saunders, we see two men plow through a windshield after a crash, and one of them is still up and fighting afterwards. I would probably only roll 1d6 damage for each occupant in a car crash, regardless of how fast the car was going (under most circumstances; perhaps doubled if it was two cars crashing into each other).

Bars are handy places to listen for rumors, or be spotted by hostile wandering encounters.

Speed will reveal on the next page that he's fine because he was wearing a bulletproof vest. Armor keeps you from being "hit" in Hideouts & Hoodlums (as opposed to damage reduction), but that doesn't mean that people might not think you were hit if you time it right and fall forward, like Speed does here.

Remember not to play your cowardly hoodlums too smart. Speed Saunders had nothing on this judge, not even a suspicion he was involved, until this hoodlum blurted it out. Had the hoodlum played it smart, he would have kept his trap shut, got a message to the judge, and asked if the judge could arrange to preside over his case and let him off, in exchange for his silence. In fact, bad guys in comic books are usually pretty dumb!

Stan Asch will go on to do a lot of superhero art in the "future", of which I've never particularly been a fan, but here we see that his true strength was always in gag filler.

Not long after my last observation about car crashes, here we find Larry Steele also walking away from a car crash without a scratch!  It seems that Heroes should get a save vs. missiles to avoid car crash damage, just like dodging bullets.

Book III: Underworld & Metropolis Adventures includes (ends with, really) a short section on vehicular combat rules that makes it very difficult to hit someone else in a speeding vehicle. One could, perhaps, make an argument that it should not be as hard to hit the speeding car itself, or its tires, as common as that type of hit is in car chases.




I'm just going to summarize the Slam Bradley adventure. Slam is having a slow day, so he decides to visit a seedy waterfront saloon dressed to the nines, just to provoke a fight (or maybe he needed just a little more XP to level up!).  The improvised weapons in the fight are a chair and a bottle. Slam and Shorty find a plot hook on a sheet of paper in a wallet that they take after the fight. Winding up on board a ship, Slam is repeatedly clubbed unconscious and winds up in the brig, only to escape and do something else that winds him back up in the brig. This is the kind of stubborn determination that low-level H&H Heroes need -- low hit points means being beat up and imprisoned by bad guys often!

Uh-oh. Slam also demonstrates the ability to pick pockets. Another stunt that has to be available to Fighters!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)

Detective Comics #10

Oops!  I had started to review this issue one day, got distracted from the project, and picked up on the next comic book in order. Now I'll have to go back and look again at #10 before doing #11...

How's this for starting with a bang?  Larry Steele is in a shootout, with some interesting things going on here. First, Larry manages to shoot a gun out of someone's hand, which is not supported by the game mechanics for "ordinary" Fighters. So what's going on there? The Editor might be:

A. Using stunts (Disarming Shot), but allowing Fighters to use them.
B. realizing that the gangster is at zero hp, but is using flavor text to shake things up; instead of saying the gangster drops, or something like that, the gangster has been removed from the fight by the loss of his gun (and, perhaps, will drop on the following turn).
C. remembering that The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 5 included optional rules for disarming during unarmed melee combat; the Editor is simply allowing those rules to stand in missile combat as well.
D. implementing a house rule of his own -- perhaps on a natural 20, the player can choose a special result from a hit in combat.

There are some other game mechanics possibly at play here. The obvious one is "misses his mark in the darkness", which could well be because of the hide in shadows ability for humans (the "-2 to be hit in dim light" rule), though it could also be just a situational modifier (since I am 95% sure I'm ditching the hide in shadows bonus in 2nd edition, for reasons shared elsewhere on this blog).

The other possible mechanic here is "driving Larry back," and this could be another example of covering fire, a new rule I just brought up yesterday. Only, then I was talking about covering fire making it too dangerous to move through an area, and this page suggests it would actually drive you back out of an area, which may be too powerful.

Also worth mentioning are the words associated with the bad guys. I've always treated "gangsters" as hoodlums, not knowing how I would stat gangsters differently. Any thoughts out there? "Thug", though, is an extra-tough hoodlum that was statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Now, this page of Larry Steele brings up a good point about cars. Cars of the 1930s were things of beauty, and some of my favorite cars of all time, but one thing they were not was aerodynamic. That's why, when the mobsters' car is described as "streamlined", you know it's going to win this chase scene. So, "streamlined car" should be its own type of trophy item, which will always win in a race or chase (all other things being equal) against a regular 1930s/1940s-style car.

Cosmo is in India this issue, acting more like an explorer than a mystery man with a penchant for disguise. This is why Heroes need to travel -- because they aren't likely to find temples carved out of the tops of mountains in their home towns. The temple is a great idea for a hideout, but disappoints here, as the interior seems to be only two rooms big.

Note the wild dogs; I would use either the stats for watchdogs or wolves (both in Book II).

There's that disarming shot again! It's so cliche, maybe everyone should be able to do it?

This was probably Cosmo's most exciting adventure ever, so it's too bad it was wrapped up in just six rushed pages. It's hard to say what happens at the end that lets the villains all conveniently escape. Was that a flare bomb of some kind that blinded everyone long enough for the bad guys to pick up the mummy and flee to a secret door with it? Or maybe some sort of Dimension Door Grenade?

Bruce Nelson serials tend to be really talky, but here's an action page where Bruce grabs a knife thrown at him and throws it back. This should be possible in H&H, probably as a new stunt called Catch Missile Weapons, if Fighters are allowed to use stunts.

Bruce Nelson gives us evidence of two shots per turn, as allowed with automatic weapons in the core rules (and slower missile weapons at higher levels).

This month's installment of Spy shows us that anarchists are good at picking locks, and should get a really good bonus to morale saves, if they have to roll at all.

Buck Marshall, Range Detective, has some good advice on searching for secret things. Rolling a d6 and hoping for luck is one thing, but looking for specific things, like checking to see if the embers in a fire are still warm, will tell you information that requires no roll.

Now, Buck's advice about bolting the door behind you, so you're not disturbed while you're searching, may or may not appeal to players. Some players welcome the chance of wandering encounters while exploring as a ready source for more XP.

Slam Bradley, this month, teaches us that hi-tech weapons don't need to be found just with mad scientists. Here, a crooked boxing manager has an electric raygun, perfect for making murders look like accidental deaths (though taken from a murdered mad scientist, behind the scenes).

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)