Popular Comics #27

We've finally reached April of 1938 and this issue from Dell leads off with Dick Tracy and a trapped safe. The Purple Cross Gang kept a safe so obvious it even said "Purple Cross records" on the front of it. Of course, the safe was rigged to explode with a dozen sticks of dynamite -- that's at least 24d6 damage -- with the only safe way to open it being to cut the power to the room it was in (since the trap was electrically wired).

Spooky how the Asp just seems to spring up out of that bush, eh? (Yes, I realize he probably stepped out from behind the tree behind him and moved forward.) More important is the failed morale save from the mobsters. Pulling guns on mobsters will require a morale save from Fighters, but these mobsters aren't looking at the guns, they're looking at the Asp himself. This is the intimidate power of the Mysteryman class, forcing a morale save just with a look.

Another trophy item idea is the master switch -- something that turns off all of one type of hi-tech item -- machines, robots, guns -- that were created the same way -- in the same factory, by the same inventor, from the same kit.  It seems to have a generous range, maybe 200 ft.?

I haven't included a page of This Curious World in a while.  This page introduces us to the peccary, the only wild pig indigenous to the Americas.  It's not very big -- certainly no boar -- and more the size of a giant rat. I'd only give them 1/2 HD.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Popular Comics #8

This page of Little Orphan Annie actually illustrates two issues about how combat should work in Hideouts & Hoodlums. One, is that combats should be short. If a cane does 1-6 points of damage, and most people have 1-6 hit points, then a one-on-one combat could conceivably be wrapped up after just two dice rolls (the to hit and damage rolls of the first attacker).

But who should get to attack first? The man with the cane or the man with the knife? Originally, a random die roll determined this in H&H. Another option would be to have attacks go in descending order by the Dexterity of the combats; this was seriously considered for the next edition. But what is more likely going to happen is going by weapon length, with the reach of a cane giving him the advantage over a hoodlum with just a short knife.

In this page of Terry and the Pirates, I'm less interested in the combat than Terry's agility at shinnying up the pole. What is going on there, as a game mechanic? Some game referees might use an ability score check, having the player roll under his Dexterity score to succeed. Officially, H&H does not incorporate ability score checks.

Could this be a simple exercise of a climb mechanic instead? This brings us back to the same issue, already brought up on this blog, about whether Climb should be a Stunt that only Heroes can use, or if it should be a skill that anyone can accomplish.

But what mechanic could everyone use? Since Terry is using resistance to counter gravity, could this perhaps warrant a save vs. science?

Ah, the old blow-to-the-back-of-the-head trick. Later, even some superheroes would not be immune to this plot convenience!  But what is going on here, game mechanics-wise? Is Pat down to his last 6 hp or less (which is possible, considering how slow healing is in H&H) when he takes the clubbing blow? Is the Dragon Lady a Mysteryman using her signature move for additional damage? Or should there be a mechanic specifically for head blows? I'm actually leaning towards the latter!

Don Dixon and the Hidden Empire brings up several points. One is the usefulness of bringing a dog along on an adventure. It gives you an extra chance to find concealed things and -- horrible, but practical -- another target for bad guys to aim at.

Active volcanoes are not Hero-friendly environments for adventuring. As this page shows, the combination of the heat and poisonous fumes should require a save vs. science each turn from anyone in the volcano, or they will pass out for 1-4 turns.

But more importantly, by what game mechanic are the kids moving that boulder.  A save vs. science to overcome the inertia of the boulder? Or an ability score-like check vs. Strength? In the spirit of Old School arbitrariness, I'm actually leaning towards the latter for the next edition! This way, you could modify the number of dice rolled depending on how heavy the weight is.

First dinosaur in a modern day story!  But what dinosaur? It's a man-sized carnivore. Maybe meant to be a young Tyrannosaur? An associate of mine (hi Dan!) suggested to me that it could be a young Allosaur. Either way, at this size it probably doesn't have more than 4 Hit Dice.

Also the first mention of dwarfs in a comic book, though this dwarf seems to be a pygmy and, thus, statted as a Native rather than a fantasy humanoid.


        Yeah...don't go into a scenario involving a tiger, thinking that you can say "over" while waiving a stick and subdue the tiger; I think we're to assume this works because Sylvia has a history of working with this particular tiger.

More evidence of the importance of accounting for lassos as a weapon.

And $100 seems to be the going rate for returning a lost tiger to a circus.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #7 - pt. 1

Another issue of Dell's Popular Comics has a lot to teach us!

Here, Gasoline Alley shows us that Fighters should be able to climb.  Well, actually, I think every class should have the ability to climb trees. Some games would just assign a big modifier to a skill check, but I think we can waive a mechanic entirely for tree climbing.

Ultra-obscure comic strip reprint A Strain on the Family Tie is going to illuminate some aspect of Hideouts & Hoodlums for us?   It does when it reminds us that fireworks are legally available for sale (though not on the starting equipment list, they should be easily picked up in game play), and make great diversions for Heroes to use.

Hatchet men would be another name -- and perhaps a less offensive name, for Yellow Peril Hoodlums.  I plan to retain this mobster type, though I'm seriously considering adding to them that they are adept at ambushes, with perhaps a 3 in 6 chance of surprise.



The Dick Tracy installment reminds us of more tools available to "modern day" Heroes of the '30s and '40s -- though not as available as fireworks -- the lie detector and the "trick mirror" that can be seen through from the other side.

Little Joe's bandit general pal here demonstrates two combat moves: disarming (which will have its own game mechanic in the next edition) and the technique that only seems to exist in comics -- picking up someone and using them as a club against another target (Batman will do this frequently in his early days).  After grappling the first target, the attacker can use this technique to do clubbing damage to both opponents at once.  Editors might want to limit this technique only to Heroes with a Strength of 15 or higher.

Reg'lar Fellers reminds us of two more potentially useful items for Heroes to acquire -- stilts and glue.  Glue is even going to be on the starting equipment list.

This panel of On the Range reminds us that bisons have not been statted for H&H yet, and perhaps they should be. Wikipedia tells me that bison at Yellowstone National Park are three times as likely to harm people than bears, and I've long since statted bears!  The American bison would have 6 HD, trample for 1-10+1 damage, and use 12-siders for Hit Dice because of their mass.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #6 - pt. 1

Though I'm not a fan of the original Little Orphan Annie, here I do owe it a small debt of gratitude for showing me what a small group of slick hoodlums -- here called mountebanks -- could do to whip up a frenzied crowd against some Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes. I did consider making mountebanks a new mobster type, but the charm ability of slick hoodlums seems like such a good match.

This page raises the issue of how to handle morale saves. Do you roll once for the whole group, or roll separately for each individual attacker? The rules do not specify, leaving this up to the preference of each Editor.



In Dick Tracy, we see trick shoes with concealed compartments in the bottom, and a miniature gun disguised as a fountain pen. Good additions to a minor hi-tech trophies list!

Believe it or not, but Believe It or Not will not turn up here often.  This time, though, the Bowl of Wisdom sounds so much like a magic trophy that I had to add it. Drinking from it should add +1 to the imbiber's Wisdom score!

Ah, the old "bucket of pitch falls on the head, then you step into a rope snare that pulls you off your feet" trick! It's a complicated trap: it must involve an attack roll for the bucket, then a saving throw to avoid stepping into the snare, which must be pretty easy to miss without the distraction of the bucket on the head (maybe a +4 to save without the bucket?).

Ah, the conundrum of being knocked unconscious!  In the game H&H emulates, recovering from being at 0 hit points requires a full day of rest. It sure doesn't seem like Pat has been out that long here.

In the next edition, there will be expanded rules for what may happen when a Hero reaches zero hp.  Some of the results are better than being out for a day -- but some will be much worse.

Smilin' Jack gets to ride in a hi-tech transport -- a stratosphere balloon, supporting a "gondola" that looks an awful lot like a bathysphere. Being able to ascend quietly to 60,000 feet might come in handy for Heroes some day.

That's quite a weight the grizzled prospector is pulling.  Grizzled prospectors do appear to be tough critters as a cliche, but I hesitate to stat them as Superheroes to get them that strong. Maybe they need to be a new mobster type?  Maybe one with the No Encumbrance power of Superheroes, but without all the rest?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum at http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.org/index.php?dlid=2961)

Popular Comics #4 - pt. 1

Besides Little Orphan Annie, Maw Green was another mouthpiece for Harold Gray's backwards libertarian spiel.  Here, Maw Green tells us it's okay to just grab some stranger's kid and start paddling them, if you think they need it.

Maw Green is also shown here to be a potent fighter.  Making a new mobster called the big maw, with a bonus to grapple and spank, might be called for.  Better yet, I could use it later for characters like Ma Hunkel...

Demonstrating that cowardly hoodlums can look like well-dressed gentlemen.

Also from Little Orphan Annie, Punjab walks through a hail of bullets completely unharmed and contributes it to a bulletproof vest.  A bulletproof vest is only AC 7 in H&H.  This must be a hi-tech bulletproof vest +3, or better!

Smilin' Jack is a catalog of flying trophies this time.  There's Jack's trademark flivver plane, the parasol plane, the autogyro, and something called the vacuum type plane, though I can't figure out what kind of plane that is.  It looks like it has hinged wings...?

In this installment of Terry and the Pirates, Terry, Pat, and Connie get a tour of a great hideout: an abandoned monastery taken over by pirates. Most of the strip details various forms of torture practiced in the hideout, but there is, near the end, a rather "delightful" trap detailed.  In a bedroom, the beds are rigged so that they will flip over and dump anyone in them into a crocodile-filled pit, if a lever is pulled in a separate room.

Tom Mix demonstrates two new stunts the Cowboy class should get: Cheat at Cards and Sense Cheating.

Ella and Her Fella reveals that a half-pint does not necessarily have to be a child, or even particularly young.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum at http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.org/index.php?dlid=3808)

Popular Comics #2 - pt. 1

A little Chicago blizzard slowed down my posting there for a few days, but we're now up to March 1936 and the second issue of Popular Comics!

In Little Orphan Annie, is Punjab casting some kind of Message spell by drumming on an old log, or is this some more plausibly scientific form of communication?  As with many things about Punjab, we're left unsure if it is magical or not.

Mutt and Jeff don't get into a lot of adventures, so we won't be seeing much of them here.  Bulls, however, are featured in comics at least as often as goats, and just as absent in the Hideouts & Hoodlums game so far.  Bulls are powerfully big animals; I would assign them a whopping 6 Hit Dice, a gore attack that does 1-10 points of damage, and a trample attack that does 1-12 damage, but the bull must be charging to use both and then suffers a -2 penalty to hit if the defender dodges from side to side. 

Mutt clearly survives here solely by very lucky damage dice rolls from the Editor...

It might be constructive to point out when something is not indicative of a game mechanic.  Here, in Terry and the Pirates, we see our Heroes forming a human pyramid to reach a high window. This does not necessitate any kind of climbing check. A particularly strict Editor might require a save vs. plot to climb a tree, as Terry does, but most people can climb a tree easily enough so -- unless there were no low branches -- such a roll could easily be waived.  And when Terry dons a dress, he's not attempting to disguise himself in the sense that he's trying to pass muster as a girl while interacting with the skull-faced villain; Terry is using it to try and get surprise at the beginning of the combat turn. If Terry succeeds at his surprise roll, then we can assume the disguise was successful; it would not need a second roll to determine if the surprise was a particularly good one.

Here we see an example of an old trick that any Editor can use. The Editor tells his players the mobsters shoot, rolls some dice -- and then ignores the results because the mobsters never intended to hit in the first place.  The rolling of the dice was just for unnerving the players.  This also works great with wandering encounter checks...

Just happening to find an old biplane in a barn, like Smilin' Jack does, could have been circumstance forced by a stunt used by the Aviator, but it is not so unlikely a plot point that the Editor did not place the plane there himself. Back in the 1930s, when airports were much less common, renting space in barns and taking off on their property was much more common.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum at  http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.org/index.php?dlid=1631)

Popular Comics #1 - pt. 1

We've reached February 1936 and our first Dick Tracy!  I'm not as convinced as the people at Comic Book Plus and Digital Comic Museum that the Dick Tracy pages in Popular Comics are really public domain, so I'll just link to this one here.  The trap -- rigging a firehose so that it sprays down a flight of stairs is more of a "slow you down so I can escape" trap than a lethal trap.  I would say anyone could make a half-move up the stairs safely, but every 5 ft./turn faster than that and you'd have to make a save vs. science with a -1 penalty for each 5 additional ft. or fall on the stairs and take 0-3 (1d4-1) points of damage.

Origin of the dead stick stunt for Aviators that was listed in The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 6 and detailed in no. 7.

Bos'n Hal, Sea Scout is not particularly Hideouts & Hoodlums-specific, but that semaphore guide is pretty handy and could be a great resource for a nautical game session.  H&H hand-waves languages, allowing that everyone everywhere knows and speaks English to varying degrees of success. But -- if I did switch to requiring languages, I would definitely include a semaphore language.

It's interesting that almost this exact same "trick" happened in the Seaweed Sam page we just read a few days ago.  If it's not the "magic cape" that is responsible for Sandy disappearing and Punjab is casting a spell, then it might be a lot like the D&D spell Rope Trick, in that the target is transported to an extra-dimensional space. As of now, it's not written up for the next edition, but it may be...

Definitely a cowardly or superstitious hoodlum.  Cowardly hoodlums were statted in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies.  Superstitious hoodlums had to wait until Supplement II: All-American.  Truthfully, I've never been satisfied with the superstitious hoodlums as I statted them.  Maybe they'll get improved someday.

The combination of cowardly and superstitious hoodlums, of course, comes from Bruce Wayne's famous announcement that criminals were a "cowardly and superstitious lot".

Definitely a magical trophy this time.  Annie's "magic whistle" must be bonded to a guardian who will appear immediately after blowing the whistle, even if located miles away.  I would limit the range to 10 miles and make it useable once per day.

Punjab also seems to be giving the injured man a magic Potion of Healing, though we can't see it so we don't know for sure...

Rattlesnake.  Glad I already statted that on the blog.

(Scans courtesy of the Digital Comic Museum at http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.org/index.php?dlid=1630)