Action Comics #16

Let's start with Superman.

Catching a falling man isn't really a big deal for Superman, and probably only needs a successful "attack" roll to scoop the man up.

The early Superman doesn't seem to care all that much if anyone figures out his secret identity. Not only does he wear no mask and conceals no fingerprints, but the windows on his apartment have sheer curtains. You'd think he'd at least use shades for more privacy!

This is the first story to call Superman's port of call "Metropolis", beginning the trend of fictional cities in the superhero genre.

The police commissioner in this story is a corrupt politician, despite the fact that most police are statted as fighters.

$5,000 was apparently a good night's haul for a casino-club.

The gamblers in this story don't seem to have any special abilities worth statting differently than slick hoodlums, other than to give them a better chance of rigging games.

Superman turns down the chance to collect XP for keeping the money in exchange for the good deed award for giving it all away to poor people.

Racketeers seem to have even less special abilities than gamblers.

Superman wrecks gambling establishments, both with a hammer and his bare hands. Since he's not wrecking the buildings themselves, I'd probably treat this as a wrecking doors roll (and at Superman's current level, he probably doesn't even need to roll for that anymore).

Superman picked up a fixed deck of cards to fool the gamblers, and then keeps it as a trophy.

Pep Morgan's adventure has an unusual angle -- Hero playing bodyguard. Can an Editor pull off a session where the Hero has to spend a week living with another character, waiting to see if any harm comes to him or her (her, in this case)? Only if the Editor creates an engaging character, and the player really likes to roleplay.  Otherwise, the scenario will quickly fast forward to the first whiff of danger. This is part 2 of a 4-part story arc where Pep is employed by a Mr. Smith, who keeps handing Pep plot hooks.

Pep, despite being just a college student, is already a pipe smoker and goes to bed early enough that he's asleep at 11:30 pm when mobsters try to abduct Mr. Smith's daughter, Mary. Something wakes Pep up in time, though (save vs. plot?) so he can come pummel the kidnappers with his fists until they surrender. One of the kidnappers falls over from being pummeled, which isn't supported by the game mechanics, although an Editor could rightly say the circumstances warranted it since the man was carrying Mary and would be unbalanced (maybe a save vs. science to avoid falling over).

Slings and arrows (of outrageous fortune!) are being hurled at Marco Polo in his adventure, but the more effective weapon seems to be the dropped rocks falling on the bandits in the ambush at the end. If the rocks are heavy enough that they have to be pushed over instead of thrown, it could be considered a trap and do more than normal missile weapon damage. Maybe 1-8 points?

Clip Carson deals with a fake mummy in an Egyptian tomb, but it's a trick -- the mummy is a "robot" (really, more like animatronics) and it's voice was from a concealed record player behind it. Clip is in the Pyramid of Cheops -- aka the Great Pyramid of Giza -- looking for a secret treasure room that was apparently missed by 9th century looters and 19th century archaeologists. Interestingly, a rival -- a corrupt sergeant from the occupying British Army -- found the treasure room before them and has convinced the natives to guard it by posing as Cheops in a rubber mask. Maybe those natives have been in the stale air of the pyramid too long...

For the Chuck Dawson summary I'm reading says Chuck is framed by thugs, which is an odd mobster type choice for a Western adventure. Maybe these are outlaws?

Tex Thompson's adventure has an interesting spin to it as well. Tex is asked by the French government to infiltrate a spy ring, to find out who their mole is in the French government. In eight more months, things would be getting a lot more exciting in France if Tex stuck around that long.

Zatara has his first encounter with aliens from another planet (he's already fought aliens from another dimension). He encounters them as if a random wandering encounter -- or at least he encounters the teleport beam that scoops up a random farmer while Zatara and Tong are out on an evening stroll together.

Zatara investigates at the local observatory, where the aliens somehow push him into a teleport beam and he winds up on Saturn. The Saturnians look an awful lot like the Martian Manhunter, 16 years before his debut! Despite having super technology that allows instantaneous interplanetary travel, the Saturnians fight with lassos. Zatara meets their warlord and convinces him to leave Earth alone by showing him a Phantasmal Image of the planet Earth attacking the planet Saturn. Saturnians are very impressionable.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: Action Comics Archive v. 1; select pages were read on the Babbling about DC Comics blog; the rest read in summary either at DC Wikia or Mike's Amazing World.)

Action Comics #15

And we come back around to Superman's home title, Action Comic, as we will periodically do, to see what new and exciting stuff Siegel and Shuster have cooked up for us. Here, we're treated to some delightful attention to continuity, as Superman reflects on having saved money earned months earlier in issue #11.

And raising money is the unusual scenario goal in this issue, as Superman has to raise $1 million to save "Kid-Town". For capturing bank robbers, he gets a $3,000 reward from the bank for returning their money, plus $2,000 from the police for capturing the robbers. He saves a rich man's life and gets $10,000 as his reward. Then he receives a plot hook that sends him after sunken treasure worth $1 million by itself.

All of these rewards can be dangled in front of Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes, though the Editor is discouraged from awarding XP for money that has to be raised for a scenario. Trophy money should be earned on the side while pursuing other goals.

In the course of this adventure, Superman performs the powers Nigh-Invulnerable Skin (but while out of costume!), Raise Car (to lift a massive tree), Hold Breath (said to last for hours!), Get Even Tougher (I presume, since he's able to fight off a dozen sharks!), Hold Train reversed (so he can push a submarine), Super-Tough Skin, and -- of course -- wrecking things.

For some amount under $15,000, Clark Kent is able to rent a steamer ship for two weeks, complete with diving bell. He has to hire his own crew, though.

Another wrinkle in this surprisingly complex Superman tale is rival gangs competing to stop him. One becomes his ship crew, while the other steals a submarine to come after his ship. And Superman has fun with it too, dressing up in a skeleton's conquistador armor to spook the submarine crew.

In Pep Morgan's installment, Pep is given a plot hook by someone he rescued in the previous story -- the start of a series of plot hooks the same character will give him over what is actually a long story arc. He has to catch a combination of gangsters and robbers who are disguising themselves as police officers. Pep disguises himself too, posing as a night watchman and then a policeman himself, to capture the robbers who are using a tricked farmer's farm as their hideout.

Marco Polo shows himself to have some anti-hero leanings in this installment. He knocks out a guard to steal a horse, and then steals a sword from two soldiers (who probably only want to arrest him for horse theft!). I'm not sure how easy it is to snatch a sword from someone else's scabbard, but I'm guessing it's pretty hard and must be a difficult (1 in 6) skill, like picking pockets.

In Clip Carson's adventure, he and his SCM (archaeologist Jim Blake) have been fighting bandits in the Sahara when both sides have to seek shelter from a sandstorm (wandering weather encounter? Editorial fiat?). Jim points out that sandstorms can rip skin to shreds, meaning at least 2-8 points of damage I reckon. Luckily, tents make you automatically immune to the damage. Clip and Jim decide to brave the storm instead; since they emerge unscathed, there must be a save vs. science that lets you avoid the whole damage.

They find a guarded pyramid -- and rightly so, being a national monument. Clip and Jim have a map that will show them where a secret treasure room is inside, but instead of showing it to the Arab guards and offering to share it with them, Clip beats them all up so they can enter and steal the treasure for themselves. The pyramid is the "Pyramid of Cheoks," which clearly means Cheops. While inside, a guard recovers and trains a gun on them from a trapdoor in the ceiling, generously giving them a chance to surrender. But, again, this guy's an Arab, so Clip feels no remorse as he murders the guard. They find the secret door indicated on the map, but run into a mummy at the cliffhanger!

Tex Thompson is taking a break from globe-trotting and is back home in Texas for a change. We see he's an expert dart thrower. He also has an Arab servant named Achmed who never joins him on any adventures and we probably never see again. Tex is asked to find a missing diamond in this story, during which he runs into and adds his second SCM, Gargantua T. Potts. "Gargantua" must be a nickname because Potts is tall, drawn taller than Tex. Other than that, Potts has no special abilities other than being a  horribly drawn racial slur.

Well, well -- Fred Guardineer anticipated global warming! In his Zatara installment this month, "an evil scientist, Berhener, creates a heat ray and uses it to melt a lot of polar ice, causing the oceans to rise, and flooding New York City and many other coastal cities. Zatara is called in, and he figures out where the melting is happening, then tracks the heat ray's creator, Berhener, who turns out to have a mad scheme about extorting the world's governments and banks for a lot of money. Zatara freezes him inside an iceberg, and sinks the heat ray into the ocean." That summary doesn't give me a lot to go on, but apparently Zatara is starting to cast more combat-related spells like Ice Storm or Cone of Cold.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #14

Superman uses the powers Outrun Train and Leap I before he even gets the plot hook for this issue's story.

I've been thinking off and on and about the alien race's leaping ability. It's so good right now that it makes the Leap power pretty useless for aliens, and every other race needs to fill one of their limited power slots with Leap just to be able to do what the alien race can do.  So...I'm seriously considering weakening the alien's leaping ability dramatically. Instead of doubling at each level, it would go up incrementally at x2, x3, x4, and so on.

Superman refers to the mobsters who attacked the inspector as thugs, though neither mobster seems as tough-looking as thugs are statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

A hoodlum punches Superman's super-tough hand and hurts himself. I'll have to consider whether this needs to be a side effect of the Super-Tough Skin power, or perhaps of Invulnerability.

Superman also demonstrates wrecking things, Feather Landing, and Raise Trolley Car.

Ultra-Humanite has several trophy items this issue -- an invisible car (it can turn invisible and visible at the driver's wishes) and an Electric Crystal-Encasing Tank. The second was featured, as-is, in Book II, while the first was represented by an Invisibility Field Generator.

In Marco Polo's story, he and his family manage to escape because of a drowsy guard. Guards were first statted in Steve Lopez's module FS1 Sons of the Feathered Serpent. I might keep them around, and give them a percent-chance of being encountered asleep.

Pep Morgan's ship is sinking in a storm! The scenario is to swim back to the ship from the lifeboat and look for an unconscious pilot aboard. Sadly, someone tells Pep to look in the cabin, removing all the suspense. This could have made a good timed scenario by making Pep swim around the ship, having to choose which rooms to search before the time runs out and the pilot is underwater.

Clip Carson is in Cairo, the "land of a primitive people." I think we can see where this new strip by Bob Kane is going. Clip rounds a corner and sees a blonde man attacking five Arabs with his fists, so naturally Clip joins in and helps beat up the Arabs too without even knowing what the fight was about. The blonde guy is a plot hook character, an archaeologist with a treasure map to a room hidden under a pyramid (I just ran a similar scenario in one of my Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns!). They go out into the desert to raid the pyramid. A bunch of Egyptians on horseback (nomads?) try to stop them since, hey, it's their nation's monument, but Clip isn't having any of that and mows them all down with his rifle.

Tex Thompson's player, not willing to wait for his Editor to toss him a plot hook, has Tex put an ad in the paper requesting adventure opportunities.

Tex is easily knocked out by a blow to the head, despite the fact that he's surely almost 5th level by now. This vulnerability to blows to the back of the head is very hard to reconcile with the game mechanic of hit points. And I'm not sure I want to reconcile it. Quick knock-outs may be good emulation of the comic books, but it isn't much fun and it doesn't feel much fair when it happens to your Heroes.

What follows makes for a good story, but a difficult one to get players to go along with; Tex wakes up in the same hotel room, in his pajamas, with a different woman in the room claiming she brought them there after he got drunk the night before. The first lady, who tried asking for Tex's help, has gone missing.

Chuck Dawson gets in a grappling match with an outlaw. First Chuck pins the guy, but the outlaw breaks the hold and then kicks him. Chuck restarts grappling, probably at the end of the second turn after being kicked, and establishes a choke hold. Good rolls, Chuck!

Zatara goes in search of the fabled Fountain of Youth, just because someone asked him to. He's with his good friends (who we never see again) Eleanor and Fred Hodges when the plot hook comes his way; Zatara certainly has a lot of married friends. Their old friend, Jeb Standish, knows a little-known legend of the Well of Quetzcoatl, and believes it is the Fountain of Youth. He promises to pay $1 million for 1 gallon of youth tonic -- a sweet deal most Heroes could retire happily on.

Zatara begins an expedition with native boatmen at Rio de Janeiro, but uses a Mass Fly spell (a 5th level spell?) to get their canoes over rapids (rapids in...Rio Guandu? There aren't a lot of major rivers that end near Rio de Janeiro).

Zatara comes across The Lost Red City (though, if he's following a river from a major city, how lost could it be?), built from red sandstone (nice detail). The lost city is manned by natives (so it's not really lost at all) and Zatara stops them by turning their spears into clouds (yeah...I'm not sure about that one. Mass Weapon Polymorph? Vaporize Weapons 15' Radius?).

In a throne room in a temple, Zatara discovers a throne with a preserved woman's corpse sitting on it. The corpse speaks a warning before snakes slither out from under the throne dais to attack, but the snakes aren't real -- they are a Phantasmal Image and the spoken threat was Ventriloquism, both accomplished by a small creature that seems to be a hieroglyph guardian (a new 2nd ed. mobster type), but one that is also at least a 2nd level magic-user. Zatara uses Detect Thoughts/ESP to find out where the Fountain of Youth is from the guardian.

All is not kosher about the fountain, though. Tong feels magically compelled to drink from it and Zatara, sensing something amiss here, uses Phantasmal Image and Telekinesis to keep Tong from drinking. There is always a wrinkle to fountains of youth; this time, the wrinkle is that the water keeps you alive, but you still get old and infirm (not unlike the theme of an upcoming Zatara story). By the time Zatara learns this, the old man had rallied 100 natives to stop Zatara, but Zatara turned them all to stone for an hour. And, yeah...I'm not allowing a spell like that. Fred Guardineer was one of the better artists of the early days of comic books, but his Zatara series reeks of power inflation and would throw game balance out the window.

(Superman story read from Action Comics Archives v. 1; select pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #13

Superman does the stuff you expect from Superman here -- leaping, lifting heavy stuff. Interestingly, he does not rely on super-senses much, leaping up to windows so he can peer right in at the people he needs to eavesdrop on (which is why there aren't many senses-related powers).

Again we see Super-Tough Skin breaking a knife (like in AC #1). Superman is leaping along with a hoodlum under his arm when he's thrown off-balance by the knife attack and reaches out for a window with one hand to catch himself, while dropping the hoodlum from his other arm. The hoodlum then falls to his death. Now, we know Superman could have just fallen to the ground with the hoodlum, land safely, and keep the hoodlum alive, but instead Superman says he got "exactly what he deserved". Golden Age Heroes are okay with bad guys dying, just like most of my players.

In an interesting twist, Superman forces the racketeers he's captured to wreck their own cars with mallets instead of wrecking them himself. Now, there are non-Superhero wrecking rules in the game -- but would you actually use them in this case? There's not any suspense to whether or not the racketeers succeed. When the game mechanics do not add to the suspense of the scene, you can feel free to skip over them.

And that just leads up to Superman's first confrontation with the Ultra-Humanite. Ultra is, of course, the inspiration for the ultra-mad scientist mobster type in Book II.

Superman succumbs to an electrical trap, not because it's early in the development of his character and his limits, or lack thereof, have not yet been firmly established, but because he hasn't prepared any powers that protect him from this much damage. In the future he'll be more prepared with defensive buffs.

The Scoop Scanlon story from this issue, from the summary I read, sounds like a Scooby Doo scenario. People get scared that an Indian curse on some jewels is turning people to stone, and one victim really does appear to be turned to stone. Scoop sets a trap for the bad guy -- a really silly trap, where Scoop makes his own fake statue and talks from behind it, which actually scares the bad guy into confessing. I feel sorry for the guy running a Hideouts & Hoodlums game who has to make it that easy to trick his own bad guys.

Also, for a "five star reporter," Scoop doesn't do any investigating to get involved in this case -- he just drives by and happens to see what appears to be a dead body laying outside a house.

Now, what makes this stand out from your average Scooby Doo episode is that the victim turned to stone isn't a trick -- the guy is really dead and petrified. The killer isn't even a mad scientist; he's just some guy who's found a "rare formula" for turning a body to stone. So, my thought is -- what's a rare formula, in terms of game mechanics? Is it like a spell scroll, only anyone can use it?

Pep Morgan is leaving the South American country of "Latona" -- and this time, I can't even try figuring out which real country that represents. A few more quick comments about the Pep Morgan adventure: one, stopping a mutiny is easy when the Editor lets the mutineers throw a party and get drunk, and two, villainous Captain Sindra sneaks on board Pep's ship, pretending to be a sailor named Johnson. I would never be able to get my players to play seriously if they encountered a character named Seaman Johnson. Lastly, Sindra isn't even defeated by Pep; the boat's captain does it for him.

In the Marco Polo feature, Marco's pet cheetah is captured with "snares" -- these are really lassos. Then the cheetah is dragged into a cage.

Marco isn't just tossed into a dungeon, he gets kicked down a flight of stairs into the dungeon. Falling down stairs can be lethal. Should it do as much damage as falling vertically? Maybe half-damage, rounded up? Fall down a 30' flight of steps and you take 2-12 points of damage.

But later, Marco produces a bag of money off his person. It's not uncommon for Heroes to be able to sneak things into prison cells, like knives or broken glass, but prison guards missing a bag of money? Should I even bother with having guards search prisoners at all?

Okay, now to Zatara's back of tricks...

First he casts a spell that turns him and Tong into gusts of wind for fast travel -- what is that? Gaseous form doesn't usually go with faster movement, which makes it an even more powerful spell. Or is this flavor text for a teleport spell? He also turns him and Tong into shadows later for sneaking around -- or is that flavor text for Invisibility?

Zatara can cast a shrinking spell that reduces a target 75% in size. He casts a hypnosis spell, but the information he gets from the man under hypnosis isn't anything he couldn't get through a Charm Person spell. Some of his other spells look familiar, like turning a gun into a snake (which I've previously decided must be an illusion).

He does seem to cast a new spell when he makes a safe path for someone through the Swamp of Satan. Safe Path apparently lets someone walk without encountering natural hazards, like quicksand.  Or -- is this a Find Traps spell at work?

Another possibly new spell: Zatara casts a Melting Curse. The victim has to save vs. spells or melt away into nothingness. But -- is this really all that different from Disintegrate?

This one is definitely a new spell, though. A Sleeping Hex is a spell you cast on someone who is already asleep, and then they can't be woken up by any means (short of a Dispel Magic spell) for ...I don't know, some unknown length of time.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives Vol. 1; select pages were read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog; the rest read as summaries here.)

Action Comics #11

Superman's powers are starting to look very familiar at this point. We again see Leap I, Outrun Train, Wrecking Things, and probably even Invulnerability (because even Tough Skin might not save you from a sub-machine gun, depending on how you're rolling weapon damage). Story-wise, it is good to see consistency in what a superhero can or cannot do. Superman, for instance, uses a drill to dig for oil instead of the Dig power, and he uses an ordinary torch because he has no powers that generate heat or flame.

In most different superhero RPGs, the superhero would be limited to a specific set of powers. Here, the player is on his honor to only prepare the powers that best emulate his Hero each game session. But this gives the player great flexibility too. In this story, Superman's player decides to use X-Ray Vision and Super-Hearing for the first time. Had he decided to use Blast II and Chick Magnet instead, Superman would have turned out like a very different character!

In Scoop Scanlon's story, Scoop is undercover and, to pass himself off as a mobster, has to shoot his friend Rusty. To keep Rusty alive, Scoop shoots his metal belt buckle -- which seems to me an incredibly risky move. I'm not even sure how I would handle that with game mechanics. A big penalty to hit for a "called shot"?  Or I could treat the buckle as cover and move Rusty's AC from 9 to 8. If Scoop rolled just right to hit AC 9 or 8 it would hit the buckle, but if he rolled any higher than that, he would hit Rusty.

With this issue, Pep Morgan moves closer to being an adventure strip. Press ganged onto a gun smugglers' ship, Pep escapes by swimming to shore ahead of the ship, past some sharks that luckily choose to ignore him. It's easy for the Editor and players to fall into the trap of thinking that all encounters need to be adversarial encounters, but that's too limiting for a RPG -- which is why we have encounter reaction tables in the first place. The sharks should be just as likely to be uninterested in Pep (if they've eaten recently), and what a more memorable encounter it would be if the sharks turned out to be friendly!

The gun smuggling ship captain takes shots at Pep as he swims away, but luckily the water serves as cover.

How The Adventures of Marco Polo hails from different times! A leopard hunt is already over when Marco decides he wants a leopard cub to train. So he instigates a fight with a female leopard protecting her cubs, the poor mother is killed by others in his hunting party -- and Marco is commended for his bravery! You know, instead of everyone telling him what a Class A jerk he was. At least, from this scenario, we see trained cheetahs being used like hunting dogs (an interesting idea, though I doubt wild cats would do that unless being magically controlled), jackals being used as a clue during the hunt, and a pack of leopards.

I almost want to keep jackals out of H&H -- they're so small they would, at best, share stats with a giant rat. A cheetah I would give 2 Hit Dice, the same as I would give a leopard. There would be little reason to stat them differently, except to give the cheetah a faster movement rate.

Tex Thompson and a party of supporting cast members explore a lost island. Despite the H&H rules on languages, Tex can't speak to the local Malays and needs an interpreter. Supplement I: National suggested an optional rule for language barriers. Basically, instead of tracking how many languages your Hero can speak, you track the exceptions (this will be explained as such in 2nd ed.).

Tex has to pass three challenges on the Malay island. The first challenge drops him through a pit trap into a pool with a shark in it. The second challenge is to overcome a warrior in single combat. In each challenge, the Malays are generous and make sure Tex always has a weapon. The third challenge is to get through a wall of fire. Here, Tex plays it smart and goes through the previous two rooms to look for items that will help him get through the wall of fire. He settles on a flag from the warrior room that he soaks in water from the pool room. It is important for the Editor to allow for multiple solutions to a puzzle like this; don't penalize the players if they fail to come up with the single solution you had in mind (so long as their solutions also make sense!).

Chuck Dawson's adventure reminds us that it's important to give some thought, when you're constructing a trap for your players, as to how the trap would be reset. In this story, a trapdoor in a cabin has a concealed pull-string rigged up so you can pull the trapdoor closed from outside the cabin (though, in this case, I don't get why you would need something so elaborate).

Zatara has a travel adventure -- that is, an adventure that happens to him as he's traveling from place to place, rather than having to travel to the adventure. His cruise ship crossing the Pacific is haunted by a ghost that can't be harmed by magic. Zatara figures out (before I did!) that the ghost is an illusion spell. This story sets a precedent for people being "killed" by illusions -- the body is convinced it is dead and stops functioning, so the person is effectively killed -- but a person killed by an illusion can be revived if done quickly enough before all body functions cease.

For spells, Zatara throws around a powerful polymorph spell that can turn a man into a door (that's got to be pretty high level -- it not only affects the man, but a nearby wall as well!), a Polymorph spell on both himself and Tong -- to turn them into mice (setting a precedent for how small the new form can be with that spell), and Gaseous Form on himself (this lets him move through keyholes). He casts some kind of spell that creates a hole in the wall (like Stone Shape, but is not limited to stone -- maybe it's just a 3rd level spell called Create Hole?).  He casts a polymorph spell that turns one object into another (4th level?).  He casts a spell that conjures items (Minor Creation?), then Fly Sphere on the audience around him. He casts an "astral form" spell that seems to be linked to the spell Locate Object -- this reminds me of the Improved Locate Object spell I already planned to introduce. He uses Phantasmal Force/Silent Image, and Dispel Magic. Finally, he uses Flesh to Stone.

Zatara must be at least 12th level magic-user at this point, and probably more like 16th level.  In comparison, Superman is probably only a 5th or 6th level superhero at this point. Which is why I plan to flip the xp charts around and let magic-users advance much faster than superheroes.

(Superman adventure read in Superman: The Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select other pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, while summaries of the rest were read at DC Wikia.)

Action Comics #9 - Part 1

We come back to Superman, who has an interesting antagonist this issue. No, not the Ultra-Humanite, he comes later -- but Captain Riley of the Chicago Police Department.

Though most of the Hideouts & Hoodlums games I run take place in 1941, when all Heroes are considered to be working closely with the authorities, many comic book heroes were rebels in 1939. Editors might want to play up this adversarial relationship with the police. 

Riley is himself an interesting character, probably inspired by Dick Tracy -- the then-already famous comic strip detective who's fictional city is never named, but was probably meant to be Chicago. Or Riley could be mocking the real life lawman Elliot Ness, who rose to prominence in Chicago, but came to Siegel & Shuster's town of Cleveland in disgrace by the late '30s. 

The mental patient Superman saves from suicide doesn't really figure into the main plot and is almost surely a random wandering encounter.

What happens next in the story is a fun bit of metafiction, considering what happens in a superhero story when the superhero's discarded clothes are discovered. This could be an issue where Editors will have to tread carefully -- how much do you hand-wave the challenges of hiding a secret identity, and how much do you challenge them with it? Superheroes in the comics often conceal their true identities for years and years just to maintain the status quo; in actual play, I suspect many players will quickly tire of maintaining their dual identities when it becomes too difficult.

Speaking of how much to challenge your players...Superman is completely flummoxed when Riley is about to search everyone and is about to find Superman's uniform under his clothes. Only a deus ex machina -- or a generous Editor -- allowed another non-Hero present to foil Riley's intentions. But this is the same danger inherent in avoiding conflict for your players. Just like, if you're too hard on them they may avoid conflicts, if they sense you'll always look out for them, they may play recklessly or foolishly.

But Action Comics isn't just Superman, so moving on to Scoop Scanlon...

Scoop encounters mobsters with a car that has rotating license plates. This should already be a trophy item in H&H.

Both the Scoop and the Pep Morgan stories have chases/races in them. From the description of both stories, it seems the chaser has a target number they have to reach, but an obstacle gets in their way and subtracts off their target number. The chasee seems to have a much more static role in these chases -- though I understand that this is not always so in chase scenes.  I'm considering, instead of a flat percentage chance of evasion, the chasee setting his own target number with an attack roll, and then the chaser having to hit that number. This would make high-level Fighters the best at car chases, which I have no problem with.

Hypothermia, or at least the threat of hypothermia, also plays a role in the Pep Morgan story. I think we can take care of this condition with cold damage without needing separate game mechanics for environmental harm.

In this installment of The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco's hosts are playing a game like capture the flag, only on horseback and attacking each other with weapons.  I've talked before about unhorsing opponents, but it's worth talking about subdual damage with weapons. If weapons only render unconscious at zero hit points (which is recommended for all but very dark campaign moods), then there is no reason for a separate mechanic for subduing.


Tex Thomspon, in his adventure, makes a fire by rubbing two sticks together and, in the same issue, Chuck Dawson starts a fire using sunlight reflected off his pocket watch! It seems unlikely that this would come up often in a campaign setting where cigarette lighters are ubiquitous, and yet, with how often Heroes get captured....For a skill like this, rarely needed, with a low chance of success, I would just assign a blanket 1 in 6 chance to these.

Chuck Dawson lights his fire as a diversionary tactic. With diversions, to be fair, the Editor should use a save vs. plot (for the divertee, not the diverter) to avoid being diverted, rather than deciding arbitrarily.

If the summary I've read is to be believed, Chuck also disarms a gunman by throwing a pebble at him! I find it hard to believe the pebble could hit him hard enough to knock the gun out of his hands, but I also don't see a lot of evidence that surprise alone should have a chance of disarming the surprisee (as was an obscure rule in The Original Game).

(Superman adventure read in Superman: the Action Comics Archives vol. 1. Summaries of the rest read here.)

Action Comics #7

The Superhero power Raise Elephant comes from this issue's story of Superman joining the circus.

Superman's adversary, Derek Niles, faints from fright when Superman confronts him. Maybe this should be a failed morale save result.

Though this story of Superman rescuing a circus from bankruptcy is iconic, it gives us little to consider about game mechanics...except perhaps the curious incident of Clark Kent pulling off Curly's clothes as a prank in the last panel. This is going to be a disturbingly frequent stunt from the Flash two years from now, so it seems like the same power is in play here -- a 4th level power called Invisibly Fast.

Chuck Dawson, urging his horse Blacky to go faster, seems to be an example of the Cowboy stunt Increase Speed.

Virginia tells her dad that she believes Chuck can be trusted, even though there is mixed evidence to support this. Perhaps Chuck just got a lucky encounter reaction result...but I'm wondering if there should be Father's Daughter as a Lawful version of the Vamp mobster. The father's daughter would be able to detect good and heal wounds at least as well as a Hero with a first aid kit.

Chuck creates a diversion to move some gunmen away from the cabin so he can escape. The Editor could simply wing how long a diversion lasts, roll 1d4 and have it last that many minutes (combat turns), or make the bad guys save vs. plot each combat turn to realize they were hoodwinked.

In The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco runs into two medieval versions of drunken hoodlums. The bandits are armed with whips and plan to use flaming oil. Hideouts & Hoodlums might need a rule about how much damage burning oil does when crossed, or when it's thrown as a grenade-like weapon.

So far, we have yet to see a story where a Hero gets amnesia, but here in Scoop Scanlon we see a hoodlum suffer temporary amnesia after a car crash. This would be an appropriate complication, then, when non-Heroes are reduced to zero hit points.

Tex Thompson is in jail, believed to be his doppelganger, Captain Diablo. A guard comes into Tex's cell with a gun trained on him, but because the guard doesn't have surprise Tex gets to roll initiative against him normally and manages a disarming kick before the gun can be fired.

Bob Daley is able to tell it's Tex and not Capt. Diablo, so SCMs at least have a good chance of seeing through the deception of doppelgangers. Also, we learn that doppelgangers do not match the fingerprints of their lookalikes.

In the Zatara story, Zatara and Tong are on a boat to South Africa. For a man with access to teleport spells, Zatara sure likes slow forms of travel. One of the Tigress' henchmen, Harold Faomes, is a slick hoodlum who comes up with an interesting strategy against Zatara. Knowing he can't possibly win in a fight with Zatara, he tries to blemish Zatara's reputation by convincing Zatara to play cards with him, but then loudly and publicly accusing him of cheating. Zatara clears his name, but lets Faomes get away, which of course works to the story's advantage later.

Faomes' real goal was to hire the local natives to attack a diamond mine. Zatara thwarts the attack by making himself look like their leader (either by illusion or polymorph isn't clear). Zatara learns that the Zulu attack was just a diversion, though, and Faomes has already stolen a bunch of diamonds and escaped. Faomes has been sighted heading north into Bantu territory, so Zatara and Tong follow. They are somehow captured by the Zulu, escape, and finally capture Faomes, only to learn that Faomes and Tigress pulled a rather clever trick on them -- Faomes was a second diversion, having already passed the diamonds off to Tigress, who is fleeing South Africa even now.

Somehow, Zatara gets back to Capetown fast enough to spot Tigress' plane leaving (Teleport, finally?). He uses some spell to force the plane to land (Telekinesis?), and Tigress is finally arrested for the first time.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select Tex Thompson pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, the rest based on notes found at DC Wikia)

Action Comics #6

Though the covers still don't indicate it, this is the sixth comic book to feature Superman. It's also a special Superman story because it's the first story to look at the effects a real superhero would have on the world around him.  Specifically, in this case, how famous a superhero would be.

I had just this week talked about how there is no fame/popularity mechanic in Hideouts & Hoodlums, but that doesn't mean I haven't thought about it. The simplest such mechanic would be a 10% cumulative chance per level of the Hero being recognized. That would work for Heroes who travel broadly, but what about Heroes who choose to stay local -- how to modify that result for geographical distance outside the Heroes' campaign base? And how to modify it for Heroes trying to keep a low profile, versus those who were actively trying to court the press?  No, it makes more sense just to have the Editor wing this, based on the circumstances.

Back to the story...it amazingly anticipates the wealth of Superman merchandising that happened in the real world in the years following the character's debut. In the story, there's Superman Gasoline, the Superman Streamline Special (a car), Superman bathing suits -- all licensed products. If players want to pursue licensing deals for their Heroes in your game, you should probably use a simple encounter reaction roll to determine it. You could modify for level if you wanted to (+1 for levels 2-3, +2 for levels 4-6, +3 for levels 7+), or just leave it to the Hero's Charisma to modify.

Superman makes his saving throw vs. poison when Lois tries to drug him.

Superman snatching Lois out of mid-air is a simple attack roll.

Superman uses wrecking things to tear open the elevator doors, then uses the power Raise Car to raise the elevator (a quite pun-ish use of the power too, I might add).

"Chuck" Dawson loses his hat, or "sky-piece" as he calls it (the first time I've ever heard a hat called that). Even stranger is the line Chuck says next: "I'm sure glad those crooks didn't get a hold of this to use in their schemes".  Now, taken in the context of the fact that one bad guy had just stolen his horse, maybe Chuck is kidding, but taken literally, the idea has distinct possibilities. What if a bad cowboy can make himself appear to be a good cowboy by wearing a good cowboy's hat?

Pep Morgan goes on a hunting trip in this adventure and bags the biggest wildcat his guide has ever seen. Now, maybe the guide is prone to a little exaggeration, because the wildcat doesn't look proportionately larger than a cougar to my untrained eyes. Perhaps it's only slightly larger than normal because it has max or near-max hit points.

He also shoots a black bear, that goes down after two shots. I'm not keen on the idea of lowering bears to only 2 Hit Dice, so either this bear had unusually low hp, or this episode is a case for the optional expanded weapon damage for firearms (from Supplement I: National).

The Adventures of Marco Polo installment is remarkable for teaching me the word "caravansary", which is apparently an inn with a courtyard large enough to accommodate an entire caravan. How did I go so long without knowing this word for D&D?

In the scimitar duel Marco observes, parrying is clearly a combat option. Parrying has always been a feature (albeit a little-used one) in H&H's combat mechanics. But in Marco's follow-up sword fight, it seems dodging is a combat option as well. If players aren't using parry, will they be more inclined to use dodge?

The "Tex" Thompson adventure takes place in Europe. I've long disliked the use of fictional place names in comics and don't see much use in them, so it's a little frustrating when a place name comes along that I can't place to a real world analogy. In this case, Tex is flying over the "Trysolian" Mountains, and I cannot figure out what that's supposed to mean.

A big fighter plane forces Tex to land his biplane. I'm not sure if Force to Land should be an aviator stunt, or if it would just be a normal reaction to being shot at in the sky.

Last month, Black X ran into a villain who looked just like him in Feature Funnies and, this month, Tex runs into Captain Diablo who looks just like him. I might need a doppelganger mobster type for this, since the trope reoccurs so frequently.

In their aerial dogfight, Tex and Diablo keep circling each other, as if they both use the Find Blind Spot stunt, and cancel each other out.

My coverage of Zatara the Master Magician begins with a bit of a poser -- how does Zatara cast a spell with no verbal, somatic, or material components, while his hands are tied? He casts a spell on the Tigress that makes her look old and ugly. I'm not even sure what spell this would be -- Polymorph Other? Bestow Curse? A new spell called Uglify? Not for the first time, I wonder if H&H Magic-Users should have access to a combination of traditional spells and psionic disciplines...

Zatara uses a new spell that lets him, and Tong, assume gaseous form. His next spell is really tricky, though, when he transforms two dervishes (from Book II: Mobsters & Trophies) into mounds of sand, but mounds of sand that can still talk. So what's that? Clearly not a polymorph spell, since sand can't talk. Maybe an illusion, fooling them into thinking they are mounds of sand?

Zatara travels in his spirit form again in this issue, but the narrator calls it his "shadow" instead. He summons two pegasus-unicorns, which should be beyond all but the most powerful Mobster Summoning spells. Then he casts a spell he calls The Swords of Fire of Allah, which looks an awful lot like a Blade Barrier spell, except that it's really just another illusion; a dervish leader is able to disbelieve it.  He also casts a spell that buries the leader up this neck in sand and leaves two followers floating helplessly in the air (another variation of Hold Person?).

There isn't much elaboration on the contents of the pyramid of Cheops, but we know that Cheops is still there as an undead mummy, and guards a chest full of treasure but is really only interested in guarding one large emerald. If you win a friendly encounter reaction from Cheops (like Cheops did), he will loan you the Dead Armies of Cheops -- who are strangely dressed in medieval scale armor and riding horses, even though Egyptian troops did not have saddles. There are apparently thousands of soldiers, enough to sack a city defended with superior weaponry.

Lastly, Zatara seals the pyramid with a "curse", but he probably means a Wizard Lock spell.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Action Comics #5 - part 1

That the early adventures of Superman took place in Siegel & Shuster's home town of Cleveland, Ohio is no secret, so it's strange that the dam Superman saves here is the "Valleyho" Dam when what's clearly meant is an Ohio Valley dam.

This installment features the first of many times Lois tries to trick Clark. It appears that she succeeds; Clark goes to the hospital fully expecting to find the news story there Lois told him about. And why not? He has no reason to suspect his own supporting cast has ulterior motives. Aren't they just around for offering him plot hooks? Typical of a novice player. And it's not like Hideouts & Hoodlums players go around, using mechanics like sense motive skill checks on everyone they meet.

The narrator says Superman reaches the dam at "the speed of light", but that is very clearly hyperbole. Superman appears to only be using the 1st-level power Outrun Train here -- or perhaps the 3rd-level power Race the Bullet, since the train had so much of a head start on him.

Displaying a 3rd-level power would not be the only time this story that Superman displays abilities that seem like they should be beyond his level with so few experience points to his name. He uses the high-level power Raise Bridge to save a train, and Divert River to save a town. He still has his limits, though, as he seems to have no power at his disposal that can buff him enough to stop the dam from bursting.

His power level also seems to go back down after this story. Perhaps his Editor kindly let him have some extra levels temporarily just to handle this scenario (they are called "Big Bang Levels" in Supplement V: Big Bang).

Superman wrecks a car to rescue Lois, a clear example of his wrecking things power.

The gag filler Coyote Canyon Bill shows Bill suffering damage from what appears to be the desert heat. I would not consider even the hottest desert capable of causing heat damage, though; more likely, the damage being inflicted on him is more likely from dehydration -- maybe 1d3 points of damage per 4 hour "rest" turn?

When "Chuck" Dawson ambushes his pursuers from behind a "clump of rocks", he has an advantage of at least a +2 bonus to hit -- +1 for being from behind and +1 for having a height advantage.  If he took a 1-minute turn to aim, he is at +3.

I've talked before about making it easier to survive falling damage into water, but this installment of "Chuck" Dawson specifies how far he can fall and take little or no damage -- 40'.

Pep Morgan's sports-themed installment, this time, is about sailboat racing. I'm not expecting this to come up often in H&H, but if it does, I've got some useful tips here, like there's a danger of capsizing if you try to start off too fast. There's also some actions that could be applied to any race, like "trying to squeeze through on the inside", or crashing other vessels, or lightening the load. I wonder, though, if I need separate game mechanics for each of these?

Phil the Floater is a short comic piece by "Alger" with his squat funny people. Phil is a thief -- not of the Mysteryman type, but just a common thief. His trick is diversion, swipe, and run -- a trick just about anyone could try and have a chance to succeed at. I would treat it the same as picking pockets, with...maybe a 2 in 6 chance of success?

The Adventures of Marco Polo picks up where it left off, with Marco and family being attacked by a large snake. This is a smart snake, too -- in addition to trying to bite and constrict, this one also can try to trip with its coils! I am not opposed to giving such extra attacks to exceptional encounters, but normally the trip attack would take the place of the bite or constriction attack.

One of the people attacked by the snake has a sprained leg that's still bothering him the next day. Non-Hero characters can suffer all kinds of complications from injuries, that can linger as long as the Editor needs them to -- even after magical healing!  Heroes should be exempt from lingering complications, unless the Hero and Editor agree it is useful to the story.




(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

Action Comics #4 - part 1

For the entire length of 2015, I tracked the build-up of the Golden Age, from as far back as 1935, to September 1938. I have taken what I've learned from reading these comic books and sharing them with you, what I've learned that can make the RPG Hideouts & Hoodlums emulate Golden Age comics even better.  Now, here we are, returning on New Year's Day, for Year 2 of this project and a return to Action Comics.

Superman uses the power Outrun Train to reach the stalled auto before the train hits it, but why is Superman concerned that the driver will "kill us both"? Why would an invulnerable superhero say that? Because Invulnerability is a buffing power that Superman has either not prepared for today, or is too low in level and doesn't have yet.  Then Superman leaps away. That could be the power Leap I, but since Superman leaped so much in the early days, I just gave aliens that as a free ability.

What's really weird is that Superman just happens to pop into the train in exactly the right passenger car to overhear a plot hook. As Editor, your job will be to create the plot hooks, but not to pre-plan where the Heroes encounter the plot hooks. It's best just to have them spring up wherever the Heroes happen to be.

Superman makes a rare use of the Change Self power (with the flavor text of grease paint make-up to explain it).  Superman also shows a willingness to drug and kidnap people he needs out of the way to make his plans work. Non-Lawful behavior? It shows that H&H needs a flexible Alignment system that does not punish for deviation.

When Superman is getting punched and doesn't feel it, that's because his opponent is actually "missing" to hit Superman's Armor Class. The rest is only flavor text.

But did I miss an opportunity to introduce a new power -- something like "Untackleable"?  When Superman has four football players hanging off of him and keeps running, was that just lucky dice rolls from the grappling attacks? Perhaps a creative use of the power No Encumbrance to carry the four men on him and keep moving?

The pocket knife, snapping on Superman's tough skin, was my inspiration for the Super-Tough Skin power.

"Chuck" Dawson, in his story, demonstrates the cowboy stunt Summon Horse, while his opponent demonstrates Jump into Saddle. I don't know what I'm going to do with the Cowboy stunts in 2nd edition. Somehow fold them in with how skills will work? Make them available to everyone when they go to the Mythic West?

Chuck uses rope to rappel down a cliff. Although this would be a tough thing for me to do, I imagine this would be pretty easy for a Hero-type, and I wouldn't require a roll for it. Now, without rope, or if the cliff was wet...

Pep Morgan, in his feature, does a lot of swimming (he seems to move from sport to sport, monthly). First he does a rescue stunt in calm water and then another one in rapids later. Now, like the rock climbing mentioned above, the rescue in calm water probably needed no dice rolls. But swimming in rapids, fighting the current -- should that be something level-based, like a saving throw vs. science, or an un-graduated skill that everyone would have a 1 in 6, or 2 in 6, chance to perform?  For 2nd ed., I'm leaning towards the latter.

I don't often mention Alger's funny squat-figure people strips, but I found Bad Bill: the Menace of the Hills particularly amusing.  When the old guy says "Ain't you sorta jumpin' t' conclusions?" and Bill says "I allus jump t' conclusions!" -- I can just imagine Yosemite Sam saying something like that. Incidentally, the old man's bulletproof vest shows that armor might be appropriate for even a Western setting.

In The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco and Niku survive a sandstorm by finding shelter. but does the shelter shield them entirely from the storm, or only give them a bonus modifier to saving throws vs. science? At issue is, how important is shelter in avoiding environmental damage?

Later, Marco and his Uncle Mafflo engage in some holiday swimming racing. Since it's not important to the story, I'd just compare Strength scores, higher score wins. If it was more important -- like money or prestige was riding on it -- I might add a random element by comparing Strength +1d6.

Then the Polos see lions attacked by a python. It's a big python -- I don't know if I'd call it a giant constrictor snake, but it doesn't seem to be normal size. Huge? Lions were statted right away in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies. Regular constrictor snakes were statted in Book II, but I don't think I ever went the large/huge/giant routine with them.

(You can read this issue at the Comic Book Archives)