Top-Notch Comics #2 - pt. 2

The second feature in this issue is Dick Storm.  Yeah.  Despite the awful name, this is one of the earliest features drawn by golden age great Mort Meskin.

It also illustrates the value of level titles. When the officers go down, Dick is able to take command because his level title in the fighter class is equivalent to an officer (sergeants are 3rd level fighters and captains are 5th level fighters).

Note to self: still need a tripping mechanic. I've talked about it before here on the blog. I thought it was something I could skip in the basic rulebook, but here it is again already.

I'm normally skeptical of allowing attacks that hit multiple targets, but I would allow someone with a held grappling victim to use that victim as a thrown club.

More doubtful is how Storm is able to throw a heavy keg of explosives as far as he does, unless that hallway is a lot shorter than perspective makes it look. Although a thrown weapon can be hurled 30', for extra-heavy weights I would probably shave some distance off of that.

You'll have to read this page and the next page together before understanding my discussion of them. Indeed, the first page threw me at first because it says The Mystic is "unseen," but the woman next to him is not surprised to hear him speak. It turns out, on the next page, that the two of them came together and she is his supporting cast.

Although the Invisibility spell, as written, ends only when the Magic-User attacks, there must be a way to willingly "switch it off" and become visible again. The spell section in Hideouts & Hoodlums is unclear about if spells can be willed to end by the caster or if he needs to wait for the duration to end, and that is because I wanted to leave that up to the discretion of the individual Editors.

It is unclear how a movie projector could be projecting onto thin air. This reminds me of the 4th level power I came up with for Supplement I: National, called Simpler Explanation. Maybe these tricksters (see the Trickster class from The Trophy Case v. 1 #4) were actually using magic, but the Simpler Explanation power allowed the player to change the scenario.

Of course, a Magic-User would not be using Superhero powers, but we've seen scant evidence of The Mystic being a Mystic so far. He does not, for example, use any real magic to escape at the end of this page, but uses a flash bomb to cover ducking out (flash bombs have been trophy items since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies).  A Superhero cannot turn invisible unless we introduce a new power, or if The Mystic was a psionic superhero (psionics are from Supplement III: Better Quality).

The wording in panel 3 is curious; The Mystic is "surprised" by the thugs (thugs has been a mobster type since Book II), but seems to still get in the first attack. They either all missed in their surprise attacks, or they only "surprised" him by being in his home, and he still won initiative in combat.

The Mystic's disappearing trick resembles the 2nd edition spell (from the basic book) Poof! Diving into the box first could have concealed the smoke cloud that comes with the spell. Or, this could be a magical effect from the box, and the box is itself a magic item (Box of Poofing?).

It's hard to know what's going on here -- is The Mystic using real magic or stage magic? Nadir was a hero like this. If it is real magic, could the mirror and the dummy be flavor text for a Mirror Images spell?  If it isn't real magic, is The Mystic a Mysteryman, throwing his voice at mirrors and dummies and making the thugs save vs. plot or they attack the wrong target?

Objects thrown into a melee, that miss, may hit another random target, so that vase checks out.

I've talked before on here about the ol' pull-the-rug-out trick, which can be a simple save vs. science to resist. But to get tripped so that you fall into your own trap chair? That makes it seem like we should have fumbles for saves in H&H, except that we learn on the new page that he meant to do that so he could overhear them talking after he was "captured".

One has to wonder about The Mystic's house. Maybe it makes sense for a stage magician to build a trapdoor in his own home (for practice?), but did the thugs not notice and wonder about the giant slide hooked up to the outside of the house?

I like the idea of the trick telephone that only calls police headquarters.

This is Stacey Knight M.D., and this is a good example of when level titles don't work.  Because a police chief, by level titles, is the equivalent of a 6th level fighter, it is absurd that this doctor can talk him out of doing his job, unless Knight is also at least 6th level. Or maybe he rolled a max score on his encounter reaction check and the Editor decided to go really generous.

1940 is probably the closest to modern day you can get in a story where a doctor can say "there's not much money in this business" and not be obviously lying.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Top-Notch Comics #1 - pt. 2

As I move deeper into this issue past The Wizard's feature, it becomes clear that this issue was prepared by the same packager (Chesler?) that produced a lot of the early Centaur books...and has that same level of quality. Still, I found some things worth commenting on.

This feature is Scott Rand in the World of Time and, as a campaign idea, the focus would be on traveling through time and trying to pick up the most unusual supporting cast throughout history you can get. Here, we see Scott and his boss picking up a high-level Viking Fighter. On the following pages, they also recruit a very un-Egyptian-looking Egyptian princess.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums, language is not an issue -- except when the Editor chooses to make it one. In 2nd edition, there's a note about how the Editor can require a Hero to spend one month's time learning a new language, but these Heroes have a work around for that thanks to the timeless limbo their time ship can reach. This limbo also opens up all kinds of other possibilities for breaking the downplay parts of the game, like unlimited time for inventing things.

I think it's interesting to point out that the time ship has to move forward in physical space before it can time jump; it isn't a one or the other deal.

The Doctor Who parallels should also be pretty obvious and need no elaboration.

From Air Patrol, we see the Aviator stunt Find Blind Spot. Also the stunt Find Origin Story?

Interesting, that the dog fight takes almost an hour of game time to resolve. In second edition H&H, an hour is 120 combat turns!  Maybe aerial combat needs to be run at a different speed?

A rare example of "splash" damage from a comic book (I mean the fire "splashing", not the splashing from hitting the water).

This is from The Mystic.  I find it interesting because, despite the trappings of a magic-user, The Mystic appears to only have skills like escape artistry, which makes him more of a Mysteryman. Never be fooled by the trappings.

This is from Manhunters, showing the true crime genre being a poor fit for Jack Cole.

So how hard should it be to vault a 6-foot fence?  The world record for pole vaulting was almost 15' circa 1939, and that's the closest comparison I can think of. If we rounded down to something divisible by 6 and split the feet between pips on a 6-sided die, that would give us: a 1 in 6 chance to vault 11-12', a 2 in 6 chance to vault 9-10', a 3 in 6 chance to vault 7-8', a 4 in 6 chance to vault 5-6', a 5 in 6 chance to vault 3-4', and vaulting 1-2' would be automatic successes.

And that's all assuming the Editor has time to break things down like that. On the fly, I probably would have ruled a 2 in 6 chance, but might have compromised with a 3 or even a 4 in 6 chance depending on how good a case the players made I was wrong.

Okay, there's no way a belt buckle counts as armor, so using it to explain the miss is just flavor text. I think I've used this example, or something like it, from a comic book story before, though. The real reason I like this page is because Sukup is such a comically ridiculous name, as is the line "Alright, Sukup, come along!"

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)