Famous Funnies #43

We'll pick up right where we left off with Hairbreadth Harry, being chased by a titan on an alien planet. Luckily, Harry finds some fruit -- ala Wonderland -- that makes him grow to titan size. Editors are strongly discouraged, though, to allow magical enlargement to make Heroes this big or this powerful. Something more gradual, like 20% per level, would be more reasonable. So, if Harry was a 3rd-level Fighter, maybe the fruit would just grow him 3', and increase his damage from 1-6 to 2-8.

Dickie Dare is on a new adventure, with a rich trophy as prize -- an "ultra-modern diesel yacht" -- and "diesel" being hi-tech and exotic at this time. There is no game mechanic bonus for something being diesel-powered, but as flavor text, it might hold extra meaning for the players.

The cobra on the abandoned dining room table seems completely random -- smacks of being a random wandering encounter to me!  Ordinary cobras as mobsters was last discussed here.

I'm not a big fan of the soap opera that is Olly of the Movies, but I do really like this statue of a dragon's mouth that opens onto a slide that leads, what appears to be, two levels deep.  Now that's good hideout dressing!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #29

The last War on Crime of 1936 looks to feature beat cops, detectives, drunken hoodlums and, is that a vamp maybe in the last tier?  It would be nice if you used more descriptive nouns, narrative captions!

Actually, maybe G-Men should be free of the hierarchical structure of the Fighter class, being based on police hierarchies. Could a G-Man just be a 2 HD Lawful mobster?

Skyroads has some useful transport information, with the speed of four different planes Heroes might be flying someday.

A supply schooner could be a transport trophy.

Dickie Dare finds a code-book could be as valuable a trophy as a treasure map.

The start of Adventures of Patsy. The part about being delivered by a stork, symbolic of her rebirth in her fantasy world, is a nice touch. I'm not going to stat storks though, even though this one seems to be unusually intelligent.

Now, the gnome-like denizens of Ods Bodkins need statting, as soon as the strip identifies what they actually are.

The magic crystal is, of course, a Crystal Ball.  King Silhouette must be a Magic-User?

The goose glider must be able to fly as long as it carries only a light payload -- perhaps a maximum of 150 lbs.?  No idea from here what its max speed would be.

Ajax the Giant isn't really much of a giant, is he?  He seems to be only twice the size of Patsy. Perhaps he is an ogre, at best.

Scorchy Smith and his friend Gus use some interesting science to solve a problem, charting wind patterns on a map to show where a gas attack might have came from. Smart players might want to remember this, in case they ever find their Heroes in a similar scenario.

Cigarette lighter is already on the starting equipment list, but as Olly of the Movies learns, it might be better to write in "waterproof" cigarette lighter on your items list and pay a cent extra for it.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #28

Scorchy Smith at last!  Here we have a new detail about the poison gas afflicting the locals; if victims miss their saves vs. poison, they are incapacitated for exactly 11 days.

Also worth mentioning is the sabotage sub-plot -- something that is going to affect Aviator Heroes more than perhaps any other Heroes.

Here we revisit the issue of hit points and healing. Swords & Wizardry: White Box Edition, the retro-clone H&H was originally built on, actually included a rule for bandaging wounds to recover 1d4 hit points, which I left out of H&H because it wasn't something that existed in That Other Game we all emulate. But bandaging wounds is definitely found in the comics, like here.  Should I bring the bandaging rule back in...?

Something else to reconsider is the "creasing the scalp" cliche with gunshots.  Currently, the save vs. missiles mechanic allows Heroes to take all or no damage from bullets, but that leaves out the scalp crease that only temporarily knocks a Hero unconscious. Perhaps "save for no damage" should be saved for higher level Heroes, or a save would crease your brow while saving at 5 higher than what you need dodges altogether?

On the subject of recovering from wounds, Dickie Dare is revived by "stimulants".  I'm not sure what that means in this context, whether he's been given drugs, smelling salts, or a nip of whiskey. None of this fits into the H&H game mechanics, where it takes 4 hours to wake up after being reduced to zero hit points, no matter how many nips of whiskey you've had. So what does this mean?  I'm not advocating that whiskey consumption should restore hp faster, but -- perhaps -- if someone else is trying to revive you for a specific purpose (like imparting information), you could make a save vs. plot to revive just to say a few important things.

Whale ho!  I was very hesitant to put whales in H&H because what purpose would they serve?  You can't really fight a whale; they're just too big. As a force of nature, whales are better served as a sort of natural trap: if you move through this section of ocean, you run into the risk of a whale knocking your boat over -- but it isn't there to really fight.

I keep thinking I'm not going to ever think of anything to say about Seaweed Sam ever again, but...here we get a sort of hidden land where the Fountain of Youth is, and the actually intriguing idea that the fountain turns people into babies, but one's who retain adult intelligence and coordination -- so that you've got babies shooting bows and arrows.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #15

The aviator genre in comics was often about nonfictional education as much as it was about the fictional characters.  Studying early comics, like this one, could help an Editor learn a lot about the specifics of planes he can later hand out as trophies in-game.  It's like Wikipedia, but with more drawings!

The arrival of a lion (statted in Hideouts & Hoodlums Book II: Mobsters & Trophies) may precipitate a series of morale saves, even if the lion is not acting overtly hostile.

Yes, that is meant to be Oliver Hardy in the first panel.  Do not shy away from using topical celebrities in a historical campaign.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)