More Fun #8 - pt. 1

This issue starts out with a doozy of a trap -- or a doozy of a name for a trap.  Welcome to the Dungeon Well and the Balcony of Doom!  The trap is actually very simple.  A one-way door opens onto a balcony overlooking a vertical shaft with water at the bottom.  However, the level of the water in the shaft can be controlled by a levers at the top of the shaft, and the water can be raised all the way to the top of the shaft.  Shortly, anyone on the balcony drowns, floats off, and is flushed out to sea when the water level is dropped back down. Of course, one-way doors are no match for a Superhero's wrecking things ability, but Sandra of the Secret Service and her pals don't have that luxury...

A goat again!  Yes, I'm glad I statted goats already.  For some reason (mabe because it's funny), goats seem to be treated as fearsome antagonists. Maybe I should make them 1-1 Hit Dice!  This page also illustrates how useful they are for goat milk.

Things look grim here for Captain Grim!  Natives are statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies and I've already talked about jumping and falling as game mechanics, but here we have the added danger of a roof on fire!  Should Capt. Grim be taking damage each turn?

The flames certainly seem to be crowding right around Capt. Grim, though perhaps that is just artistic license. If the fire was in the same 10' square as Grim, then yes, Grim should be taking some damage each turn, from heat and smoke inhalation, if not the flames themselves.  I would recommend 1d6 damage, though a generous Editor could allow a saving throw vs. science each turn to avoid the damage. Of course, perhaps Grim is taking damage every turn, but he's just got so many hit points that it isn't bothering him yet!

"Non-Superhero wrecking things" at work, a mechanic squirreled away at the back of Book II.  An Editor could easily give a penalty to the item saving throw if a battering ram is used.

Aw, the apparitions we encountered last time with Slim Pickens turned out to be men in disguise.  Shades of Scooby Doo!  This time, Slim surprises us again by solving an encounter with a dangerous ape (statted in Book II as having 3 Hit Dice), not with combat, but by recruiting it as a Supporting Cast Member!  The original SCM rules were unclear on this, but a later clarification in a Q&A column of The Trophy Case ruled that, yes, you could recruit animal Supporting Case Members.

Mountain lions were statted in Supplement III: Better Quality, only called cougars.

Aboard the yacht, Barry O'Neill and Legrand encounter a trap combined with a trophy -- the statuette not only contains a radio transmitter that allows Fang Gow to talk to them, but the statuette is also a disguised raygun that combines the effects of a paralysis ray with hypnotism!  To be fair, I would allow one saving throw for both effects, rather than force the player to make two successful ones.

Note that the secret door the Yellow Peril Hoodlums (statted in Book II) use is a simple sliding panel.  Secret doors do not need to be complicated.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus at  http://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=11622&b=i)

New Fun #5 - pt. 1

Although lacking access to New Fun #3-4, I have read #5 and can comment at length on its applicability to the Hideouts & Hoodlums roleplaying game, starting with the cover story.



Jack Woods here demonstrates the Cowboy stunt of tracking. One could argue that he also demonstrates the Mysteryman skill of climbing, although that roof is pretty low and we don't actually know that he didn't just step up on a rain barrel to reach the roof.  One could also make an argument for keen hearing being a stunt from this page.  Normally, all Heroes have the same chance to hear noise, though.

I have had players who meticulously keep track of their number of shots fired, and other players who would just like to wing it. Personally, I feel I have enough things to keep track of during combat besides keeping track of ammo, so I came up with the optional rule that ammo only lasts a random number of combat turns. Either way you play it, it doesn't affect Jack, who can't act on that knowledge until the following turn anyway.

This has got to break a speed record for fastest pacing on a comic book page.  Don Drake is kept awful busy here, killing the Hideous Thing, which saves the Midget-Men of Zetruria and the Women Riders of the Winged Death, turning them both into his allies, only to get plucked up by a Giant!

The Winged Death is a peculiar-looking creature, worthy of a mobster entry in H&H.  It appears to be part giant insect and part giant bird. Other than that, there is little to go on in providing them with stats here. No doubt the installment in New Fun #4 would have yielded more clues, if I had access to it.

Too soon to say what kind of stats that Giant should have.

Trophy-wise, Barry O'Neill is surrounded by a treasure trove, if he survives long enough to start collecting loot. Since we last saw him, he's traded up from a patrol boat to a seaplane. Now he's being attacked by a fighter plane with two machine guns and a motor launch with a machine gun. And, assuming that top panel is honest and Fang Gow is really in China, then there is a very powerful radio receiver waiting for Barry to pick up in Paris.

Machine guns are fearsome weapons, but in the hands of a 1st-level Fighter they have only a 50% chance of hitting the average AC 9 target, and given the rules for vehicular combat they should be suffering a penalty to hit depending on how fast the vehicles are going. As originally statted in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, machine guns give four attacks per turn, which does make the odds of a hit on Barry's plane substantially higher. More likely, the Editor here is using the revised artillery rules from The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 5, which allows a machine gun to hit up to 8-10 different targets, but only 1 hit vs. each target. While neither version may be entirely accurate to reality, the later revision at least keeps the weapon from becoming an instant kill vs. mid-level Heroes, while playing up its usefulness in mass combat.

A misthrown stone knocking out an Indian           makes much more sense using the original weapon damage for H&H, where every non-trophy weapon does the same 1d6 points of damage.  Using later revisions to weapon damage, the stone would probably be downgraded to 1-3 points of damage -- which still makes this scene possible, if the Indian happened to have low hit points.

There is no game mechanic that would account for a tomahawk falling on a gun and setting it off; this would clearly be a freebie thrown to the player by a generous Editor.

The Indians are unlikely to be surprised in the game mechanic sense of surprising an opponent, since they must know the campers are there. Rather, "surprise" is probably indicative of their emotion when they fail their morale saves during the first turn of combat.

Humor strip Slim Pickens seemed an unlikely source for any H&H goodness, but here Slim is, exploring a haunted house in true H&H fashion. I have a sneaky suspicion that the Screeching Thing will turn out to be a man in disguise in the following issue, but the way its bony hands go for his throat reminds me of the Apparition from AD&D's Fiend Folio. Hmm...


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)