Fantastic Comics #2 - pt. 3

This is Richard of Warwick, possibly intended to be the real-life Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, but here is called The Golden Knight. It's telling that the Muslim knights are taking him prisoner, treating him well, and still all he wants to do is kill them all.

Ironically, one of the reasons I made Hideouts & Hoodlums is because I wanted to get away from RPGs where the main goal is always to kill your adversaries. Oh well...

If Richard was a Mysteryman this would be easy -- spend a stunt, instant arrow split!  But The Golden Knight is obviously a fighter archetype, which means we are bound by the attack roll mechanic fighters have to follow.

Now, for hitting a bulls-eye, we could probably assign Armor Class values to the target based on the average probable chance of hitting the bulls-eye. Unfortunately, it's not easy finding an absolute average for that -- just too many variables. I've seen numbers for the probability of hitting a bulls-eye range everywhere from 1% to 36%. So let's go with the average of that and say 18.5%, and maybe we'll even round up to an even 20%.  The AC that has an equivalent value for level 1 fighters is AC 2. Let's assume that is at short range.

How to account for splitting the arrow, as opposed to the second arrow just bouncing off? Let's assume the difficulty is just 5% worse for that, and drop the target's AC to 1. If someone then came along after Richard and wanted to split his arrow, they would have to hit AC 0.

Oh, and that feast? All I see is a bowl of fruit, so I don't think it's the "feast" that Richard finds so splendorous...

Despite a fair amount of historical bigotry, I can't help but like this feature. A major part of that is this girl, Lady Elissa. By coincidence, Ehlissa is a major character in my own webcomic, and I once ran a 10-year D&D campaign in the Land of Ahlissa (South Province).

This first panel is a little confusing. The "one blow" that "felled" that man did not knock him unconscious, because he's still talking. Was he knocked prone by the blow (which means we need a knock down rule for H&H?)? Was the "blow" a grappling attack?

Later, it looks like Richard killed the two guards. Is he making a cruel joke about them being "quiet for a long, long time"? Are they dead? Remember, at the normal mood setting for H&H campaigns, it is almost impossible for a Hero to accidentally kill someone, so these guards are unconscious -- unless the mood of the scenario is set to very dark.

This is Yank Wilson, Super Spy Q-4. The spy was an unpopular Hero class in 1st edition H&H and is unlikely to return in 2nd edition.

Besides the unusually distinctive artwork (comics.org says it's by Jack Parr, but I wonder if he was only inking Fine or Eisner?), I like this page for the unusually specific planning of the bad guys. We know they need 50 spies to work the plan. We know they need 100 tons of super-explosive -- which is scary, because this is what exploding 100 tons of TNT looks like. We know they plan to use "misleading and subversive propaganda to shatter public morale," 56 years before Fox News. And it's interesting how Count Lustig Von Blackgard either slips up, or mistakenly thinks the U.S. has a secret police as his own country does.

Now, despite all that elaborate planning, Count Von Blackgard went and spelled "sabotage" backwards as the name of his dummy company. Now, I am torn about this because, while it makes the villain seem like an idiot if the players figure it out too quickly, it also seems like the sort of puzzle that players will likely be able to solve on their own, and little is more frustrating for players than puzzles they cannot figure out.

I'm curious what "devious legal channels" it took to rent the office next to Egatobas', but I can imagine they had to use some sort of subterfuge to get the previous tenants to leave quickly and quietly.

Hmm, drugging bad guys with narcotics? A very rare, but not unprecedented move for a Hero in the Golden Age. At least it's just a sleeping drug; I would have to draw the line and forbid Heroes from using lethal drugs.

At this point in the scenario, Yank has little to do but coordinate. As players, it would be more fun for the players to control squads of the G-Men attacking the saboteurs at the docks. Given their love of bombs, I wonder if it would make more sense to stat the saboteurs as anarchists, rather than spies. To date, I have not seen anything distinctive about saboteurs to build their own mobster type/archetype around.

Fletcher Hanks' Space Smith faces Martian ogres, which I'm guessing are like normal fantasy ogres, except their number of appearing can be over 100, and they have their own spaceships.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Smash Comics #5 - pt. 2

Wow, it's been so long, I finished and published the HIDEOUTS & HOODLUMS Basic Book 2nd Edition between posts!

I love how the Scientective uses science for problem-solving. Here, he realizes that something in the room with him can dissolve the material binding his wrists. Of course, a smart Editor anticipates things like this and stocks his hideouts accordingly.

"Rheostat" is a word that's fallen out of common usage. It means an adjustable resistor so constructed that its resistance may be changed without opening the circuit in which it is connected, thereby controlling the current in the circuit.  Of course, John could have just said "This switch ought to shut off the power," but that wouldn't sound very Science-y!

With little time to spare, John Law has to start playing hunches. His first hunch is that the brand new power plant right by the tracks can't be a coincidence, just like every reader was probably thinking on the first page.

John is able to smash the generator easily despite not being a superhero (and wouldn't he be in trouble if his hunch had been wrong!). I did include a note in the scientist entry in the mobsters section of the H&H 2nd ed. basic rulebook that scientists can all wreck labs -- but John is a Hero, not a mobster. For now, this will just have to fall outside the game mechanics...until the scientist class comes back in the Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes Handbook someday...

There's a very curious editor's note about a giant induction field displayed at the New York World's Fair. I have not been able to find evidence of this, unless the editor is referring to the automated highway system demonstrated in the Futurama exhibit. I can find no evidence that Russian scientists were ever working on a "floating railroad." Could the author have read something about the electrification of the Russian railway system and misunderstood...?

This is from Wings Wendall and what makes me stop and pause is...what did that officer look up commercial airplane listings in?  Trade journals? Records of the Civil Aeronautics Authority? If Wings is flying with the U.S. Army Air Corps, how do they have these civilian records close at hand?

I like to think these hoodlums are just sitting there in warehouse drinking and planning because they're drunken hoodlums.

I've waffled for a long time now on how vehicular combat should go in Hideouts & Hoodlums. Do weapons trigger a chance of complications, like crashing? Or should it, like man-to-man combat, be a incremental process of hit point loss? The wording of "guns take their toll" suggests to me the latter, as the abstract, cumulative damage -- not any one hit on any one part -- is what causes the crash. But I've so far seen evidence in the comics that support both ways.

The idea that the Boss left such a simple note for Agent M-29 on a scrap of paper, rather than expecting him to commit a single sentence to memory, is an obviously planted clue. But planted for a trap, or by an Editor who really wants his player to get to that warehouse?

It's also worth noting that Wings doesn't head straight to the warehouse, but reports his intention to his superior officer first. That's a very Lawful way to play.

Why is one window locked and another window left open? It could be saves vs. plot, or it could be a simple 1-3 yes/4-6 no roll. The first option makes Heroes luckier as they advance in level, while the second option keeps circumstances at an even random chance.

We also see Wings being surprised. Fresh arrivals to an ongoing combat still get a chance at surprise.

Wings is attacked here by gangsters, a new mobster type with a special ability of getting victims into cars.

Although players should have some control over their supporting cast, they cannot just arbitrarily declare that their SCMs show up when the Hero is in trouble. The players can suggest that SCMs show up, and the Editor can decide if he should say yes or no, or give them a save vs. plot to see if it happens.

This sequence reminded me, while preparing the chase rules for 2nd edition, that I needed to include a missile combat phase during the chase turn!

I think I missed this, though -- when I compiled a list of abstract complications that could happen during a chase, I may have missed the slowing complication, like a flat tire. I'll have to double check...

Wings recovers quickly because of the new rule in 2nd ed. that allows unconscious Heroes a save vs. plot to recover in 1-6 turns. Because he's still in danger, turns are still being counted in half minutes.

The "boss" is either a master criminal or, if the spy class was in use, a higher level spy.

This is Invisible Justice. Thurston is driven off the road during a car chase (the complication is crash, but because there's water nearby to crash into, Thurston only loses the car and takes no damage).

Here's a precedent for invisibility, at least granted by trophy items, not turning items touched invisible.

Old mansions, on the only estates for miles around, make great hideouts (plus, its fairly easy to find a map of a generic mansion you can use for your game on short notice).

Large patio doors without closed drapes make a great way to spy on the hideouts' occupants before going in.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Mystery Men Comics #3 - pt. 2

The figure floating around in near-background-less panels here is Wing Turner, Air Detective. And if I seem too flip about the art, know that I am earnestly appreciative of the story details here. The pulling of the parachute cord to defeat an opponent and the intention of using the net to tangle the propeller are both good ideas -- and ones unsupported by any game mechanic in Hideouts & Hoodlums. But that's okay; when your player comes up with a clever way to win a fight quickly, sometimes you should just let it work without any dice rolls.

Maybe it's less okay when the Editor does this for himself, of course. Rather than working out ensnaring rules for non-human targets in every instance, one could just use a blanket save vs. plot or science (for the pilot, in this case).

Dan Garrett is revealed to be The Blue Beetle in this story. Here, the mysteryman punches a guy and knocks him back about 15'. And this isn't even a superhero. I have rules for pushing in combat in 2nd edition, but over time I may find my rules are too conservative as combat scenes gradually push this envelope.

This is Inspector Bancroft of Scotland Yard and this is at least the second time I've seen the "he can't talk because his tongue is cut out" cliche in comic books. And...as gross as it is, and I hate to do it to even my own mobsters as Editor -- I have to admit, it's an awfully good way to keep the Heroes from being able to question your bad guys and find out too much.

Now, Bancroft could have easily gone back to Scotland Yard and tried to enlist 20-odd policemen armed with shotguns for this raid, but he decided to go back in, unarmed, with one beat cop with a billy club as back-up. The Editor here could have had a hideout prepared full of well-armed mobsters with flak jackets, sub-machine guns, grenades -- the works -- and just stuck to his guns and killed off Bancroft. It could have been a lesson in playing smart for the future, but it wouldn't have been very fun. So a smart Editor pairs down the occupants, and limits their weapons to swords and knives, just enough to keep it challenging.

 Secret Agent D-13 is a perfect example here of one of the special abilities of the spy class (found in TTC v. 2 no. 5) that doesn't port over well to any other classes -- the ability to requisition trophy items (the seaplanes, in this case).  I guess, though, that this could be the result of a really positive encounter reaction roll, when first being given a mission.

I don't know what's going on here. Why is the radio in the wireless room hooked up to a huge dynamo? It's a radio, not a mad scientist's lab. And why is this radio able to knock out power to the whole rest of the ship? Is there no fuse box? Sometimes an Editor can go too easy on the player(s).

One nice thing about having your Heroes under orders -- they can't just commandeer captured submarines and sail off in them, unless you want them to have the sub. In this case, D-13 has to chose between a motor launch and riding around in somebody else's destroyer.

Also, 12-inch cannons are hugely dangerous in the hands of a superhero with lifting powers, so be careful putting them out there.

This is Zanzibar the Magician. He found this opium den, not by spell, but by smell -- exploring rooftops until he detected the odor from the building below.

The bad guy looks too non-threatening to be a Fu Manchu villain and is probably a Master Criminal at best.

The spell Zanzibar uses on the blowgun dart -- Protection from Missiles, with the bubbles as flavor text?

Is the hatchet turned into a snake an illusion? The spell descriptions are not crystal clear on the subject, but I believe an illusion spell could kill. That, or this is some Polymorph Weapon spell (such as we've seen Zatara cast many times already). The spell on the sword is some time of Shatter spell. Sanchoo (an absolutely terrible attempt at a Chinese name) is polymorphed into something frightening, but I don't think it's the spell that terrifies the mobsters as much as a missed morale save after all these spells.

2nd edition will be talking about magic-users casting spells and how they can do it with their hands tied.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Smash Comics #1 - pt. 1

We continue the exciting (cover date) month of August 1939, when a lot of companies first started adding new titles to jump on the sales boost that Superman had begun. Today, we find Quality Comics finally putting a second title out in the field.

Smash Comics leads with Espionage, the best feature from Feature Comics. This story is an allegory for Germany and Europe obviously, and carries with it some significant alternate history for South America. Editors can be free to shake up world history as much as they want in their campaigns.

For some reason Black X is called Black Ace in this story.

Disguise is clearly central to being a Spy, and is the primary ability of the Spy class.

Black X/Ace's strategy is borrowed straight from "A Scandal in Bohemia". Feel free to borrow from the classics when running or playing in your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns.

I usually give Will Eisner credit for having well-thought out his stories, but this one seems a little lacking. If Koran's empire extends only as far north as Brazil, then does it make sense for the freedom fighters to be in Colombia, outside the empire? And how did Mara Hani get there ahead of Black X/Ace? I could imagine players crying foul there.

The numbness in Black X/Ace's arm seems to be mere flavor text, as it doesn't seem to be affecting his fighting ability any.

Jaguars we've seen before, and were statted in Supplement III.

Another example of a Hero taking "months" to recover from injuries, while a mobster dies from conditions that, for a Hero, could have been avoided with simple first aid and rest.

I include this page of Philpot Veep, Master Detective for three reasons. One, the inside joke on the wanted poster in the background about G. Brenner (long-time readers will recognize that as the creator of The Clock!); two, $8.65 is apparently a reasonable price for a radio, with tubes, in 1939; and three, the casual reference to Sherlock Holmes' infamous cocaine addiction.

Interestingly, we saw this same panel of the gar-wrestling man in another comic book, from a different publisher! This title from Quality and Fiction House's Jumbo Comics both had the Will Eisner shop in common -- does this mean both comic books were produced by his shop? Or was Eisner able to re-sell the already-published page because no one paid attention to the educational filler?

Swordfish were also covered here. A 450 lb. swordfish would only qualify as a large, 2 Hit Dice, swordfish.

This is Chic Carter, Ace Reporter, the new feature from Vernon Henkel, who we've seen before doing Gallant Knight.

A monogrammed broken watch fob is a good clue for an Editor to let Heroes find.

Players will know when they got a good encounter reaction roll, when the police walks in on their Heroes, catches them compromising a crime scene, and still just lets them walk away.

This is not a tactic I would normally recommend, since there's a good chance the bad guys will try harder to lose you. But if you're confident in your driver, you might want to make it easy to let the bad guys know you're tailing them, so they'll stop and attack you or try to capture you.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Mystery Men Comics #1 - pt. 3

I am going to start a dangerous (for myself!) precedent today and allow myself three days to discuss this particular issue.

So -- back to The Blue Beetle! Tear gas canisters would be an uncommon enough item to keep them off the starting equipment list, but it's not rare enough to be anything but a mundane trophy item. Now, a tear gas capsule, on the other hand, is a pretty potent example of miniaturization. It's too small to contain the gas, so it must be releasing something that mixes the chemicals already in the air.

This is D-13, Secret Agent. In his inauspicious debut, D-13 strips down to his bathing suit and gets caught, kind of literally, with his pants down.

Now, currently, there is no distinction in Hideouts & Hoodlums between grappling holds; you have the same chance to achieve and to escape a one-arm hold as you do a two-arm hold. I'm thinking of changing that in 2nd edition.

This feature of a radio-controlled door, that opens when it hears the door tapped, seems like a good trick for a hideout.

We've seen a LOT of the flooding room trap already, but it's almost a novel twist to tie the prisoner up and hang them upside down in the flooding room trap. D-13 has trouble freeing his feet, even though he was working his hands free -- separate skill checks to escape both?

It's an awful easy trap to escape, though, to leave the door unlocked and unguarded.

And lastly, should ranchers be statted for the mobster section? Hmm...

I'm not sure what to make of this one. That leapfrog off a man's back and then vaulting over the wall sure looks like a Mysteryman stunt to me. Should spies be statted as Mysterymen instead of Fighters? In some ways it makes sense to, especially if you're not using the optional Spy class.

Haha, I can't believe they fell for the cablegram trick! (This is Lt. Drake of the Naval Intelligence, by the way.)

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Detective Comics #28

We're back around to Detective Comics again already, with this being the second appearance of The Bat-Man.

The Bat-Man demonstrates voice mimicry in this story. That's not currently a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums. I'll...consider how important/useful it would be.

When The Bat-Man kicks a thief off a roof (to the man's death, no less), he's using a throw attack. A flip/throw can make your opponent prone or move him 5', if you hit and he fails his save vs. science.

In the world of comic books, confessions signed under duress caused by vigilantes seem to be fully admissible in court. I wonder if H&H needs a short article on the law in a comic book world.

While most Buck Marshall, Range Detective (moved to here from Action Comics) stories followed the same pattern of following tracks to the killer, this one starts with the unusual premise of Buck being arrested, and then told he was arrested so he could talk to the prisoner in the cell next to him and try to get some kind of confession out of him. It's an interesting set-up for an adventure, though I could see players holding a grudge for the sheriff not telling them his plan first.

In the most ridiculous example of disarming a gunman to date, Buck does so by swinging a hat.

Someone else besides Joe Shuster is drawing Spy in this issue, and the story hurts for it. Bart's partner Sally is still missing from the strip, which also saps much of the uniqueness out of it.

I'm not sure what country "Baralia" is supposed to be, but unless it's Mexico or Canada I really don't see how they plan to get their tanks and infantry to the United States.

Bart demonstrates picking a lock (could be a spy class feature, but I plan to give it to everyone anyway).

Lee Travis, The Crimson Avenger, falls off the running board of a fast-moving car, fast enough that the damage makes him need to see a doctor afterwards. Maybe we need to fashion a game mechanic for horizontal falling? If speed was the only factor, then falling while going 20 MPH would do 1-6 points of damage, 40 MPH would do 2-12 damage, 80 MPH would do 3-18 points of damage, and so on.

The Crimson trades in his gas gun for itching powder in this story, though the itching powder is encountered off-panel and we never see how effective it's supposed to be. Speaking of effectiveness, The Crimson gets kidnapped, not once, but twice in this story by hoodlums.

Bruce Nelson is shown being able to read Spanish. The H&H rules talk about not bothering with making Heroes keep track of what languages they can speak; at least the common written languages need to be covered in that too.

A mastiff runs loose in Doctor Fu Manchu. Dogs were the pit bulls of their time, in terms of reputation for violence (and probably equally undeserved). While I had previously statted dogs as 1+1 Hit Dice, 2 Hit Dice might not be unreasonable for mastiffs.

(Batman story read from Batman Archives vol. 1. I managed to read most of the rest of the story at readcomics.net until malware on the site overcame my malware blockers. May have to stop using that site...)

Feature Funnies #15

Continuing through the last published titles cover dated December 1938, we come back around to the flagship title of Quality Comics and a page of Joe Palooka. Is this evidence that falling damage needs to round up to 10', instead of starting at 10'?  Unless that's a really deep pool?

The Jane Arden strip was a lot like the Federal Trade Commission, educating the public about scams.  Here, the scam is a slick hoodlum who appears to have a cashier's check he needs cashed offers someone a commission to cash it for him, but the check is a forgery he wants to trade for real money.

Here's a thought -- black cats as a mobster type? It seems a common enough trope to have black cats crossing people's paths and, indirectly or not, causing bad luck. The bad luck might be a -1 to all rolls for the next 1d4 hours, while the cat might have 1-2 hit points.

This is The Clock, and the trope here is that the Law always overreacts when a Hero is suspected of a crime and goes after the Hero harder than they ever seem to do to criminals. Of course, the real reason behind this is so the Hero can go up against Lawful opponents for a change of pace.

Malta is an example of a slick hoodlum. The charm ability of the slick hoodlum might be easily misunderstood; it's less like hypnosis or mind control and more like the ability to tempt the Hero -- either tempt him to take a bribe, simply let the hoodlum go, or go along with some plan. The Clock clearly made his saving throw.

Will Eisner seems to have had his hand on the pulse of American society, circa 1938, on where they stood on going to war. This will change later, of course.

Several things about this page of Espionage, starring Black X.  One -- should Heroes have an easier time seeing through disguises than others? Maybe only spies?

Two, that's a pretty cool encounter area -- a secret door in the back of an office that leads to outdoor steps that one can take down to a concealed dock.

Three, living shields -- how would that work? For one, I would require a non-Fighter to make a save vs. plot to use someone else as a living shield, the same as if they had tried to fire at the victim themselves. Then, I would treat the living shield as soft cover. Then, only if the attack missed by 1 or 2 would I treat it as a hit on the living shield. I would not encourage this by making it too effective.

This is from Mickey Finn and doesn't really have anything to do with Hideouts & Hoodlums -- but I have never liked escalators and always imagine something like that happening to me on them.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)