Adventure Comics #48 - pt. 3

When we left off with Socko Strong, he was confronting Monte on the wing of a flying plane about Monte's attempts to kill him. In a clever trick, even though both parachutes are actually fine, Socko pretends he switched parachutes on Monte to give him the "sabotaged" one. You would think Socko would use this trick to make Monte confess, but instead Socko pushes him off the wing to panic him, just to pay him back.

Moving on to Steve Conrad, Adventurer, we find Steve on a cruise where he spots and recognizes 'Singapore Sal,' a notorious jewel thief (perhaps after making an INT ability score check?). When she leaves the deck, Steve is surprised she didn't notice him, suggesting they've met before (and letting us know that Steve had surprise in that encounter?). Sal's partner is called Slick -- he's almost surely a slick hoodlum. Steve comes up with a pretty clever trick where he has his comic sidekick slip a handwritten, signed note by Steve under the door, then listen to the two of them talk about their plans through the door after they read it. 

The next wrinkle in the story is that Steve tries to stop the valuable jewels on the ship from being stolen. The would-be thief appears to be Slick, but he's wearing a mask and, surprisingly, he manages to get away from Steve easily after just hitting him once with a sap (and not even a head blow at that). When Steve confronts Slick he discovers it wasn't him -- Slick is not wearing the same jacket and hasn't had time to change it. Although the wrinkle requires a bit of railroading to let the thief escape, it winds up being a pretty interesting wrinkle. The clue turns out to be the cord Steve tore off the thief; he doesn't know where he's seen it before until he remembers it was holding another passenger's monocle in place (if the player had trouble thinking of this, maybe he was allowed to "remember" after an INT check). 

The only other thing I'm going to say about the Steve Conrad story is that it is extremely verbose with big word balloons in almost every panel.

Am I just going to have to accept that it's a lot easier to throw a missile weapon hard enough to pin it into a wall in comics than real life? In Rusty and His Pals, Rusty manages to throw a spear -- and it's not really a spear, it's just called a spear in the story but it's clearly a lance -- across a room, knocks a man's gun out of his hand, sails right past him, and still hits the wall hard enough to become embedded into it. Did I mention Rusty looks like he's 11 years old? You know...sure, why not. Embedding in the wall is just flavor text at the end of the combat turn that doesn't affect the disarming attack or anything in the following turn. 

Having cleared the bad guys out of the house, they consider the clue they have, that they're supposed to look "behind Stevenson," and then they figure out that there's something in the library behind a copy of Treasure Island -- a clever clue, so long as no one felt like reading it and took it back to their room, of course. Behind the book is a button that opens a secret door. The boys realize they need to consider illumination issues behind the secret door so they all fetch candles. They mysterious passage looks straight out of D&D, leading to a small room with a chair, desk, and a small chest on the desk. The desk contains both a clue, a journal, and a secret clue concealed in a false top -- a single sheet of paper, the contents of which we'll find out next issue.

In Anchors Aweigh, we hear about the trick of putting cotton in your nose to make it look broader, when disguising yourself as someone with a broader nose. There is an interesting wrinkle to the story where Kerry finds out the man he's impersonating has a wife who he has to push away without making her suspicious. The last page, though, is terribly confusing. When the Naval officers burst in on the smugglers' headquarters, they leave the driver tied up in the elevator. The driver, trying to escape, makes the elevator go down with his feet. Somehow, the elevator doors do not close on their own (did elevators not have automatic doors at this time?), so the boss smuggler backs up to the elevator and falls. But...somehow he falls onto the driver at the bottom of the shaft and not onto the roof of the elevator car. Were there ever roofless elevators?

Lastly, Cotton Carver and Deela crash-land in a petrified valley where the challenge of this scenario is finding food! On day 2, they find a tree with edible berries (skill check to identify they are not poisonous?). Hunting for meat, Cotton knows he will run out of bullets soon, so he builds a bow. The terrain gets progressively worse for them; they come across a chasm thousands of feet deep filled with hot geysers, and at their backs they encounter three ape men armed with warclubs weighted for throwing. The ape men seem unusually intelligent and manage to defeat Cotton, then carry them away down to the bottom of the chasm by leaping from branch to branch growing out of the rock wall. Cotton was only stunned and cowardly shoots the ape men in the back (I guess with his last bullets?). Too bad he didn't try to talk to the ape men, because it seems like they could talk. They probably also were responsible for making the stairs they find, and the tall ladders that lead to the top of a volcanic cone. The volcanic cone is dangerous because of poisonous fumes in the air. Both of them make saving throws vs. poison and Deela fails, faints, and falls off the ladder. Cotton grabs her with an attack roll, then makes a Strength check, probably with a significant penalty (-5? More?) to continue climbing the ladder one-handed, while holding Deela with the other.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

  

Adventure Comics #47 - pt. 2

Moving on to Jerry Siegel's Federal Men...so often, it's senators or generals being bumped off in comic books that it's novel when a government employee with a distinctly different job title is going to be killed. This one is particularly novel, because the position of "Commissioner of National Functions" seems entirely fictional. Even the "Eastern Exposition" is fake, which is weird because it almost surely refers to the New York World's Fair, and DC has already had plenty of stories referring to the New York World's Fair by name.

The plot is a little strange; Steve Carson is knocked out and left in a house with a dying man. Normally, in a story, this is to frame someone for the murder, but the story never goes there.

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Another wrinkle is that the murderer isn't a spy, but an anarchist (which have been statted for the game since Supplement I).

At one point, Steve appears to get two completely different actions, taking a warning shot to alert the commissioner and then attacking the murderer/anarchist before the m/a gets to act. Normally, if the bad guy knows you're there, you don't get a surprise attack. I believe, even though the m/a clearly knows Steve is there, Steve still gets a surprise action because the warning shot is so unexpected. Then Steve wins initiative on his first turn of regular combat.

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Socko Strong is in Hollywood starring in a boxing movie. The director is Solly Lloyd and the rival star is Monte Swift, neither of which sounds familiar and are likely not stand-ins for any particular real life people. Monte is able to bribe someone on set to put Socko in danger for just $100. Later, Solly throws a party at his castle -- that's right, he's one of those eccentric rich people who have medieval castles built for them in the U.S., and he's even had deathtraps built into it, purely for his own amusement. Monte traps Socko in a pit with a locked cover that he can fill up with water.

Captain Desmo's enemy, Vasili Gerke, has taken a precaution that few game referees use because in most uses it would seem anticlimactic, but he has guards stationed outside his hideout, tasked with shooting at anyone escaping. One exit has a single sniper watching it, while another exit has a machine gun nest stationed over it.

Having escaped via swimming, and his sidekick Gabby having taken on too much water, Desmo has to perform artificial respiration, which in 1940 still means tipping someone face down and holding them by the ribs.

Desmo uses some unusual dialogue, once saying "We're one rifle to the good," which is either poorly written dialogue or maybe an archaic way of saying "We're one rifle better off than we were." He also uses the phrase "bite the dust," being the first time I've encountered this in a comic book.

Desmo can be a jerk, blaming the two guards that he knocks off a cliff to their deaths for "getting so close to the edge."

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Does using a gun grant a bonus to a wrecking things roll? Perhaps it should, to justify why Heroes would go the trouble when the noise can so clearly alert the entire hideout (as it does in this story).

Steve Conrad is back after a long break. Steve Conrad's adventure is a bit risque, with him trying to rescue a woman who is grabbed off the street and dragged into a brothel. How do Steve and his sidekick Chang know it's a brothel from outside...? Steve, like a player who's being too cautious for his Editor's plot hooks to work, backs down when the brothel's side entrance is guarded by six yellow peril hoodlums. Only when he reads later in the paper that the girl is the police commissioner's daughter is he shamed into investigating further.

Maybe it's understandable that Steve chickened out earlier; when he comes back, he is bonked over the head and captured immediately. The Editor scales down the scenario to make it less challenging, but goes too far; after Chang rescues Steve, they find all the bad guys are on opium highs and easily tied up.


(Read at readcomiconline.to.)

New Adventure Comics #25

Dale Daring starts with a fall out a window, and it's interesting that the fall only lightly injures Dale and kills his opponent. In Hideouts & Hoodlums, all falling damage is nonlethal unless you fall during a deathtrap. At least that is true for Heroes; I think I will make all falling damage potentially lethal to non-Heroes.

When the police arrive, Dale's word isn't even questioned. This is just the sort of "soft mechanic" (no numbers involved) that I had envisioned for level titles having. Had Dale been of a lower title than the police arriving, then he would have needed to persuade them through roleplaying and the Editor would have needed to roll a positive encounter reaction roll.

This installment of Robin Hood brings up an interesting issue -- if all ranges for missile weapons are the same (and they are, as previously described in Book I, but now found in Book III), then how does one win an archery contest of distance? When a variable amount of distance is needed, I would add the results of a d20 roll to the ranges listed.

Make no mistake, this ape doesn't know Steve Conrad from Adam, yet he immediately leaps in to help. It should not be possible to automatically attract Supporting Cast Members without even trying, so this is clearly a freebie from the Editor, who realized too late that he'd made the scenario too challenging.

It would seem that a dagger between the eyes, killing a leopard, might be proof of a critical hit mechanic in place in H&H. I am still biased against the notion, though I'll try to keep an open mind. The situation could also be explained by the leopard just having unusually low hit points.


(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #23

The Adventures of Steve Conrad includes, if not the first, at least one of the first dives off a balcony to swing on a chandelier in comic books. As much as a staple as this is of the action genre in general, I almost hate to attach any game mechanics to it. A roll, perhaps a save vs. science, could tell you if the jump-and-swing was carried off with aplomb or not.

Nothing says "Run for your lives!" quite like having turtles chasing you. Granted, these "army-turtles" are large in size (and look more like tortoises, really). I might be generous and assign these 2+1 HD, a 9 Move, an AC 4, and have those beaks do 1-8 damage.

Bob (from Captain Jim of the Texas Rangers) here gives us a demonstration of what constitutes a concealed door vs. a secret door.  A trap door that is covered by something that can easily be moved is a concealed door. A door in the ceiling, made to look like a riveted metal plate, is a secret door. The fact that Bob has to search for a means of opening it clinches that it is a secret door.  Concealed doors should be easier to find than secret doors.

Here, from the serial Monastery of the Blue God, is a textbook example of Heroes beating up mobsters and then searching them for loot to keep as trophies. They are so clearly excited about a star sapphire on a gold chain because it is probably worth considerably more XP than the mobsters themselves were worth.

This is from Robin Hood.  Literary adaptations will rarely be the focus of this blog, but this page brings up the interesting question: can a single arrow that does 1d6 damage kill a stag? By combat rules, unlikely. A stag, as a combatant, would have about 3 HD, 10-11 hit points on average, and do about 2-8 points of damage in a charge -- stats that should give any archer pause. However, if the archer was firing from far enough away that the stag could not possibly reach the archer soon, or the stag immediately missed a morale save and would not be fighting, the Editor could rule the stag is a noncombatant, and so the killing can be described with flavor text.

Illumination can be tricky to referee as the Editor; when you're imagining the scene, you're trying to picture everything. Dim or no illumination at the scene then requires you to filter out detail from the scene as you're describing it to the players, creating an extra step for you to keep track of.

Another thing to keep track of is the number of things that shed light that can be seen at great distances away. Here, we're reminded that even cigarettes may give your opponents away at a half-mile range.

Sandor's player asks us, "Can I have Sandor pick up a guy, toss him into a group of other guys, and knock them all down?"

As a general rule of thumb, you should not allow Fighters to make any kind of special attacks that they would gripe about you using on them. Would they complain if one mobster could knock over all the Heroes with one well-placed attack?

Note that Superheroes could buff themselves with Multi-Attack or Flurry of Blows and pull off this stunt.

As common as leopards are becoming (this is the third time I've discussed them here), they really need an entry in the mobsters section of the next edition.

Lastly, we have Detective Sergeant Carey of the Chinatown Squad, who encounters an unusual trap. It's a tripwire trap that sets off explosives -- but it's not meant to harm the intruders; the explosives are set off further down the tunnel, destroying any evidence there before it can be found.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #20

I didn't realize when I covered the October 1937 stories that I had access to New Adventure Comics #20, so I'm covering it just a tad out of order...

This page of Captain Jim of the Texas Rangers doesn't give us much of a sense of scale for that "gigantic" rattlesnake, but this could be the first giant poisonous snake in comics that isn't from a "tall tale"-like story.

This probably won't ever become an official Hideouts & Hoodlums rule, but if you ever miss a cowboy with an attack roll that's only 1 number off -- it should shoot off his hat.

There's a lot of grappling attacks going on here on this page. In some game systems, the player of Ian Murray would have to pick a different, specific grappling move each turn, each with different game mechanics attached to it. In H&H, the Editor has more latitude and is expected to describe the fight based on the dice rolls.  This seems to be a particularly vicious fight, so both sides must be rolling very well to hit and for damage...

There might be some exceptions I would make to my above statement, like in the case of a flip/throw attack, since this attack is unusual in that it leaves the opponent prone instead of held.

It's difficult to have a realistic rate of fire for missile weapons -- even for comic book realism -- and have any kind of game balance that would make Heroes reasonably choose melee over missile weapons. Here Ian cracks off 2-3 shots per combat turn with a single-shot rifle. Two shots would be possible if he was 4th level or higher in H&H.

This issue's installment of Federal Men is dedicated to the demonstrating the value of having half-pints as your Supporting Cast Members. Heroes like Steve Carson can recruit half-pints via ham radio! Half-pints loyal to Heroes are ever-vigilant for signs of crimes, and may be willing to put themselves in danger flattening tires and tripping robbers.

A history/technology lesson here from Monastery of the Blue God for anyone who had trouble picturing what a wireless radio looked like in the 1930s. This is not as portable as an iphone...

A patient Hero is just two lucky rolls away from finding the average secret door -- one roll to find the door and the second roll to find the way to open it. The impatient Hero, though (like Nadir, Master of Magic) finds the door, and then wrecks his way through it with a pick axe (using the non-Superhero wrecking rules, unless a Superhero obviously).

If there was a contest for best feature in this issue, The Adventures of Steve Conrad just won it. Behold the glory of natives riding trained alligators.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #16

Most WWII-era stories follow the familiar narrative of history -- we know who the bad guys and the good guys were from countless stories.  But what's really interesting is to see writers in 1937 trying to guess how things were going to play out in Europe and Asia. Here, in the Monastery of the Blue God serial, we get hints of Russian intrigue in China, and more interesting still is the casting of Poland and Sweden as bad guys!

The adaptation of Haggard's She continues. Here, She administers a Potion of Healing (though one with an apparent onset time of 12 hours), followed by casting what appears to be a new spell. Aging Touch would be a powerful spell -- perhaps a 5th level spell! -- that would cause 1 recipient touched to age 3-30 years permanently.

When Steve Conrad is done monkeying around, he has to tangle with a giant vulture. Giant vultures got statted for H&H in Supplement I: National.

Here's an early example of a whip being used as a weapon, albeit not a very useful one. It seems clear here that a whip should be treated as a melee weapon, despite its length.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

New Comics #9

Steve Carson of Federal Men enters the hideout of the Invisible Empire this time -- an artificial island that can rise and sink beneath the surface. And is super-roomy!

Hideouts & Hoodlums has giant robots (giant gold and silver robots are in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies), but none as large as this monster (gargantuan?) robot, which has to be at least 50' tall. I've talked before about things sometimes being too unfeasibly big in the comics for Heroes to realistically deal with in a roleplaying game, and this would seem to be another example. Still...maybe the giant robots could have been a little taller in my game...

And now there's Steve Conrad on Dolorosa Isle to consider, but...what are those?  Mermen?  Aquatic ghouls? I may need to see more to puzzle this one out.

(Scans courtesy of Babblings about DC Comics and Days of Adventure blogs.)