Keen Detective Funnies #19 (v. 3 #3) - pt. 2

Yes, Centaur still couldn't afford to color every page! This is still Dan Dennis, FBI, and he's been really slow to get suspicious of the little old lady selling flowers outside the tenement building with a female spy in it he's been watching -- even though it set off red flags for every reader immediately.

Here, at least, he shows good tactics, out-bribing the old lady to get information. 

Invisible ink written on flower petals? Hmm...it seems like petals are too easily destroyed for that to be effective, but it passes comic book logic, I guess. I leave this here for your consideration, when developing coded messages for your own games.

Apparently just holding a gun in the open is cause for a G-Man to belt you in the chops. Works for me! TNT Todd takes down a thug with one punch; the thug must have had very low hit points!

Gee, Todd is pretty brutal. Is he one of the good guys or a D&D murder-hobo? He's also just not very good at anything. He attacked that one guy just for being suspicious, he got himself captured (between pages, I didn't show you that one), instead of ingeniously escaping he has to use threat of force to escape, and then gets caught again right away.

Though, to be fair, that reminds me a lot of my very first Hideouts & Hoodlums playtest. Those poor 1st-level Heroes kept getting knocked down and recaptured left and right. I've tended to go easier on my 1st-level Heroes ever since then.

I have three things to point out about this crudely-drawn page (okay, four, counting that). One, this is not a KKK meeting; these hooded criminals have 1001 written on top of their sheets because they have 1,001 members (we learned this on the previous page I didn't bother sharing). So, every time they recruit or lose a member, they have to all have new monographed sheets made for themselves.

The tiny skull on the desk seems like odd random room dressing, but of course skull decor denotes a bad guy in comics. It would be funny if, based on its position on the desk, if it was just a skull-shaped stapler.

"Give him the gong" took me by surprise, as this is way before I grew up watching The Gong Show on TV. Somehow I'm having trouble finding out how old this saying is, but it seems to predate Chuck Barris.

It's been so long, I had forgotten that we've already seen The Eye several times on this blog already! Here, he's coming to the aid of this paperboy, taken prisoner by three anarchists (they aren't called that, but their cliched behavior indicates it). The Eye either uses Telekinesis or Wreck at Range to destroy the rope -- it really seems unlikely that he/it wastes a powerful Disintegrate just on some rope. 

It's unclear why the Eye is shining light on the boy in panel 5. Is it just a Light spell because the room is dark, or is he/it hypnotizing/charming the boy to make him follow his/its instructions?

Here, The Eye uses Hold Person, which can affect up to three targets, and we see the effect is limp instead of rigid paralysis -- the spell can cause either, as long as the use is consistent. 

We'll jump now into the next story, which stars an old friend of mine (and currently featuring in my Funny Picture Stories anthology!), Dean Denton. This story takes place some months after the most recent one I've republished and -- ah, Harry Francis Campbell, I see you still have a problem with drawing arms that are too short.

The captain is mostly right; the average person cannot dive safely to 500 feet deep underwater. The world record currently stands at 1,082 feet, but that is next to impossible without extensive training for deep sea diving. Indeed, it's dangerous for the average person to dive more than 60' deep. I would say, then, that water pressure can do up to 1 point of damage per 60' past 60' deep, so that at 180' deep a diver takes 1-2 points of damage per melee turn, 1-4 points at 360' deep, and so on.

Compagnie Belgique threw me at first; it looks like a proper name for a company and I looked to see if it was real, but all it means is that Dean went to a Belgian company. 

Harry's work is always full of racism, and Absalom's dialogue here is no exception, but I'm going to give Harry props for at least trying on panel 4. It seems like he put a lot of effort into trying to draw a black man's profile, realistically, perhaps even from a model, instead of the usual caricature. It still came out looking really weird, but that's partly because all the faces around it look rushed and cartoony. In fact, the art overall is just sub-par for Harry. He must have been really rushing towards the deadline on this one.

The end of the story is missing from the copy I have access to, so I never do find out what the helium was for...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

 

Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #8

This is from a one-shot story called "Fingerprint Murder". This page makes me think that gangsters could be a special type of hoodlum, able to make people save vs. plot to avoid getting into cars with them.

I'm including this page because it's pretty good detective work. Rearder has figured out that the killers must have observed him at the crime scene, they could have seen him from the opposing window, and he finds out from the landlord that the opposing room was recently rented. Though it seems odd that the landlord doesn't know the name of the renter, at least the identity can be found out by searching the rented room for fingerprints, which had been wiped so judiciously at the crime scene.

I'm amused by this page and how hard Rearder works to avoid his boss. I've had some H&H players really embrace the dual identity of their characters, and others avoid their day jobs with this much fervor.

It's interesting that this character is called a "special policeman". Did the term "security guard" not exist in 1939?

And Rearder punches the man in the face so hard, the man's hat vanishes!

This is The Masked Marvel.  I thought at first that this was going to be a good example of changing geography any way you need to in your campaign -- but there really are two volcanoes in Mexico (Popocateptl and Colima)! Still, it must be the dead of winter for there to be that much ice and snow on Mexican volcanoes...

For the first half of this story, I forgot The Masked Marvel was a superhero! Here he is using two powers. The first one looks like "Hold Plane". There is no Hold Plane power. It would be weaker than Hold Train, and stronger than Hold Person. Interesting that I left such a large gap in the power list.

The other power appears to be Detect Evil. I'd actually taken this power off the powers list in 2nd edition Hideouts & Hoodlums, because I'd been waiting so long to see actual evidence of it. Of course, maybe The Masked Marvel is just saying he "senses" The Hawk because it should be pretty obvious to sight or sound that the tram is moving.

The asbestos suit and gas mask is a pretty useful trophy item. Bear in mind that asbestos does no harm to people back in the 1930s (because no one knew better!).

The Masked Marvel is either displaying more powers -- like Different Physical Structure and Resist Fire -- or just showing off that he has a lot of hit points.

TNT Todd gets knocked out and takes a whole day to recover to consciousness (but if he's at 1 hp when he confronts Charlie Sin, he's pretty bold!).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #3 - Part 1

There are a couple of things I can point out from this page of Corporal Merrill of the Northwest Mounted.

One, I love a Hideouts & Hoodlums scenario with some mystery to it, because that can challenge a player no matter what level their Hero is. Coming up with a good mystery can be as simple as coming up with a provocative question -- like, why would an old man walk 50 miles if he has three horses?" -- then coming up with an answer, and plot out two or more routes by which the players could arrive at that conclusion (with appropriate clues on each route). Your players may stump you by coming up with additional routes you hadn't considered (my players were coming up with all kinds of ways to track down a business owner I hadn't considered last Monday night), but the more routes you planned, the more you might be able to cobble together something from parts of those other routes.

Two, don't make it too hard to figure out what a clue is. Unless the Heroes have ready access to a forensics lab, just let them guess those are bone shards mixed in with the tree needles, don't make them wait to have them analyzed if that's going to just needlessly slow down the story.

And my third point would be that I'm thinking again about making snipers a mobster-type. They don't seem to be any better than ordinary mobsters at hitting Heroes, but they are extra good at remaining in hiding while shooting at range, and (in other stories, not here) seem to have a really good chance of shooting their own allies just before they can talk to the Heroes.

I always like when players try to use strategy in a fight instead of just going in punching or shooting and trusting to luck. But strategies should usually make sense. Rolling a boulder at an enemy camp as a diversion could be a good strategy, if you were then to engage the enemy from a different direction.  Or maybe Merrill meant the boulder roll to be his surprise attack, but missed, and chose to charge into melee on the first regular turn of combat.

That Dean Denton is one smart cookie, figuring out who The Conqueror is by what seems like a slip of the tongue (or an Editor who simply hadn't thought the implications through of who knew about The Conqueror). But be careful -- sometimes the Editor will simply slip up and say something that reveals something he hadn't meant to. Fair players should always give the Editor a chance to redact something said in character that doesn't fit the scenario.

It's awful handy that this robber (robbers are statted in Book II) happened to be a wandering encounter showing up just when he did -- or the Editor placed him there because everyone was low level and he was afraid they would all blow their saving throws.

Being able to identify poisons makes a case for the Scientist class (found in Supplement III) being kept around. Though, as of now, it's looking like it will not be in the 2nd ed. basic book.

Taking antidotes before going into a hideout does seem like a really good precaution. If my players ever think of that, I'll probably give them a +4 bonus to saving throws vs. poison while in the hideout.

I like this trap, of having a room filled with poisonous gas that you have to pass through to get to the rest of the hideout.  If you think too hard about how the gas stays in one room and never gets out...then you might be thinking too hard for a comic book RPG.

I'm heavily favoring giving all Heroes a chance at ventriloquism (maybe a 1 in 6 chance). So, take that, Dean Denton -- you're not so special now, are ya?

I like this -- the old "disguise yourself as the bad guys" trick actually failed this time!  Must have been the Hero missed his save vs. plot.

If Dean's player was trying to get me to "monolog" for the henchmen to give stuff away -- unless I did want him to know what those things that look suspiciously like voting booths are -- I might make him roll his own encounter reaction check to see if they feel like telling him.

And lastly, I'm wondering what that mirror trap is going to be...

 ...but now I'm decidedly underwhelmed. Is there a point to it, other than to try and confuse Dean?  It seems like The Conqueror could just as easily have been bulletproof glass between himself and Dean and been sitting in front of the same room, instead of a neighboring room.

This is TNT Todd, Ace G-Man. Yes, he's climbing a wall. Maybe he's more of a Mysteryman than a Fighter and that's not an issue. No, want I want to call your attention to is that he loses his gun while climbing. Why? It wasn't in his hand. It got somehow knocked loose from its holster while he was climbing, I guess. Should there just be a random chance per turn of losing your weapon in hand?

Here, Pedro is knocked unconscious and won't recover for hours. Maybe everyone should get a save vs. plot and, if they succeed, recover 1-6 hit points in 1-6 minutes. If they fail, then they heal 1 hit point back per 4 hours of rest...