Adventure Comics #39

Barry O'Neill begins having post-Fang Gow adventures, though Count Guniff seems to be cut from the same mold. Indeed, when Guniff traps O'Neill and LeGrand in a water trap, Barry would have been within his rights to go "What, again?"

Two things worth pointing out from this story: one, it is one of the first time in comic books where the hero runs out of bullets; and, two, Guniff's second death trap for O'Neill and LeGrand is a much simpler affair -- he douses them with gasoline and is going to brings a match towards them. That's a pretty serious death trap -- serious enough that I'd probably have it do 1-10 points of damage per minute to heroes until they can somehow extinguish themselves (like a save vs. science to smother the flames by stop, drop, and rolling).

Cotton Carver continues exploring his Don Dixon-like lost world environment. One thing to notice is that the hideout/dungeon Cotton is exploring is taking him down quite a few levels, by stairs and slides, but his encounters are not getting significantly more challenging. He gets to a dead end where he cannot proceed without having a special stone with him that fits into an indentation in the wall -- a classic dungeon trick.

Cotton fights a half-cat, half-man called a Watcher. Watchers must be pretty tough; this thing takes multiple arrow hits without going down, and is probably at least 3 Hit Dice. They're also Lawful because, if you defeat one and leave it alive, it agrees to repay the life-debt by serving you (or maybe Cotton just had cat treats in his pocket).

The animated statue Cotton meets seems straight out of Dungeons & Dragons. I wonder if it's a living statue, a golem, or if I'm going to be disappointed next issue by it getting explained away as ventriloquism...

In Federal Men, we learn more about how reefer works in the comic book world. It's "the drug that causes the smoker to lose all moral restraint". So, if you smoke marijuana and fail a save vs. science, you become okay with killing others (just like most of my players) and don't have to save vs. plot before you can take a life.

Jack Woods (fresh over from More Fun Comics) faces a bandit and an unusual dilemma -- a victim who isn't glad he was saved. Soon he's confronted with another dilemma much like one I recently used in my Monday night campaign. The Hero is hired to deliver something under suspicious circumstances. Does the Hero do the job and go home, investigate the sender, or investigate the receiver? It's a nice scenario because the Hero is free to choose and shouldn't be railroaded into investigating one before the other.

Steve Malone finds a cuff link. This is important because a cuff link is never mentioned in a story unless it's a clue.  If your Editor so much as says "cuff", you'd better be ready to take notes.

Steve does a lot of searching. He finds the first cuff link searching by a gong (not where you'd normally expect to find one), but finds the second one searching a bedroom where you'd expect to find one (maybe at a +1 bonus then?). There is a secret compartment hidden in a model castle and, unless the Hero has reason to suspect it's there, the chance of finding it is the same as a secret door.

Tom Brent is sailing down a jungle river, seeing no natives, but they see him and track his boat's movement. Which might not bear mentioning, except that there seems to be a lot of natives and they evade being noticed for quite some time. Maybe natives need to have a better (3 in 6?) chance of surprise?

The Skip Schuyler story has him pitching for the Yankees during a special game for charity. Which might not bear mentioning, except that it's so rare for a real baseball team to be named, and real players (Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio) cameo. Of course, in your home campaigns, whether you go with real historical figures, characters obviously based on real historical figures (with similar names, like Jim DiMaggia?), or entirely fictional characters is entirely up to you.

In Anchors Aweigh, because the Editor clearly doesn't have a new plot for them lined up, Don and Red decide to go hunt up some experience points, literally, by hunting crocodiles off the Panama Canal. They meet a wandering encounter while hunting who turns out to be a mad engineer who makes bombs (I can't decide if that qualifies him to be a mad scientist (Book II), a madman (Supplement V), or even an anarchist (Supplement I). Once the encounter has been rolled up, the Editor has to think up an excuse for the engineer to be there, so he concocts a plot on the spot for foreign powers to have hired him to blow up the Canal.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

 

Adventure Comics #38

Yesterday, I was wondering if surprise should not offer more advantages game mechanics-wise. In "The Original Game" that inspires Hideouts & Hoodlums, the side that has surprise before combat not only gets a free turn to act, but goes first in the next turn of combat. I always thought that was inherently unfair, though, and everyone should have the chance to have the advantage of going first, each turn. But...I am seeing an awful lot of evidence in the comic books of surprise giving Heroes big advantages.

Take, for instance, Inspector Kent of Scotland Yard. In this issue, Kent charges through a secret door, sees the secret plans on the table, runs up, grabs the secret plans, and runs back out through the secret door before anyone can stop him. I don't think all of that should happen in just a surprise turn, but even if Kent has the initiative on the following turn, I'm surprised none of the spies at the table get free back attacks on him when he turns to run.

Tod Hunter has the spell Phantasmal Force/Silent Image cast at him, but sees through it (got a save vs. spells to disbelieve) because the bowmen firing arrows at him make no sound.  Without resolving this storyline, the wizard simply disappears and Tod leaves to go exploring elsewhere. He finds a wanted poster that mentions rape, the first time this subject is ever addressed in a comic book. At the end of the story Tod is shot -- and is never seen again!  Tod Hunter is not the first Hero to have his series canceled in comic book history, but he is the first one to apparently die in his last appearance.

District Attorney Steve Malone is handy in a scenario without being present; he tracks reports of fleeing armored truck robbers by radio, compares them on a map, and tries to predict where they are heading next. This could be a good puzzle for H&H players to try and solve (particularly if there is no wrong answer and the bad guys head where ever the players guess).

Captain Desmo's player might be calling shenanigans in this story -- Desmo and Gabby come across Tartar warriors raiding a village and drive them off. Before the warriors all leave, though, some of them somehow managed to get behind Desmo and snatch Marie, one of his new traveling companions. It's a plot device, clearly, but did not need to be. The Editor could have mapped out the scene, placed all the combatants and noncombatants on the map, and made it clear that Desmo had the double priorities of defending the villagers and his own supporting cast. Could Desmo keep from being outflanked?

Tom Brent is in trouble when he is captured by mobster Vic Gano, but Tom talks his way out of it, pretending to want to join Vic's operation, and thereby gets a new encounter reaction roll out of it, modified by Tom's Charisma.

Vic takes Tom to Vic's boss, or at least a swank apartment where a woman speaks to Vic through a wall. Now, Tom could probably follow up on any number of clues at this point, like finding out who owns that apartment, but Tom chooses instead to get invited to a swank party that night, figuring anyone with that swank an apartment would be invited to it. And turns out to be right!

Skip Schuyler is also captured, but in his case he's tied to a chair and whipped until he has scars on his face. Although rare in comics, maybe there is starting to be some evidence here that there should be a small chance of permanent scarring on Heroes.

Anchors Aweigh reminds us of another use for flashlights: sending Morse code messages to each other (and every Hero seems to know Morse code!).

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #37 - pt. 1

Poor hippo!  I hate this cover...

Barry O'Neill and Fang Gow definitely hate each other. Ol' Fang has Barry in a familiar death trap --  "the 'Water Cure' - drops slowly fall on his forehead, which will eventually cause insanity, then death."  I have never understood how that would actually work, but it's enough of a genre staple that it must at least work in Hideouts & Hoodlums. But how, exactly? Since it's obviously not an impatient man's trap, I'd say the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to avoid going temporarily insane. Then the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to avoid going permanently insane. Then the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to escape death.

Fang Gow's followers are described as bandits.

Cotton Carver and Volor the Dwarf are overwhelmed by the "reed men", so called because their skin is green like reeds. In situations like this, when "new" mobster types are clearly just "reskinned" humans, I do not plan to give them their own stats; reed men sound an awful lot like natives to me.

The bigger issue is, how to overwhelm foes with superior numbers in H&H?  If, say, 100 natives all try to pile onto a Hero, do you only roll to attack for the 9 who can immediately surround him, or take the collective pushing force, weight, and mass of the whole crowd into account? I here propose rolling to attack for all of them, and giving the Hero a -1 penalty to save vs. science for every hit after the first to avoid being pinned. Even high-level Heroes will have to avoid confronting huge mobs now!

Steve Carson of Federal Men is being led out into a field by three gunmen who plan to shoot him down. No slow death trap, no source of cover -- it looks like Steve's Editor has either decided to stop going easy on him or is ready to end the solo campaign! But Steve's player is smart and comes up with a good plan, to ask the hoodlums which is in charge and get them to fight each other. Given the life-and-death nature of the situation, I might just give him a win and let the trick fool the hoodlums, to reward him for his creativity. But if I was feeling less merciful, I might roll a save vs. plot for the hoodlums to determine if they fall for it or not.

Tod Hunter runs afoul of a jealous wizard with a new magic potion -- Potion of Suggestion (makes him vulnerable to everything said to him, as if the Suggestion spell) -- and a new spell, Life Link. I'd say this spell has to be maybe 7th level, as it's pretty powerful; the Magic-User links his life to someone else and if one dies, the other dies too. Tod gets Dispel Magic cast on him too.

Dale Daring seems a little useless in her scenario; she's surrounded by a company of fighters of up to 4th level (F4 = lieutenant). Still, every good die roll can be important in a scenario, and Dale is able to make the listen check that everyone else fails and allows her to hear the poachers coming.

Captain Desmo is hidden world-exploring and encounters a "prehistoric crocodile."  I'm not sure how big it looks in the comic book, but prehistoric crocodiles could weigh up to 8 tons -- we're talking maybe a 30 Hit Die crocodile here. I'm guessing the author had something less dangerous in mind -- maybe a giant crocodile should only go up to 15 Hit Dice? Regardless, Desmo and Gabby wisely run from it.

The human natives need Desmo's help against giants called the Mudas -- and the summary writer wasn't kidding when he called them giants. One of them apparently picks up Desmo in his hand! So we're talking frost giant size here, if not cloud giant size. And yet...the natives manage to bring these giants down with mostly spears? Something seems amiss here to me. I would probably stat the Mudas as hill giants to make them more killable. And I do plan on weeding out some of the giant types from H&H, so it'll be important to watch how many I recognize here in the blog.

Tom Brent, in a rare stand-alone story...is captured by an old man with a shotgun and misses out on most of his own scenario, as the local police catch the smugglers who threatened him. If you ever have a session of H&H that goes badly for you, you can take some consolation if it didn't go Tom Brent-level bad.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #36 - pt. 2

Tom Brent runs into two bad guys in China who are interesting because of their titles. One is the Russian Count Roloff.  Counts turn up all the time in comic books as bad guys (as do barons). Maybe nobles need to be statted as a mobster-type?  The other is a bandit leader, specifically called General Chang. "General" is a level title for fighters of at least 8th level!  I was more conservative with my entry on bandits in Book II, topping off their leaders at 4th level.

The Golden Dragon serial concludes in this issue. The gold dragon is killed after it shows off some wrecking things skills. The gold dragon does not appear to be Lawful either, nor particularly intelligent. The dragon is dropped by a hail of bullets (JUST like what happened the first time I used a dragon in one of my H&H games).  The dragon guards a treasure room with enough treasure for ten camels (I often take shortcuts like that too, instead of giving the heroes a careful inventory of what all their treasure entails). The one trophy item they acquire is the Seal of Genghis Khan, that assures them safe passage anywhere in Mongolia.

And lastly, in Anchors Aweigh, Don Kerry uses the old trick of throwing sand in someone's face to blind them. This dirty fighting trick should require a successful attack roll, followed by a failed save vs. science, and then the victim is blinded and fights at a -2 penalty for the next 1-6 turns of combat.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #34

Fang Gow purchases a mind control drug in this installment of Barry O'Neill. The drug has to be injected (at least in this form). Worth discussing here is the nature of mind control and what it can and cannot force someone to do. Characters in stories with their minds controlled, even supporting cast, often shake off the effects at the last moment for maximum dramatic effect. In this case, it is notable that Inspector Le Grand is not able to shake off the effect. Evidence of saving throws?

In Tom Brent, the First Mate gets shot when Tom dodges a bullet -- proof both of the save vs. missiles rule, and the dangers of shooting into a melee. The story also involves a shipboard mutiny...Hideouts & Hoodlums briefly touches on Loyalty as a game mechanic, but it is basically just treated as Morale under another name. Loyalty might need to be expanded on in 2nd edition, particularly in terms of how it could cause mutinies among supporting cast members.

Steve Carson of Federal Men goes on a car chase. I've talked before about using hit points and combat for ending car chases, but there needs to be a competing mechanic of evasion at work too. Can Steve make an evasion roll before his opponents shoot up his car? I don't want evasion to just be a single roll, though, because that's boring. Maybe evasion should work in degrees, so the first successful roll moves you from short range to medium, the next roll could move you from medium to long range - or back to short range if you bungle the roll. It needs more thought.

Dale Daring and her boyfriend encounter a trap that consists of a pit/crevice. The unusual thing here is that the pit is not covered or concealed in any way, but the Heroes may fall into the pit because the uneven floor around it is not safe to walk on.

Tod Hunter faces cannibals. I had once considered treating cannibals as its own mobster type, but decided to lump them under Natives instead. There is also an 8' gorilla in this story. In the normal/large/huge/giant categories for animal-mobsters, would an 8' gorilla be large or huge? I would think it would fall somewhere in between, but would probably side conservatively with making it a "large ape", so that "giant ape" could still be something more King Kong-sized.  Also, we know from this story that apes should get a crushing hug attack and a bite attack.

In The Gold Dragon -- we finally see the gold dragon. It's been a long set-up for this (this is the 29th episode), so much so that this is not our first dragon in comics at this point, or even our second. It is the first dragon to fit the dragon types found in H&H, though the gold dragon has, luckily, always been found in the game since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Anchors Aweigh reminded me of several issues this month. One is keeping track of ammo -- because being on your last bullet should be a suspenseful moment for every Fighter relying on guns. Two is fatigue from running. H&H has a fatigue rule that is more combat-oriented; it needs to apply to running as well. Three is when Marshall's last shot fails to frighten off the natives because of their large numbers -- morale needs to be modified so that number encountered affects morale saves.

(Summaries from DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #33

Last issue I'll be looking at from 1938!

In Anchors Aweigh, we're reminded that natives are often depicted as being expert trackers (though in the wilderness, not necessarily in urban environments), and should have some kind of bonus for doing that (or be treated like the explorer class for tracking).

Tom Brent's adventure apparently takes place in a real city in China, Ningbo. Tom pulls the ol' pull-the-rug-out trick on his attacker, which is so commonplace that it should probably only require a straight save vs. plot to avoid. Further, Tom shows remarkable ingenuity at searching bodies for treasure -- even looking inside somebody's glass eye for a missing diamond (and finding it there!).

This issue's Federal Men adventure is the first time in comic books that a starring character suffers amnesia. I suppose every comic book character gets amnesia eventually -- but I would hesitate to allow even a 1% chance per injury of player-Heroes suffering amnesia, as it is difficult to roleplay and disruptive to ongoing scenarios.

The Dale Daring adventure seems remarkable only in that the natives are armed with guns for a change, instead of primitive weapons.

(Summaries of this issue's stories read at DC Wikia)

New Adventure Comics #31 - part 1

Barry O'Neill takes it slow while moving through hideouts. He tests the walls, pulls on anything suspicious, like rings set in walls -- and finds secret doors that way!

In the first room behind the secret door, Barry finds two cobras. Luckily, even though Barry came disguised, he still has a concealed flashlight and weapon.

In the room is a note for Barry from his nemesis, Fang Gow. An Editor can always do this too, retroactively placing notes wherever the Heroes are, as if the nemesis anticipated them. Just be careful not to go too far with this, if the Heroes went somewhere really unexpected.

The tunnel after the cobra room is trapped -- it swiftly fills with water. I assume the secret door Barry used to get in can't be opened from this side. I'll have to wait until next month to find out how he gets out!

Tom Brent, in his adventure, is captured, but his captors forget to search him and leave a weapon on him. This same situation happened in one of my Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns; in that case, the player asked for a chance of having a weapon left unfound on his person, so I gave him a save vs. plot to make that happen.

Tom makes the smart move of capturing the leader and making all his henchmen stand down, rather than fight his way through everyone. It's the safer move, anyway. I'm not sure I'd allow full experience awards for the henchmen for it, even though he's technically defeated them this way.

Players often want to get to where they need to go as early as possible. Tell them that they have a midnight rendezvous and they'll show up at 6 pm and start staking out the place. The same holds true for Steve Carson of Federal Men, who thinks the 4-hour car ride from Washington, D.C. to New York City is too long and flies there instead.  Knowing this, the Editor can plan more scenarios that require a time crunch.

On the other hand, if the scenario has high stakes, like a kidnapped child who will be killed if the Heroes do not find him in time, it's best to keep from setting a definite deadline, so the Heroes can always show up at the last minute and save him.

In Dale Daring, the Heroes shockingly take a moment to check their guns to see if they still have any ammo left. One is empty, but the other is okay.

I have suggested several "fixes" over the years for good ways to more easily keep track of remaining ammo during combat. One of them was to roll randomly, 1d6, to see how many turns you can shoot before running out of bullets. That seems to be what happened here, in Dale Daring, given the disparity between their ammo situations.

In Cal n' Alec, Cal wants Alec to go ahead because Cal thinks he sees quicksand and Alec doesn't. Sounds like spotting dangerous terrain needs to be a random chance, just like finding secret doors.

Cal n' Alec is a gag strip, so I don't know how seriously to take this, but it takes Cal five hours to dig a 25' deep pit.

As Captain Desmo's India adventure continues, a bounty is set for him at 20 gold pieces. Which is odd because, by 1938, India already was using the silver Rupee as its unit of currency.

Desmo wins two battles against the thieves by failed morale saves -- once after mowing down enough of them with a machine gun, and then later by mowing down their leader with a machine gun.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #30

We rejoin Don in Anchors Aweigh as he's lowering himself into the dark hold of a ship and praying "he wouldn't land on anything sharp cornered."  It's true that, while the base damage for falling is 1-6 points per 10' fallen, the Editor is free to lower this for falling on soft terrain, or raise it for falling on sharp, or otherwise more dangerous, terrain.

In the hold of the ship, Don takes a quick look around and manages to appraise the value of the cartridges being smuggled in the hold at a quarter of a million dollars. The first edition Hideouts & Hoodlums rules say nothing about appraisal (the implication being that everyone could do it automatically), but the second edition will treat it as a basic skill everyone has a chance to perform.

The first sailor who comes down into the hold is said to have "the agility of a monkey" and "runs down the rope ladder".  I'm tempted to add sailor as a mobster type, with the ability to climb up and down ropes and ladders faster than an ordinary person (or just give that ability to pirates).

In Tom Brent's adventure, Tom practices that most important of player tips -- when you have important papers to deliver, meet your contact first without the papers on you, in case something goes wrong.

When Tom tries to escape from the clutches of the fake consul, a guard has his rifle trained on Tom. Tom is somehow able to pick up the other guard and throw him at the rifleman before he can fire a shot. Now, it's possible that Tom won surprise, got a free action (the grapple), and then won initiative on the first regular turn of combat. Or, Tom picked up the first guard during his first turn, but the rifleman refused to fire because firing into a melee has a chance of hitting your ally if you miss.

Tom is captured again and tortured for information -- specifically, he is hung from his thumbs and whipped while shirtless. I would not expect an Editor to have to go into that much detail; torture can be glossed over and summarized by a save vs. science to resist. I would, ironically, require this save once per 4-hour "rest" turn.

In the adventure of Steve Carson of Federal Men, our story opens on the trial of three men accused of treason, with the judge saying "I regret that the sentence for treason carries only a twenty year penalty!"  Actually, according to the U.S. Constitution, treason can be punished with death. It is, however, appropriate for the courts to be more lenient in a comic book universe, as this allows a lot more repeat appearances by the same villains (something that will become more of an issue starting with the Silver Age).

A wanted poster shown to Steve shows a $500 reward for a wanted criminal.

When Steve is about to lose a fight, he is saved by a boy who throws a baseball and beans the mobster in the back of the head. I would normally allow a full grown man to do 1-3 points of damage with an improvised missile like a baseball; for a half-pint, I would probably restrict damage to 1 point of damage. Of course, the mobster could be on his last hit point from the unarmed combat with Steve before the baseball hits him.

Later, another half-pint Junior Federal Man thwarts an attempt on his own life by having rigged an alarm system for his bedroom -- anyone climbing the drain pipe outside his window pulls a string that causes a ball to drop and land on the boy's sleeping head to wake him -- after which the boy can bash the intruder with a baseball bat while the intruder is prone and hanging from the window ledge. If this comic strip -- and the movie Home Alone -- has taught us anything, it's that half-pints should be good at setting traps and alarms.

Nadir, Master of Magic, deals with river pirates in his adventure. They are well-equipped pirates, piloting speedboats and armed with sub-machine guns; they might be better statted as robbers than as pirates, since robbers tend to be more hi-tech. Nadir defeats them with a Charm Person spell on their leader, who Nadir gets to sound a retreat.

Later, Nadir is ambushed by peculiar attackers using a noose. I would say that a noose could do normal 1-6 points of damage on a hit, but only if the hit occurs during a surprise attack. If the victim is somehow unable to free himself, he will continue to take damage each combat turn.

Cal n' Alec is a joke strip about two old prospectors, but they remind me of played characters in this installment. Frustrated that their mine was buried in a dynamite explosion, they briefly decide to swear off prospecting. This can happen to players too, who can feel disgruntled by too much failure in a game scenario. In the end, though, Cal and Alec bite on their next plot hook when a stranger runs up and hands them a map -- and stalwart players will often bite on that next plot hook too.

Incidentally, I'm not keen on preparing any game mechanics to determine the extent of a cave-in when a mine is hit by dynamite. There just needs to be things for the Editor to wing as he goes along.

Another example is The Adventures of Desmo and Gabby.  Gabby loses his wallet during a fight. There does not need to be a game mechanic to check for seeing if you lose something from your pockets during fights. Sometimes, players just need to accept that their Editor has a story-based reason to make something happen.

Tod Hunter, Jungle Master, finds rubies worth $5,000 each, which is 10 times what I guessed rubies were valued at in Book III: Underworld and Metropolis Adventures (in the gem table previously found in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies).  Guess I may have to revisit that!

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #29

Anchors Aweigh! picks up where it left off last issue, with our Don Winslow-clone investigating El Diablo. El Diablo has somehow slipped poison slips of paper to Don Kerry's prisoners and the chief suspect is an old friend of Don's. This is a good position to put your players in -- do they stand by their Hero's supporting cast, or turn on them when things look bad?

Later, Don and Red are listening to clues from a nearby group of sailors in a joint, but one of the sailors notices them listening. Hideouts & Hoodlums definitely has a game mechanic for hearing noise, but not for the reverse -- and it does not make sense to simply reverse the mechanic (it should be easier to hear noise through a door, for example, than to hear someone listening through a door). The Editor may have to play this one by ear -- are circumstances right to be observed listening? -- and then resolve it with a save vs. plot for the Hero.

This story also gives us an explanation for why not to have hoodlums immediately use guns in a fight -- for fear that the sound will bring the police.

Don overhears the name of a ship captain who might be in league with El Diablo. But how to find the ship captain? Don asks around, claiming to have a message for the captain from El Diablo. It's a clever and daring plan -- exactly the kind that Editors should give a good chance to work.

Tom Brent's adventure has a crew mutiny, two jewel thieves, a diamond worth $50,000, and a suspect who turns out to be a police inspector doing his own secret investigation. I particularly like this last wrinkle. Could it be a cure for Heroes who shoot first and ask questions later?

The next adventure of Steve Carson of Federal Men is an unusual one in that it takes place just before a Presidential inauguration ceremony -- which means it took place two years earlier in 1936 or two years later in 1940!  Time can be a fluid thing in a roleplaying campaign -- it can take place over days or it can take place over years, but generally campaigns follow sequential time. This does not always need to be the case, as I wrote about in Supplement V: Big Bang.

Nadir, Master of Magic, continues to show an aversion to actually using magic. He gets through a locked door, not with a spell, but with a skeleton key. He gets around by "powerful sedan" instead of by spell.  Instead of turning invisible, he hides behind curtains. He does cast a Detect Thoughts spell.

Captain Desmo starts this new adventure by flying overhead when he sees travelers being attacked. Luckily he has two grenades for his sidekick to toss over the side of his plane. Then Desmo and Gabby use the oldest trick in the book, disguising themselves (in this case wearing Arabic robes, even though this is supposed to be India) so they can get in to see the big boss. The boss is guarded by a fighter who must be at least 9' tall (I would stat him as an ogre, then).

In Tod Hunter, Jungle Master, the primitives we met last time are called tribesmen here (a better name than natives or savages, maybe?). From the arena we observed last time, the prison cells are only reachable via an underground stream that requires Tod and crew to travel by raft. Past the stream is a maze of tunnels that seem to go on for miles. And yet, the trip back to the throne room seems to take no time at all -- perhaps they find a shortcut back. In the throne room are large urns, axes and spears mounted on the walls, hanging masks, and statues -- including a giant statue of the tribe's bald, fanged god that must be at least 30' tall. Tod is able to climb the statue and find a secret door leading through the statue's arm. The statue (I believe we learned it was wooden last time) is hollow and can be navigated inside by ladder. There is a secret room in the head where a crazy old man with a scimitar can speak through amplifiers and imitate the god.

Dale Daring's boyfriend Don is able to conceal a sub-machine gun under a cloak.

In The Golden Dragon, it's very unclear if the men are attacked by undead skeletons, or men dressed to look like skeletons, Scooby Doo-style. Regardless, a woman present is so frightened that she is paralyzed with fright. I'm thinking that everyone, even Heroes, will have to make morale saves when first encountering the undead, and non-Heoes will have to make morale saves when first encountering people pretending to be undead.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)

New Adventure Comics #28 - part 1

We're still a bit ahead from this title headlining with the Sandman, so this issue begins with "Anchors Aweigh", a brand new Don Winslow clone (the lead character's name is even Don Kerry!).

Like I observed recently, aviator stunts seem to be something every comic book character masters as soon as they sit in a plane. Here, we see the stunt Power Dive, as described in The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 7. 

Although Hideouts & Hoodlums is the Golden Age Comic Book Roleplaying Game, Editors need not limit themselves to American comic books, or even comic books for inspiration. The "Anchors Aweigh" story seems inspired by the Tintin comic strip adventure "The Crab with the Golden Claws", combined with the Raymond Chandler story "Nevada Gas".

Tom Brent is also a new character debuting this issue. He's a sailor; I have not felt sailors need their own character class yet. The ones I've read so far are either Fighters or (in Popeye's case) Superheroes. Tom Brent is definitely of the Fighter persuasion. The mood of the story is dark, with heroin smugglers being the villains, and a stash of morphine being used to frame Tom. It is also unusual for taking place in Marseilles, France, rather than the U.S. Note that France won't be conquered for almost another two years.

It's only 1938 and it's already been too long since Steve Carson of Federal Men has had a cool adventure. This serial, vs. The Cobra, might change that. We've already got a hideout set-up here, with a concealed trapdoor in the back room of a flower shop leading into a deep shaft with ladder rungs in the wall. At the bottom is a trapped metal door -- touch it and you're shocked unconscious (or forced to save vs. science to avoid being stunned).

A death trap awaits Steve in the lair of the master criminal -- a fight with a large cobra that is not only a poisonous snake but, curiously, a constrictor snake as well (maybe it's a mutant!).  How do we know it's a death trap instead of a normal combat? Because of its placement in the storyline (after Steve is powerless in The Cobra's clutches).

Nadir, Master of Magic continues to go around not using magic.  Sure, he claims he's giving a lady he rescued a potion to dispel the hypnotism placed on her, but I can't help but think that "potion" is really just a bit of brandy, or maybe even just a strong coffee. He does, however, seem to have a magic Ring of Evil Detection and he uses the Crystal Ball again he used in his first appearance.

Captain Desmo continues to vex me; the man fights way beyond the abilities of someone who should, at this stage, only be a first level Fighter. He exhibits the special ability of "combat machine" (multiple attacks vs. weak foes) as a Fighter of at least third level, and I can't easily guess how big a penalty to the die roll to assign to not only a disarming shot, but one that shatters a dagger with the bullet.

In this story, Desmo picks up his first supporting cast sidekick, Brooklyn-born Gabby McGuire, who is probably a first-level Fighter. Desmo also happens to know a Hindu mystic named Seyah Ashear, but Seyah is more of a Detective than a Magic-User, using clues to induce information for Desmo, rather than divination spells. Knowing a Detective as a Supporting Cast Member is very handy for players who aren't good at picking up on clues on their own.

(This issue can be read at Comic Book Archives)