Crackajack Funnies #21 - pt. 2

We're still looking at Wash Tubbs and, boy, there's an unsettling mix of realistic and cartoony violence in there -- which is actually pretty much my Editing style when running Hideouts & Hoodlums.

There are some interesting things going on here and on the previous page. From the previous page (I'll just summarize it for you), Frankie Slaughter beats up one of Wash's employees just to intimidate everyone present into not telling the police he was ever there.

Slaughter tries all the angles to get what he wants, as low as beating Wash half to death and threatening to do the same to his girlfriend. But he makes the mistake of trusting Wash is frightened enough to comply and doesn't send one of his boys with Wash to the bank.

Frankie Slaughter is a great villain name.

Wash, for his part, threatens Frankie with a gun (on the page I didn't share), but I was relieved to find out it wasn't loaded. Keeping the lease at the bank was very smart on his part.

Speaking of smart, Frankie again shows good tactics, trying to trick Wash into unloading the lease to a stranger, and then establishing an alibi (and having a secret exit from locations that aren't even his hideout!).

Red Ryder is knocked unconscious by the explosion. In D&D, when a PC wakes up, they can immediately get up and rejoin the battle with no ill effects (other than maybe still functioning at reduced hp). Here, Red is stunned for at least 1 turn after waking up; a more gradual transition to being fight-ready and something I'm considering adding as an optional rule now.

I'm normally far from a gun advocate, but if Red was looking to finish this fight most effectively, I think he would have gone with his gun rather than throwing sand in Carr's face. Apparently the sand gives him such an advantage that he easily wins the fight off-panel, so maybe I'm wrong? Let's review; how I would handle this is an attack roll, ignoring any armor but not DEX bonus or cover, then a saving throw vs science from the target. Failure means temporarily blinded and at a -4 to hit penalty for the next 1-4 turns. So, I guess that's a pretty good advantage, but not a sure win.

This has to be the most verbose feature I've reviewed yet for this blog, and I'm not even showing you the pages that are almost solid text. It's not really that complex a plot, but the author seems to think it is.

A monogrammed lace handkerchief and the smell of perfume are good clues, but the knife in the back is the best one of all and they don't even talk about it.

Noticing that someone else has the same initials is not a clue I would normally make someone roll for, expecting the players to catch it themselves. The smell of the perfume the players could not tell on their own, so for that I might allow an Intelligence check to recall it smelling the same; I don't see that being a skill, unless we treat perfume identification as a skill. There is generally a lower chance to make a skill check than an ability score check, so I guess it depends on how hard you think recognizing the perfume should be.

The Scarlet is an unusual name for a villain for two reasons: one, Scarlet isn't a noun, and two, you normally associate Scarlet with a female.

A fountain pen that shoots out stunning gas that can affect 1-2 people is a handy minor trophy item.

Smashing a window seems an unusual signal. What if The Scarlet had used bulletproof glass in his windows?

Complicating the story was the fact that Dorn's sister provided Ed with wrong information, and Dorn was purposely feeding people false stories to throw them off. Players need to be reminded sometimes that they can't trust all the information they receive in-character.

I'm not sure, but I suspect that "200 suspected cases of espionage a day" was just a guess and not a fact I could look

up and verify.

I never thought we'd be looking at Apple Mary again for adventure ideas, but a $5,000 reward to search for a missing item is a plot hook worthy of a fun treasure hunt.

From this page we learn that psychics charged $5, and a book can sell for as little as 50 cents (maybe from a used book store?).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Crackajack Funnies #21 - pt. 1

It feels like forever since I last reviewed a Dell Comic, so it's pretty exciting to come back around to Crackajack Funnies and all the comic strip reprints here.

First up is Don Winslow of the Navy. I always share a page that shows a code in use, but this one also shows that a code stencil is a random item you might pick out of a hoodlum's pockets someday.

 After that stirring anti-war speech, Admiral Warburton uses "scotch" as a verb in a way I'm not familiar with. This use is defined as "decisively put an end to."

It's also real handy, being given an assignment by your commanding officer, and finding out the hard work of getting started has already been done for him. This makes a lot of sense in a comic strip format, when things have to move quickly, or a home campaign when you don't have many hours to play per session.

Innocent soul that I am, I had to look up "half-caste" to see if that was an actual thing. It's just another way of saying "half-breed," or "a person whose parents are of different races." Yeah, it's pretty racist.

The main reason you're seeing this page, though, is for the idea of tucking your secret notes into the visor of your hat. Noticing the thickness of the visor and thinking that's suspicious enough to investigate is like rolling a 1 for a secret door.

I'm not going to make you look at very much of Looney Luke this time, as it's really insulting towards American Indians.

There are some peculiar features to this page worth pointing out. One is Luke going all the way back to the 14th century to meet Indians; I wonder how Wingsmith happened to choose that century.

Despite these appearing to be Plains Indians, they have a mix of teepee and pueblo housing.

I don't think this is right, Indians practicing mummification. Indian mummies have been found, but mummified through natural processes. The most famous may be the Spirit Cave Mummy found in Nevada -- but that was in 1940, and these reprints usually run two years behind their original newspaper runs. So I wonder what earlier mummy was found that inspired this strip.

Interrupting the melodrama of Myra North is this explanation of a verbal code between mobsters. Myra was even nice enough to write out the explanation for us!

For a feature with "stratosphere" in the title, it's surprising to find them exploring caves this month.

In Hideouts & Hoodlums, you don't have to be a dwarf or gnome to detect sloping passages (I would make it a basic skill check).

The science here isn't terrible -- it is most likely that the Native Americans originated in Asia, maybe 20,000 years ago. The big question is, would primitive people from the stone age have been able to carve out a tunnel that smooth and carve idols like that? Probably not.

It takes them a few days to build a shack (how handy that their plane was full of nails!). It takes them almost a week to repair a radio transmitter. Useful to know if I ever revise my inventing things rules.

This feature went from cave exploring to an aerial dogfight so fast I think I have whiplash!

A cowling is the removable covering of a vehicle's engine, most often found on automobiles, motorcycles, aircraft, and on outboard boat motors. On planes, cowlings are used to reduce drag and to cool the engine.

Ah, Roy Crane, how I've missed you!

Here we learn that Flo's skirt is just the right length. I mean -- we learn that it's a good idea, if you're a hero running a business, or just staffing your secret lair with ordinary people, to wire-tap your own phones in case one of your own people turns disloyal. Boy, that Roy Crane art is distracting!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Crackajack Funnies #20 - pt. 1

It's been a while since we visited the comic strip reprints Dell was running with. This post is mostly about tactics.

Here, Don and company show us the best way to get through a minefield.

I didn't really need to share this page; I just think "Doctor Thor" is such a cool name. Don Winslow had a good rogues gallery.

In this age of automatics, we forget how easy it once was to stall your motor. There should maybe be a small chance (1 in 10?) per turn of a car chase of stalling your motor, or it could be just added to the list of halting obstacles listed in the chase rules in 2nd edition.

The scale seems to be  off on the Dwarf in that last panel -- he looks huge in that front seat.

"Espionage, eh? Sounds like a good name for a feature!"

Trying to pass yourself off as an inspector is one of the great RPG ruses and works perfectly here. You might have to forge some credentials, as not everyone will take you at your word like Mr. Rello seems to.

Note that Ed Tracer did not have to actively feel around on that wall to spot it was fake; secret door checks can be done on sight only.

Hideouts on piers with motorboats docked underneath them is practically a cliche by now on this blog.

This is the same year Dell will begin publishing squeaky-clean Disney comics, so I'm amused that they're still publishing stories about dope smugglers in February.

I like how, in 1940, the U.S. government is never a suspect. Conspiracy-based scenarios need not apply in the golden age!

Clipping the spark plugs is one of those complications I'll have to add to my vehicular combat rules.

The fighter aircraft pictured here is most likely a P-35. It's an interesting choice to compare the stratosphere plane to, as Wikipedia claims the "P-35's performance was poor even by contemporary standard" and "it was already obsolete by the time deliveries were finished..."

Wash gives us some more pricing information, with $830 being the cost of all new windows for a building and $300 being the cost of repainting a building.

Extortionists can be statted as bandits, at least according to Wash.

Rather than stat bodyguards, I think we need to recognize that Easy's pals are probably mid-level fighters, like he is.

Another example of non-Heroes needing longer to heal, in this case the hoodlums need three weeks to recover from being reduced to zero hit points.

Wire-tapping your own phone seems a sound strategy, especially if you suspect you have a spy in your midst.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Crackajack Funnies #19 - pt. 2

This is still Stratosphere Jim...

The trophy transportation section in the Hideouts & Hoodlums Basic book has a list of upgrades to vehicles that qualify them as trophy items, and one of them is being bulletproof.

Heroes at any level might think about setting up a hideout for themselves. Here's some sound advice on picking a location with a hard-to-reach entrance, concealing the entrance, and stocking the hideout.

At the rate I go through months' worth of comics now, it takes way too long for me to come back around to Wash Tubbs. Here, we learn that a swanky nightclub could clear $450 in profit in two nights.

You also have to get past the racist nickname of Lucifer for a black man.

And then there's the large-scale ride-on train -- my dad works on those! (true story)

Two things to point out here. Captain Easy could probably handle these racketeers a lot quicker than Wash is, but Wash chooses to do it on his own because combat is dangerous and innocent people could be hurt. That is a Lawful Hero.

Secondly, when Wash has an important decision to make, he gets five different opinions offered to him, four of them from clearly non-Hero characters under the Editor's control. The Editor has to be careful in situations like this not to appear to be guiding the player(s) by making one option sound much better than the other options on the table.

This is Clyde Beatty, who I've already learned was a real person who just happened to get his own comic strip. What I took away from this page is a) not even a cruise ship is too unlikely a location to run into a lion that needs taming, and b) if you spray big cats with water, they need to make morale saves.

Bolton's got a map! I wonder if they would consider opening the flood gates and broadening the Waterfall of Tahar, to wash away the climbing attacking forces...?  Let's see!

Woo, called that one!  But -- what? "My job is done"? You weren't even the one who opened the flood gates, Bolton, all you did was stand around and watch!

A new plane is a pretty sweet reward for him...but I guess it's like giving the player who's Hero was knocked down to 1 hp and couldn't do much all session a full share of treasure.

More evidence of how "bandit" almost always means Hispanic. Other than that, the scenario of rescuing a prisoner from the bandits is much more interesting to me than a "defeat the bandits" scenario.

That is one risky rescue plan; it apparently all came down to Jack beating the bandits at initiative. Otherwise, Whitey was going to have to survive a hail of bullets before that tear gas gun went off.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Crackajack Funnies #17

Today's adventure of Don Winslow of the Navy includes a naval battle between a battle cruiser and a submarine -- neither one of which is going to make it into the trophy section of the 2nd edition basic book. After much thought and research, I've decided to cap the section on water transport trophies to yachts.

Interestingly, it's a yacht that Don is on and not the two vessels actually fighting. The larger naval battle could be roll-played out, or just treated as background flavor text.

Trigger is "crazed" and staggers blindly from fatigue and thirst. Those are some harsh complications I don't expect any players will want to deal with. Trigger is a mobster, though, so the Editor can assign any complications to him he wants.

This is "Time Marches Back" with Looney Luke, Inventor of the "Time Machine."  It's a feature as bad as its title would suggest. Two things to note from it, though: a) Luke's time machine is his hat, which also lets him fly, and b) this is an actual ghost. Real ghosts are exceedingly rare in the early comics, as they're almost always fake undead. This ghost demonstrates its ability to pass through small holes here, as ectoplasm seems to be closer to a liquid than a solid state.

This is Clyde Beatty, Daredevil Lion & Tiger Trainer -- further proof of my new contention that the longer a title is the worse it is. At least Clyde is done messing around in the circus now and is exploring Africa.

Clyde doesn't bother with taming leopards, though -- he just wants to kill 'em!  I've spoken recently about Hit Dice intentionally not accurately reflecting the comics, and here this leopard would have to have 4 hit points for there to be any chance of that dagger killing it in one hit.

This is Buck Jones and the Canyon Rustler, and there's more going on here than you might think at a glance. Buck has defeated this outlaw (an evil cowboy) and now the outlaw is spilling the beans about the hideout Buck needs to head to next. Buck has already learned how the entrance to the hideout is concealed and the location of a lookout (another new mobster type) guarding the entrance.  But there's also a bandit lurking about and he's about to attack. Look out, Buck!

It's been awhile since we've checked in on Dann Dunn, Secret Operative 48. Here his poor dog Wolf is doing most of the work because Dan is low on hit points. At the end, when all the danger is past, Dan faints from low hp. Except, that's not a thing -- you can't somehow delay unconsciousness in the game through force of will. So, this must be the player's decision to make Dan faint -- self-imposed flavor text, if you will.

Also, an example of the usefulness of carrying handcuffs.

Wash Tubbs finds that the 1930s is a great time to buy things cheap, if you've got the money.

This reminds me of a recent issue I had in the 2nd edition trophy section -- how do you set $ values on hi-tech or magic trophy items so that Heroes don't become instantly rich? One answer is, if it's the pre-WWII years, not enough people are buying who have enough money to make you rich.

Speed Bolton Air Ace should be a lot more exciting than it usually is, but in this installment things really start to happen after a lot of issues of people standing around talking to each other.

I'm wondering, though, if a marksman's medal should be a trophy item. The wielder would get a +1 to hit with missiles?

This is Ed Tracer, G-Man X32. He's in an interesting hideout, and I call it interesting because there's plenty to explore here. Did he search all the cells in the dungeon? What's in that barrel and crate? What flows out of that long pipe sticking out of the wall -- water, or green slime?

The radio room is halfway between levels. It contains a safe - don't you want to know what's in it, Ed? Above that is, one could presume, the ground floor where the party is taking place.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Crackajack Funnies #16 - pt. 2

Wash's travel companion here is his old, pre-Easy friend Gozy Gallup. Gozy's lumbago is flavor text, not an injury complication.

Those are some pretty tough hobos at the end. Murder hobos?  I may have to stat hobos yet.

Pirates were in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.  I've already written up monkeys for 2nd edition. Hermits might be a thing I need to stat someday.

Disguise is really easy for Heroes. Throw a bear rug on your back and you may convince people you're really a bear.

Don Winslow is not lucky on this page. First he gets taken down with a wrench to the head. The wrench was thrown into a melee, so if the attack had missed, there would have been a chance of it hitting someone else.

Red not only gets overborn by the bad guys, if you look closely, it looks like only one mobster overbears him. The other two are doing what, pinning down an unconscious Don Winslow? It looks like the Editor decided to roll randomly to determine which Hero each mobster attacked.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Crackajack Funnies #16 - pt. 1

(The following post makes more sense if you think of this as having been posted on Thanksgiving, when I started writing it.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

What is Dan Dunn thankful for? That Hideouts & Hoodlums doesn't have "bleeding out" rules. Despite the fact that he's apparently been unconscious from a gunshot wound for hours, he wakes up just fine. And it really is the amount of time passing that made the difference, not the water that Irwin brought him -- unless Irwin happened to slip a dissolving healing pill into the water!

The mobsters are thankful for the new 2nd edition rule on cover fire, making the police afraid to move into the path of the bullets for they would be automatically hit. But Wolf is fine. Is that because cover fire doesn't work against smaller than man-sized targets, or is the grass really so tall that the mobsters don't have line of sight?

Here, the fact that Wolf hops over a wall and still isn't nailed by the cover fire seems to prove that it doesn't work against smaller than man-sized opponents. Or they switched off of the cover fire tactic for some reason (running out of bullets?).

Dan is awfully optimistic for a man who should be only back up to 1 hit point right now.

We've seen more elaborate trap triggers, like electric eyes, pressure plates, and even motion sensors (before that was even a thing you could buy), but here we get the simple trigger of a black thread setting off an alarm.

This page also suggests that carrying a lit flashlight could make it easier to target someone -- or at least would cancel out the dim light bonus in 1st edition.

Red Ryder is grateful for those hot coals, and being able to kick them in the air as high as a person's face. Now, I do plan on having a rule in 2nd edition for blinding attacks, but should hot material also do damage? I would be inclined to say no, since it gives a double advantage to the blinding attack. Of course, this might make sense for hot coals, but what if the hero was invulnerable and could kick up molten lava? An Editor will still have to play situations like that by ear.

Ed Tracer has less reason to be thankful; first he's tricked by The Piranha, who pretends to have stuck Ed with a poison dart (bluffing is much easier than actually carrying poisoned weapons!), then a mobster gets surprise on him and puts him in a double-arm lock. I have grappling rules for 2nd edition that will cover multiple holds, like this one.

1st ed. H&H had the giant piranha. 2nd ed. is going to stat normal schools of piranha. But this appears to be a tank of only four piranha? That's a pretty easy deathtrap. They're going to be able to do maybe 1 point of damage to him per turn?

This is Buck Jones, and I don't share this page because of the simple "I'll roll a boulder down the hill" trap -- because we've seen that already. No, it's for the peculiar incident of the horse stumbling. Over what? When do cowboy's horses ever trip?  There's no need for a game mechanic for this -- this is clearly a freebie from the Editor.

I'm equally skeptical of this. Should Heroes be able to outrun attacks? How slowly are those boulders rolling? In this case, I'm inclined to say Buck made a save vs. missiles to avoid the boulder trap, which was explained by the flavor text of him climbing a nearby tree to escape them.

Wash Tubbs is abused by his ex-girlfriend's bratty kids in this sequence that harkens back to the strip's pre-Captain Easy days. On the previous page was the ol' bucket of water balanced on the door trap -- avoided by a save vs. missiles and -- since it was only water -- doing no damage.

Itching powder also does no damage but could be a good distraction, maybe making someone save vs. science each turn or lose initiative until the powder is washed off.

Spitballs do no damage, but they sure are annoying (no game mechanic for annoying though).

Trip attacks will be covered under the grappling rules.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)