The Funnies #35

According to The Crime Busters, it's possible to take the hinges off a vault door with a pocket knife, though it will take you hours to do it.

Ew, John Carter -- did you have to cut off his whole head? Cutting off heads is not so easily done in Hideouts & Hoodlums. Perhaps John has his hands on a magic vorpal sword. Or it's something about how strong John is in this environment that lets him do that. But would that make it possible for superheroes to decapitate on Earth, then? I'm not comfortable with this precedent...

A Hero capable of super-leaping, like a superhero on Earth or a fighter on Barsoom, can apparently leap long distances in a downward direction. Should that mean he can fall long distances safely? I had such a precedent for awhile in my Sundays at Home campaign, but I don't care for it. There should be a difference between a controlled fall and an uncontrolled fall. Could a super-leaper take less damage from falling, though?  I'm still thinking about that one...

Atomic cartridges? They were just called radium rifles in the original books. I wonder why they changed it here. "Atomic cartridges" seems like there should be a mushroom cloud with every shot, which is definitely not the case here. Maybe they do 2-12 points of damage per shot, though...?

Cerebus the Aardvaark??

Yeah, I didn't have anything else to say about this one. I'm not statting mosquito swarms...

Lost Temple of the Swinks should become a H&H adventure module somewhere down the line. But it does bring up for me, the issue of illumination.

Wash isn't carrying so much as a lit match to see by, but he seems to be able to see these spacious chambers quite clearly. Is it a mix of the outside light coming in through that small hole, combined with his eyes adjusting to the dark? Should dim light not be an issue in H&H?

I'm okay with the diamond eyes on the statues, but when there's a Fibber McGee closet-full of pearls, I think the Editor is being way too generous with treasure.

Wash seems to just happen to notice tracks on this page, but tracking in H&H is an active skill, not a passive skill.

But, yeah, I'm mainly just sharing these pages because it's Captain Easy...

This is from The Wonderland of Oz and I'm wondering...am I going to have to break down and finally put gnomes in H&H?

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

The Funnies #29

Alley Oop (not pictured here) doesn't name the dinosaur in the background this month, but it's very clearly a triceratops. For such a well-known dinosaur, I'm frankly surprised there have been so few triceratops in comic books so far. Triceratops was, of course, statted in Supplement I: National for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

This "rough and tumble" style of fighting might need some examining. Bat's leap attack reminds me of the panther attack we just saw in Gallant Knight the other day, and is clearly a trip/overbearing type attack. Bat's "claw yer eyes out" attack is a bit harder to quantify in H&H.  Do we need a blinding attack? I don't see most comic book characters fighting this dirty. For Bronc's turn, he kicks, and Bat hits his head. I would not add extra damage for Bat hitting his head; rather, this could be flavor text explaining a high result on the damage die.

I tell my players that they should bring supporting cast members with them so they'll earn more xp -- but the big secret is that's not really it. The reason I want them -- like Wash -- along is in case I expect the Hero to rescue the femme fatale in the next cell over and he surprises me by refusing. If it's really important to me for the plot that she be around, then I can have the supporting cast go free her!

Book III: Underworld & Metropolis Adventures had a list of metropolises and their challenge ratings, but that was just a broad overview -- if each metropolis was detailed gazetteer-style (like the treatment Duluth got in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 1), there would be sections of each city with different challenge ratings. That would give you parts of town so tough they are "too tough for the cops".

Ben Webster and his pals have special glasses that allow them to see invisible things.

The missing links have a special kind of invisibility that makes you unable to hear them as well as see them. It's more like the psionic disicpline of invisibility that just makes people unable to notice you. Psionics were introduced in Supplement III: Better Quality and will probably not go in the 2nd ed. basic rulebook.

Here's a nice selection of spells being cast. We see Wall of Stone, Wall of Fire, a new spell -- Wall of Water -- and several castings of Dispel Magic.

I call your attention to The Crime Busters because it makes me question if a sub-machine gun couldn't be on the starting equipment list. It seems that people in the '30s only had to wait a few days to get one!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #22

Alley Oop uses pteranodons a lot. They are called pterodactyls in the strip, but the scale is off (pterodactyls were too small). Pteranodons are one of the few dinosaurs that can be domesticated and ridden in Alley Oop. Dropping rocks while flying overhead is also shown to be an effective tactic. Helmets are shown to protect wearers from attacks directly overhead, though (act as shields from overhead attacks?).

This is from Four Aces and the lesson here is that pilots flying mail planes were, apparently, authorized to carry a gun.

Goat joke #15!

Oz is a place you could send Heroes to in Hideouts & Hoodlums.  Maybe they need to recover some of this Magic Powder of Life?  It's hard to define, in game mechanics terms, what this powder does. Besides functioning as a Raise Dead spell, it also grants sentience and intelligence.  This stuff would be worth a ton of experience points!

Should a pumpkinhead be a mobster type? Maybe statted the same as a bugbear?

This is a, so far, faithful adaptation of The Marvelous Land of Oz, second book in the Oz series.

Mombi has a potion that will turn Tip into a marble statue. I should have a mobster type for witches, maybe with a random table of crazy potions or powders they might be carrying.

From a gag page called, appropriately enough, Hold Everything.


(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)