Mystic Comics #1 - pt. 2

When we last left Zephyr Jones and Corky on the surface of the sun Cygni 61 the Mad Astronomer had a machine that sprays his secret formula on Zephyr and Corky. He tells them that this will protect them from the heat on the surface of the star, and apparently the blinding light and the crushing gravitational pull as well). Our boys are so gullible, or so smitten with his daughter, that they immediately go outside to see if it worked. Instead of walking on super-heated plasma, this seems to be a rocky place, inhabited by dwarfs that live in caves.

They find that at least nine star-dwarfs had captured the astronomer and his daughter from their ship. Most of them chase after Zephyr and Corky. The dwarves have super-tough skin (like the power, because the heat of the sun has hardened them), but are vulnerable to fire extinguishers because...ah, let's stop pretending any of this makes sense! These aliens remind me of the game Awful Green Things from Outer Space, where you're supposed to try everything on your ship on the aliens, because only one random item will kill them.

To top it off, Zephyr and Corky go back below ground to save the prisoners from eight more dwarfs. They defeat the dwarfs by throwing rope around a group of them and then pulling the rope off the cliff the dwarfs are on. Not sure why none of the dwarfs think to grab onto the rope and pull Zephyr and Corky down first, or with them. If the star-dwarfs are just too dumb, then a fair Editor would make some kind of intelligence check for them (trying to roll under a low INT score) before letting them fight too cleverly. They are very primitive, fighting only with clubs and darts from blowguns.

We've seen Heroes start avalanches to bury or block adversaries before, but Zephyr takes the cake by knowing just where to throw a rock to start an avalanche. That would take some kind of expert skill level in geology, I would think, followed by a successful attack roll vs. a low Armor Class.

The next feature is the 3Xs. The three "Xs" are private detectives, all working anonymously (although they wear no masks to conceal their identities, so it should take too long for people to figure them out), but go by 1X, 2X, and 3X. Each has an area of specialization; 1X does the detective work (high Wisdom score), 2X is a "walking encyclopedia" (high Intelligence score), and 3X is the strong-arm (high Strength score). A later caption explains that 1X is in charge and the other two are his aides (Supporting Cast Members). The 3Xs are good scrapers, but not great, as 13 hoodlums break into 1X's home to retrieve the glove and the hoodlums only fail a morale save and leave after beating all three of our good guys almost to unconscious. None of them use weapons other than blackjack/saps, during this battle. Later, 2X has a disintegrating pistol, a trophy weapon that does extra damage.

A taxi driver tells the 3Xs that his taxi cannot go over 70 MPH.

The Green Terror is a mob responsible for a rash of brazenly public kidnappings, covering their escapes with a smokescreen of green smoke. A clue left behind at the scene of their latest kidnapping yields a clue that requires an expert skill check in botany to identify -- a lost glove on the scene was permeated with the pollen of a rare orchid. Because the orchid is imported, they use freight records to figure out that when the mob came into the country, and when it plans on leaving. Of course, there are some holes in that theory -- what if only one member of the mob worked with orchids? What if the mobsters were on the ship coming, but not on the next boat going? What if an unregistered grower has the same orchids in their greenhouse and they weren't imported at all?

Their leader is also known as The Green Terror. One of the earliest supervillains in comics, The Green Terror is a green-skinned African with the vampiric power to live forever so long as he keeps drinking human blood. However, he's a real pushover in a fight and folds after getting punched by 3X once.

Next up is "Deep Sea Demon," but if you want my impressions on that story you can read here, because this is a barely modified reprint of Fred Guardineer's "Devil of the Deep" from Funny Pages v. 2 #1.

Dakor the Magician is the next feature, and like some other magicians we've seen he's light on actual magic and more of a detective. We also see, like in the 3Xs story, that travel out of the country seems to be public information, as Dakor's assistant Williams is quickly able to learn that their prime suspect in a murder is leaving the country for France.

(Read at readcomiconline.to)

Fight Comics #1 - pt. 2

Last time, we were about to meet the newest hero of futuristic 1997. It's this guy, Saber -- which is, admittedly, a pretty cool name for a Hero -- and you can tell he's a Hero because these U.S. government guys say so (U.S. government guys are all good guys in comic books) and because, well, he's almost naked. In addition to being athletic (high Dexterity score) and has a great mind (high Intelligence score), he has telepathy, which sounds a lot like psionics -- remember the 1st edition psionics system from Supplement III?

I would hand-wave the leaping over the desk thing; if he has enough Movement to get around the table so he could reach melee normally, I'm willing to accept the leap as flavor text.

Saber is pretty vicious -- I noted that the officials have to pry him off the spy or Saber might have beat him to death. No one offers to get him a shirt or pants.

750 MPH was considered near-impossibly fast circa 1940; this speed was not reached until 1947, and not publicly known about until 1953.

"Teloradio" seems like a common cliche of science fiction, combining the television with a telephone, or webcamming, as we call it today.

It will be interesting if we see exactly what the "destroray" does exactly. It sounds like something that would have came out of G.I. Joe...

"Deland" is a strange spelling for Clinton, who was of course the U.S. President in 1997. The actual Secretary of State was Madeleine Albright, so Fight Comics got that even more wrong.

It's curious how the Alaskan uniform looks so Russian, if Alaska is under U.S. control in this future. Maybe control was only recently wrested away.

One-man submarines are as old as 1776. The submarine sled is different in that it seems to be a submersible motorboat, something we still don't have in 2018.

Still no one has suggested that Saber put on a shirt yet.

Saber's sub sled crosses the 827 miles between Washington, D.C. and Bermuda in three hours -- meaning the sled can go 275 MPH, a water speed record that was not broken until 1964, but even now never maintained over three hours.

Rewards can come in all forms for a successful adventure. Here, Saber not only gets to be head of the Super-Intelligence Department, but they give him a shirt! (The first one would come with an XP reward; the second one...not so likely.)

This is Kayo Kirby, which looks like it's going to give us a combination of the crime fighter and sports genres. Note that Kirby manages to force morale saves on the thugs only by injuring them, not by knocking at least one of them out first.

Now, this page gives me a thought...what if coach was a Supporting Cast Member type, who gave Heroes advice while fighting, and it gave them a +1 bonus to hit? That would be pretty cool (though dangerous for the coach, bringing him along into hideouts!).

In my current campaign, there's a jail overcrowding problem that my players have had to deal with in creative ways, including this one -- just letting crooks go with a warning. Not every encounter needs to end with mobsters going to jail.

And this page made me think of something I've never considered for a game mechanic. What if Heroes needed supporting cast to be present in order to fight at maximum effectiveness? Could players who insist on their Heroes being lone wolves suffer a -1 penalty to certain rolls, like attacks and saving throws? I'll have to give it more thought.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Jungle Comics #1 - pt. 4

When Wambi's elephant can't solve all his problems for him, he has to recruit a whole army to help. But at least he gets a reward in the end for alerting them. He may have got little or none of the XP from the fights he avoids, but at least his reward XP is all his. There are surprisingly few examples of rewards being given in golden age comics so far, so it was good to see this one. And now Wambi has a silver sword he can fight werewolves with!

This whole comic book was pretty racist, but White Hunters of the African Safari takes it up to 11. If you can muscle through it, there's some things worth pointing out here.

First, a rare example of lighting conditions affecting missile fire (or at least Slim thinks it will have an effect).

The girl in the background is going to be offering running commentary on what she feels are each of the white hunters' best attributes. Here she comments on his Charisma. 

Here she comments on how brave Buck is. That's a hard thing to quantify for hero characters, because they aren't subject to morale saves like non-hero characters are. But what really interests me is how "Rex is so manly." There is no game mechanic for manliness -- and yet, it would make a lot of golden age sense if there was. Now I just need to give more thought to what a manliness attribute would be like and what it would give you a bonus for.

Also of interest here is a rare instance of camping for the night and setting up watches -- staples in fantasy games, but a rare sighting in comics.

The wandering encounter with crocodiles is surprisingly glossed over as nothing. What level are these guys?

This is Simba, King of the Beasts, which is funny because of the Lion King connection. It's not a bad story -- maybe even the best from this issue -- but I call your attention to this page because of how experience gives Simba the ability to avoid damage. I think that's one of the best explanations I've ever seen for how hit points work; they are not a quantification of toughness, but a measure of one's ability to avoid getting hurt.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century: The Complete Newspaper Dailies: Volume 1, 1929-1930 - pt. 2

More thoughts and observations on the early Buck Rogers.

Buck Rogers' future is a strictly Lawful society, but not necessarily a Lawful Good one. Participation and allegiance to the Orgzones -- municipal governments linked by a weak federal government -- is required and anyone who defies this is branded an outlaw. It is then legal to shoot these outlaws. The Orgzones made up the Federation Zone, which included all of Canada and all the U.S. east of the Mississippi, while the Mongol Empire controlled all the rest of the U.S. and Mexico.

If someone carries or wears two jumping belts, that person can fly off into space without extra ballast or letting go of one of the belts.

Eventually, it is no longer implied but explicit that airplanes 500 years in the future still run on gasoline.

The Mythic West exists even 500 years in the future. The cowboys of the future are Luddites who have rejected all futuristic scientific advancements and are suspicious of them.

For some reason I still can't figure out, MacGregor is a Canadian, but he dresses and talks like a Scotsman.

The North American Capital is Niagra, now a metropolis full of skyscrapers. People get around the capital on foot, or by rocket cars that can drive or fly (the police pilot rocket motorcycles). The city is powered by hydroelectricity and protected from Mongol invasion by "thousands" of giant cannons. Building security is maintained by sound detectors that can register the image of what made the sound thanks to echolocation.

Speaking of Alignment, it's very clear that the North Americans represent Law (though a pretty harsh Law) and the Mongols represent Chaos, which I suppose puts the Golden Dragons in Neutral territory. At first, this secret Mongol society aims to overthrow the Emperor for their own rise to power, but they throw in with Buck on first meeting him, and even put him in charge!

I have to say something here about Buck's Charisma score. I have never yet advocated exceeding the cap of 18 for ability scores, but Buck's CHA seems to be a 19. He's a man 500 years out of time, but when he shows up, people start putting him in charge of everything! It would be like if a man from the 16th century showed up today and the U.S. Army immediately made him a 4-star general. 

The Golden Dragons have an advanced disentegrator ray -- actually two disentegrator rays. They have a range of 1,000 miles and, wherever the two beams meet is an atomic explosion ("Don't cross the streams!"). 

Buck Rogers travels all over the place. It’s unclear where his original mine was except that it seems to be somewhere in the Midwest. He then heads west to California through the desert, then back across the country to New York to Niagra, then he pursues the Golden Dragons to the Cumberland Mountains, which puts them in…maybe Virginia? But their main headquarters is buried under a river in Iowa, near the ruins of Davenport (so that would make it the Mississippi River, or maybe the Rock River), accessible by what appears to be the conning tower of a submarine that rises to the surface like an elevator.

The preferred weapon of assassins in the 25th century is still the knife.

After Wilma and MacGregor, the next most prominent supporting cast member for Buck is Lanlu, a Mongol woman who keeps turning up in adventures. Her journey, going from jealous concubine of the Emperor, to Mongol spy in Niagra, to working for the Celestial Mogul’s treasure hunting company is an intriguing one and at least as interesting as Buck’s journey. Lanlu latter denies having aided Killer Kane in Niagra, which suggests that there might be more to her story than we even know (or this was one of the earliest retcons in comics).

Killer Kane eludes Buck in Niagra with the ol’ “disappear in a cloud of smoke” trick. This smoke bomb is enhanced, though, as it "paralyzes the senses."

The Buck vs. Killer Kane final battle is done by proxy, with each controlling iron robots (like the ones statted in Book II, but with tank treads and only pincer hands). These robots are completely remote-controlled and can make no autonomous actions. They are stronger than iron robots were statted as, being able to wreck through walls.

The "telev-eye" perfectly predicts the spy satellite. Rarely in literature, though, has a spy satellite been used to ram an emperor off the deck of a flying ship. Rarer still is a rocketship with an outdoor observation deck, for emperors who just want to see the view better while four miles high.

Another curious thing about future politics is the powerful nation-state of Chile that we encounter in the second storyline. Chile dominates, without controlling, all of South America, and its navy is the equal of the Mongol Empire's colonial forces in North America. Chilean submarines are super fast -- about twice as fast as today's nuclear-powered submarines. It isn't clear if this practice applies to all their submarines or just their command submarines, but the one Buck is a prisoner on uses two decoy submarines and a ring of radio-controlled torpedoes around the submarine to take fire -- like a hi-tech Mirror Image spell!

Chilean torpedoes come in two varieties, magnetic and lightning. It isn't clear how a lightning torpedo would work, but the magnetic torpedoes are just drawn to metal hulls, like a heat-seeking missile, and probably have a bonus (+2?) to hit. The lightning generator on the submarine seems extremely powerful when compared to a Lightning Bolt spell. The lightning starts in the clouds overhead -- a range of miles -- and then travels to the periscope-like projection on the submarine instead of from it. That could catch a lot of aerial targets.

The Chilean capital is inside an extinct volcano, accessed by subterranean water tunnels. Since there are about 100 volcanoes in Chile, this seems feasible.

The first of the American big rocket cruisers is three stories tall.

Detective Comics #25

This one is woefully out of order. I had skipped over it because the summary I'd read seemed so uninteresting. Now that I've read it myself, though, I found plenty worthy of comment.

Nailing down where the early Heroes are from isn't easy most of the time, but here Speed Saunders tells us he's from New York. He also tells us some useful tips for checking corpses: check the wrists to see if they had show signs of having been tied up, and -- of course -- check the ground to see if there's enough blood, or if the body was moved. And, of course, play every hunch. Even though the body seems to have been killed by a hammer blow to the head, Speed still asks for the stomach to be pumped -- just for, you know, whatev's -- and then by amazing coincidence finds the true source of death. It makes me curious about how a skill in Hideouts & Hoodlums shouldn't be "get sudden hunch" -- which would let the Editor feed clues to his players...

In Spy, Bart and Sally are the first Heroes to be given a plot hook by FDR himself! Speaking of amazing coincidences, Sally reaches into a spy's desk drawer, pulls out random papers, and they just happen to be detailed invasion plans. Now, maybe the Editor assigned something like a 1 in 6 (or even a 1 in 8!) chance of stumbling on just the right papers and Sally's player got lucky, or the Editor fudged events to ratchet up the stakes in the scenario.

In The Mysterious Doctor Fu Manchu, slime-covered walls prevent climbing from a trap. It's your standard flooding room trap with one extra twist -- there are beams just high enough for the Heroes to grab and try to pull themselves up, but concealed on the top of the beams are sword-blades. Although the characters believe they could sever fingers, we deal with more abstract injury in H&H; they probably do only 1-6 damage.

The Crimson Avenger carries two trophy items: a lineman's phone that he can plug into someone's else's phone jack and use, and the first gas gun used by a Hero in comics!

Bruce Nelson is said to have a curious ability: he can shoot "accurately while on the dead run".  Now, normally, one can make two moves in combat in H&H, or one move and an attack. This seems to be implying that Bruce can make a full move and still get an attack. So what's going on there? Should this be a skill everyone has, like a 1 in 6 chance to shoot while on a dead run? But skills don't affect combat, class and level (and to a limited extent, ability scores) affect combat. For running combats consistently, I'm inclined to ignore what Bruce just did, but I'll watch for more evidence...

Crooks often do dumb things in comic books that make them easy to find. Bruce homes in on a gang of robbers because all of their robberies are roughly equidistant from the same town the bad guys use as their base. Heroes should always remember to check maps and look for patterns -- though it should not fall to the Editor to spell out what the patterns are.

Slam Bradley & Shorty Morgan (really, Shorty) are attacked by a rattlesnake when they try attending college to better themselves. That Slam can't spell, but in another issue is revealed to be a self-taught magic-user, either shows that the strip had no sense of continuity, or that an education-related stat would be unnecessary in H&H.

Slam is good at division of labor; when a rock is thrown through their dorm window with a note tied to it, Slam leaves Shorty to read the notes, while Slam crashes through the window to chase the thrower. Smart players will make quick decisions like this, so that all the Heroes aren't trying to accomplish the same thing.

(Read at ReadComics.net)

Action Comics #8

Superman vs. Zod, Superman vs. Doomsday...the age of sensationalism is still many decades away. This month we get...Superman vs. Gimpy! Gimpy might not be able to go toe-to-toe with even the toned-down Superman of the early days, but he's an evil villain through-and-through -- willing to shoot young boys in cold-blood who can testify against him.

Because of stories like this, that focus on the redemption of children, Hideouts & Hoodlums has a mobster type called half-pints.

This adventure is an early precedent for the Race the Bullet power, as well as the precedent for the Extend Missile Range powers being usable on living targets (as missiles).

Superman's confrontation with the National Guard at the end of this story is evidence that the early Superman stories show him best categorized as Chaotic, Alignment-wise.

In Chuck Dawson's adventure, he falls and takes no damage when he lands in a pile of leaves. Falling damage can be very dangerous to Heroes, but Editors should be prepared to hand-wave that damage on any easy excuse -- if the Heroes are going to need those hit points for the upcoming challenges. One of the challenges of refereeing a RPG is keeping hit points low enough to maintain suspense, but not so low that the Heroes are sure to lose.

The Pep Morgan feature focuses on a ski jump competition. If it doesn't really matter to the story who wins an in-game athletic contest, the Editor could judge by who has the higher ability scores, hand-waving any further game mechanics and describe who wins using flavor text. If it sort of matters, but not really, the Editor could resolve who wins with a save vs. plot (whoever makes it by the larger number wins, if they both make their saves). If it's really important, so that the story revolves around it, H&H doesn't really help you much. The Editor can pretty easily improvise a mechanic, though, if he can work out what a good minimum distance is, a suitable random range the Hero can roll for to add, and then add the number from a relevant ability score to get the distance.

Tex Thompson and Bob check into a hotel run by ape-men! There are plenty of ape-men in comics and many different explanations for how they would exist. In this case, they are brain transplants between men and apes. Although gibbon men have been in H&H since Supplement I: National, a larger and more powerful intelligent ape has been missing from the game so far. Mind transfer machines have been in the game since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, however.

Scoop Scanlon and Rusty are given a hot tip by a G-Man -- even Rusty comments on how unusual that is. En route to investigate, they get a flat. Scoop can tell just by looking at the tire that the hole in it came from a bullet (skill check for that?). Someone is sniping at their car from concealment, at range, with a silenced rifle. Thank goodness the sniper's not aiming at them or it would be over for Scoop and Rusty! While searching for the sniper, they find a dying man who knows them. The story doesn't tell us, but we're left to assume it's the G-Man. He tells them where to go next in the story.

While trying to save two more people, Scoop and Rusty have to go into a burning house and Rusty passes out first from smoke inhalation. Was it from hit points of damage, though, or a missed saving throw vs. poison? Both account for the variable of Rusty going down while Scoop is still conscious, but Rusty is soon revived by a bucket of water. Is this more evidence of rapid recovery of the first hit point from being down to zero hit points, or of a short duration for unconsciousness after a botched save vs. poison?

Later, Scoop points a machine gun at some hoodlums farming marijuana. They don't surrender at first, but some do after Scoop mows down some of the others. Now, if I had someone pointing a machine gun at me, I'd probably surrender. But that's why we use morale saves instead of the Editor always making a judgement call on when bad guys would surrender -- because there are other factors, and points of view, that can be better accommodated by random chance.

Heroes in comics could be pretty stupid sometimes. Zatara knows the pilots he's rescued were acting suspicious, but he still lets the maharaja's son go up in their plane with them. Editors cannot assume that players will make mistakes that dumb, as most would see that plot development coming a mile away. So, for every major decision the Editor anticipates the Heroes having to make, he should be prepared for at least two contingencies of how they might respond to it.

Zatara, for his part, demonstrates his Spirit Form spell again, Phantasmal Force, Invisibility, Enlargement, and also a new spell that would be called Rain Bullets (maybe a 3rd level spell, a slightly weaker version of Ice Storm, that really does rain bullets down for 4-24 damage, but Heroes in the area of effect would get to save vs. missiles to dodge it entirely).

(Superman story read in Superman: the Action Comic Archives vol. 1; some pages of Scoop Scanlon read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read here)

Action Comics #4 - part 1

For the entire length of 2015, I tracked the build-up of the Golden Age, from as far back as 1935, to September 1938. I have taken what I've learned from reading these comic books and sharing them with you, what I've learned that can make the RPG Hideouts & Hoodlums emulate Golden Age comics even better.  Now, here we are, returning on New Year's Day, for Year 2 of this project and a return to Action Comics.

Superman uses the power Outrun Train to reach the stalled auto before the train hits it, but why is Superman concerned that the driver will "kill us both"? Why would an invulnerable superhero say that? Because Invulnerability is a buffing power that Superman has either not prepared for today, or is too low in level and doesn't have yet.  Then Superman leaps away. That could be the power Leap I, but since Superman leaped so much in the early days, I just gave aliens that as a free ability.

What's really weird is that Superman just happens to pop into the train in exactly the right passenger car to overhear a plot hook. As Editor, your job will be to create the plot hooks, but not to pre-plan where the Heroes encounter the plot hooks. It's best just to have them spring up wherever the Heroes happen to be.

Superman makes a rare use of the Change Self power (with the flavor text of grease paint make-up to explain it).  Superman also shows a willingness to drug and kidnap people he needs out of the way to make his plans work. Non-Lawful behavior? It shows that H&H needs a flexible Alignment system that does not punish for deviation.

When Superman is getting punched and doesn't feel it, that's because his opponent is actually "missing" to hit Superman's Armor Class. The rest is only flavor text.

But did I miss an opportunity to introduce a new power -- something like "Untackleable"?  When Superman has four football players hanging off of him and keeps running, was that just lucky dice rolls from the grappling attacks? Perhaps a creative use of the power No Encumbrance to carry the four men on him and keep moving?

The pocket knife, snapping on Superman's tough skin, was my inspiration for the Super-Tough Skin power.

"Chuck" Dawson, in his story, demonstrates the cowboy stunt Summon Horse, while his opponent demonstrates Jump into Saddle. I don't know what I'm going to do with the Cowboy stunts in 2nd edition. Somehow fold them in with how skills will work? Make them available to everyone when they go to the Mythic West?

Chuck uses rope to rappel down a cliff. Although this would be a tough thing for me to do, I imagine this would be pretty easy for a Hero-type, and I wouldn't require a roll for it. Now, without rope, or if the cliff was wet...

Pep Morgan, in his feature, does a lot of swimming (he seems to move from sport to sport, monthly). First he does a rescue stunt in calm water and then another one in rapids later. Now, like the rock climbing mentioned above, the rescue in calm water probably needed no dice rolls. But swimming in rapids, fighting the current -- should that be something level-based, like a saving throw vs. science, or an un-graduated skill that everyone would have a 1 in 6, or 2 in 6, chance to perform?  For 2nd ed., I'm leaning towards the latter.

I don't often mention Alger's funny squat-figure people strips, but I found Bad Bill: the Menace of the Hills particularly amusing.  When the old guy says "Ain't you sorta jumpin' t' conclusions?" and Bill says "I allus jump t' conclusions!" -- I can just imagine Yosemite Sam saying something like that. Incidentally, the old man's bulletproof vest shows that armor might be appropriate for even a Western setting.

In The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco and Niku survive a sandstorm by finding shelter. but does the shelter shield them entirely from the storm, or only give them a bonus modifier to saving throws vs. science? At issue is, how important is shelter in avoiding environmental damage?

Later, Marco and his Uncle Mafflo engage in some holiday swimming racing. Since it's not important to the story, I'd just compare Strength scores, higher score wins. If it was more important -- like money or prestige was riding on it -- I might add a random element by comparing Strength +1d6.

Then the Polos see lions attacked by a python. It's a big python -- I don't know if I'd call it a giant constrictor snake, but it doesn't seem to be normal size. Huge? Lions were statted right away in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies. Regular constrictor snakes were statted in Book II, but I don't think I ever went the large/huge/giant routine with them.

(You can read this issue at the Comic Book Archives)