Mystery Men Comics #5 - pt. 4

I've always stressed how a Hero can only -- with specific exceptions -- get one attack per turn. So how do I explain Blue Beetle getting to attack four hoodlums at once with a ladder? Even the Multi-Attack power would only get him three attacks, and this sure doesn't look like Flurry of Blows. But, what if this isn't an attack, but a trap? Maybe BB has a chance of setting up a trap (with a skill roll). As a trap, it can be made to have an area of effect instead of a single target.

Serious, Inspector Bancroft? He just gave you the name of the hotel, the hotel room number, who to ask for, and when to ask for him -- that's about four times as much information as I give out in my clues. And you were waiting for a personalized invitation?

You can tell Bancroft is low-level because it says he's being overwhelmed by "superior numbers", but there's only two of them. Well, I guess two is more than one!

Note how easy it is for the bobby to shoot the knife out of the mobster's hand, despite the fact that the knife isn't far from Bancroft's face. That bobby wasn't too concerned about missing!  Also note that bobbies, traditionally, didn't carry guns.

Nope, nope -- calling shenanigans here!  There's no way Bancroft jumped 40' into the seat of a car and landed safely because the seats were so cushion-y. Take your falling damage and like it, Inspector!

Smashing a window should be easier than busting a door down, so I'd treat this as a skill check instead of wrecking things.

When you shoot inside a plane, I would reach for my copy of The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 8 for the plane mishap table. In fact, I keep referring to that so often on this blog that I need vehicle mishap tables for my 2d ed. basic book...

This is D-13, Secret Agent.  Recognizing fake accents is apparently an automatic skill, a skill that the Editor can ask the player to roll for, and not just when the Hero intentionally tries something.

I'm still not comfortable with searching being an automatic skill, though. I think players should have to announce they plan to use a skill in most cases, with a few exceptions.

5,000 nomads may seem like too much opposition for one scenario, but here the goal isn't to beat them; the Heroes win if they keep them out of the fort for the entire session.

Waaiiit...do I have to call shenanigans again already? If the fort is surrounded by 5,000 nomads, how do you sneak the entire regiment holding the fort out the front gate and into the same hills, without being seen? Is this some back door gate the nomads forgot to watch?  I would never let this work in one of my games.

This is from the next story of Denny Scott of the Bengal Lancers, and this is why I hate hunting stories. That tiger was just minding his own business, not bothering anyone, until he got shot and wounded. Then he goes into a mad attacking spree, hurting that poor elephant.

It took an hour of hunting to find the tiger, which is pretty quick for a wandering encounter -- though one of the hunters still griped about how long that took. The sudden appearance of the constrictor snake is unusual; it's way too soon for another wandering encounter roll, so the Editor would have had to plan for both animals to be encountered together.

The elephant failed its morale save and flees. That's as per the rules. The morale rules imply that the victim moves directly away from its attacker, but the implication here is that the elephant moves in a random compass direction, and can even move back towards its attacker. I'm not fond of that, as it seems like an extra punishment for failing a morale save, but I'll give it some thought.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Mystery Men Comics #4 - pt. 2

Rex Dexter is lucky that this large robot (copper or brass?) has such a terrible failsafe in it -- all you have to do is speak to it in Martian and it overrides any programmed orders it already had.

Richard Kendall is after Chen Chang again, or will be after this quick ride in a rickshaw. When he's clubbed on the back of the head and knocked out, the hoodlums seem to think it's reasonable to expect him to be out for only 20 minutes. That doesn't match with Hideouts & Hoodlums' recovery rules, in any version, so far.

This poison has a 10-minute onset time -- exactly 10, apparently. You would think Constitution might play a part in resisting the poison, maybe make the onset time more variable...but, to be honest, I don't think we need the extra mechanics for that.

Oh sure, I could bring up that this page has a "look over there!" tactic on it, requiring the guard to save vs. plot to avoid falling for it -- or is it just flavor text to explain how Richard won initiative even when the gun was pointed right at him?

And sure, I could just point out how dynamic the art is here, with figures flying around the panels almost like a wuxia film.

But no, my main interest is in the obscure word "portiere", for a curtain that hangs over a door.

Wing Turner is in South America, "among the head-hunters." Wikipedia tells me that there used to be headhunters in both Brazil and Peru. Fancy that!

I've written before about my article "Planes in the Sky: Aerial Trophies for H&H" in The Trophy Case v. 2 #8. I had 20 entries on the plane mishap table in that article, but none of them were "the feed line's jammed!"

"Horde" seems to apply to just five natives here. Some of the natives are armed with bows and spears, but my money's on the dude with a six pack who plans to beat Wing Turner to a pulp with a wooden club.

Assuming that sixty smackers means 60 dollars, Jake Bossen is actually offering Lt. Drake of Naval Intelligence an annual salary about 2.4 times the national average. Drake has to be thinking about that one twice!

Yeah, I'm not statting black widow spiders as a mobster type. I would consider the spider a poisonous trap, in this instance. Realistically, there would be little chance of death from a black widow spider bite -- +5 to save, maybe? A success save would mean only swelling, pain, cramping, and sweating.

We finally see Blue Beetle the way we're used to seeing him. Giving people special whistles with a distinctive sound may be good strategy -- if you plan to always stick to one area, always less than a mile away...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Funny Picture Stories #4 - pt. 1

Let's be honest -- Centaur might have never amounted to anything based on the issues I've reviewed so far here. But with Funny Picture Stories #4, here, we see the infusion of relevance with the arrival of Will Eisner.   The Brothers 3 will not stand the test of time as great literature, but we begin to see a cinematic elegance here that will become one of Eisner's trademarks.

 Here, in true Hideouts & Hoodlums tradition, we see how the Hero resolves an argument when the encounter reaction roll doesn't go in his favor!  We cannot say from here if Capt. Smith has surprise or not, but he definitely won initiative. How different this story might have gone had he gone last in the combat turn!

Here's some of that cinematic stuff I mentioned. With this, it gets hard to say how much we're looking at game mechanics being resolved vs. how much of it is simply flavor text. Should the Editor simply hand-wave all rolls to jump from horseback to the underside of a passing plane just because it looks so cool, or is this is a case of saving vs. science, coupled with a to-hit roll?

This is interesting -- the falling damage the Hero and the villainous sheik took seems to only be temporary subdual damage here, yet in H&H all falling damage is considered potentially lethal damage and heals slowly. Perhaps all reference to them being unconscious is merely more flavor text?  Then the contest here is only which of the fallen manages to get back up on his feet first, determined by a simple initiative roll.

And then there's Rocky Baird, a sort-of poor man's Captain Easy.  This guy even looks a little like Easy, though we'll find out in a page or two that this isn't Rocky.  But is he a SCM or another player-controlled Hero?

Note that hardly anyone in this deadly firefight is dodging for cover. Everyone seems to be counting on bad dice rolls!  Since our good guy is apparently dodging 12 attack rolls in this first turn, he is either extremely lucky, or is a player-controlled Hero getting his save vs. missile for each bullet.

We also get some idea here about how many bandits should be encountered together.

Okay, spoiler -- this is Rocky showing up in the plane. Rocky doesn't have the overwhelming advantage here he might appear to have.  As mentioned previously, there is the penalty to hit based on speed for vehicular combat, offset only barely by the +1 situational modifier he would gain for attacking from above. If the bandits had not failed their morale saves, he would still be a target to retaliatory shots fired (though he would have the benefit of both hard cover from the plane and his save vs. missiles for evading gunfire).

You can almost smell the testosterone as these two Heroes meet. That they intend to hurl themselves against an army of a thousand bandits might seem like suicide, but the coming pages will demonstrate how area effect weapons and morale rules work in the Heroes' favor.

The stats for grenades in H&H Supplement I: National say they are good over a 10' area of effect, but if thrown off a plane I would still make the Hero roll to hit the machine gun nest, considering how far off the mark the grenade bag could have landed. The players here would have been very lucky, considering the penalty to hit for the machine gunner is so great that the plane has been missed at least four times, and then the thrown grenade bag hits on the first try with much the same penalties.

Also, though I would treat the damage as cumulative for however many grenades are in the sack, I would not treat the area of effect as cumulative.

Though The Trophy Case no. 8 dealt with plane mishaps, it failed to cover what would happen in the event of a crash, and one's chance of survival.  Heroes tend to walk away from crashes fairly often, so I would be comfortable allowing them a save vs. science to take only 1d6 damage from a crash.

As this unnamed protagonist discovers, sometimes solving a mystery is just too hard, but hanging around waiting for wandering encounters to come by is a lot easier.

Now what to do about quicksand?  Most people by now know that quicksand doesn't really work this way, and yet should it not work in H&H like it does in the comic books?  In that case, any contact with quicksand might require a save vs. science to avoid being sucked down into it, even if motionless.  And if your players complain, show them this page!

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)