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.)

Keen Detective Funnies v. 2 #10

The Masked Marvel seems to have forgotten he has superpowers in this installment. Instead he does things like creep on others with his "raudion-detector" -- yet another TV set that can see anything like a crystal ball.

I'm including this page because this ordinary mob boss has 500 lbs. of dynamite at his disposal. Sometimes, you can just go crazy outfitting the bad guys with resources. Plus, it makes for a more level playing field once the Heroes are higher level and still facing mobsters.

This is from Spy Hunters. I like to include any maps I find on this blog. This one is more of a tactical map than a terrain map, but maybe it would be useful for someone planning a battle scenario in India.

The guy rolling around shirtless is Gabby Flynn. I share this page because tripping attacks seem unusually potent at knocking people out in two different fights here. Could a trip do as much damage as a weapon?

I'm not sure what to make of this. Bellows with a red pepper attachment, as a stunning weapon? If it's that potent, I'm not sure why Heroes would ever rely on anything else. I could see maybe allowing this as a blinding weapon, but not incapacitating.

The reference to an "ogre" shouldn't be taken literal; Gabby's opponent barely qualified for a thug, let alone ogre stats.

This is from "Foggy Night", a serial with Officer O'Keefe as the hero. Somehow, O'Keefe is stunned by a bullet, is dropped from a height, and still manages to come around a little later (on the next page). If the bullet had knocked him unconscious, by H&H rules he should have been killed by the fall.

Dean Denton may be a scientific detective, but he can't seem to figure out a way around a smokescreen. H&H will have evasion rules for chase scenes...but maybe the real issue here is Dean being afraid of hitting pedestrians in the smokescreen. In that case, Dean's Alignment stops him, not the smokescreen itself.

Stunts have come a long way already since they were first introduced in 1st edition. Here we see Out of the Sun, a relic from the Aviator class and its stunt list. Though these are going to be absent from the 2nd ed. Basic Book, they will likely have a place in an Advanced Hideouts & Hoodlums Heroes Handbook, which should come out...someday.

(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.)

Jumbo Comics #6

I'm not a fan of The Adventures of Tom Sherrill and can't get into this highly stylized art, but with this issue the adventures move off of Tom Sherrill to covering Indian legends...which I suspect are just made up and not actually researched. That said -- I like the idea of a magic rain-making arrow. It's a good one-shot trophy item for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

Bringing in a new supporting cast member can be an excuse to interact with all your old supporting cast, by way of introductions. Of course, in this case, it was an excuse to introduce an all-new supporting cast for Hawk.

Zula's giant robot has the power Turn Gun on (Good) Guys. That is one powerful upgrade on a robot!

But if you're reading Jumbo Comics, it's probably for Sheena Queen of the Jungle here.

Leopards have been discussed on this blog so often that they really need to replace cougars in the next edition.

Oily leaves are probably not ever going to be on the starting equipment list, but maybe there does need to be a game mechanic for blinding attacks.  I'll give it more thought...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)