Prize Comics #1 - pt. 5

I haven't tackled a five-parter in a long time, but I had a lot to say about this issue.

We're going to pick up not long after where I left off with K the Unknown and we will, as usual, discuss it in terms of RPG game mechanics. As anyone who's ever read a previous post knows, I wrote the RPG Hideouts & Hoodlums and feel it does a spectacular job of  emulating the early history of comic books -- which I prove post after post on this blog.

And yet...K, getting stunned on the first hit by a thrown paperweight just doesn't match up with the hit point model of incremental defeat that H&H uses. It seems more like every hit has a random chance of delivering a stun. And, as I think about it, I see this all the time against bad guys and animals; only Heroes are usually incrementally defeated. And it does give me pause.

This page also highlights the importance of checking every mobster you defeat for disguises.

I'll give K this, the finale is worthy of a James Bond movie, with the hero and villain struggling upright on a speeding bobsled -- in fact, it predates the bobsled chase in On Her Majesty's Secret Service by 23 years!

I would think that two men grappling on a moving bobsled would wind up getting thrown off almost immediately, but in-game would be fine with giving each a save vs. science each turn to stay put, with a penalty to their save on the hairpin curve.

If Buck Brady of the F.B.I. seems science fictional, it's because of the absence of 1,000-dollar bills out there today. The U.S. government stopped making the bills by 1946, and finally recalled them all in 1969, so I've never seen one in my life.

I decided to share this page to talk about players choosing the direction of the scenario, because I read this I couldn't help but think, if this was a game I was playing, I would have had Buck follow the car rather than search her room. Now, if I was the Editor instead, I could leave a clue in the room telling the player where the old lady was going, and hopefully the player will get the hint that it's important to go to that location...

In this case, the Editor seems to have decided to move the planned encounter back to the hotel room. On one hand, it makes the villain seem smarter, guessing Buck was coming, but on the other hand it makes the Editor seem like he's unfairly using his knowledge of the player's actions against them. A way around that might be to let the player attempt to save vs. plot to find the hotel room abandoned.

Here is the oddly-already-a-cliche of the man dressed as an old woman, but with the switcheroo that the Hero then uses the same disguise.

I'm impressed by the daring involved in piloting your boat into a police boat just to get their attention. A mean Editor could well give you a chance of sinking the police boat, and then where will you be?

The final story we're going to look at is Storm Curtis of the U.S. Coast Guard. I'm showing you this page for two reasons: one, it's more fun playing a character with interests other than crime-fighting 24/7. Give your Hero a hobby, either one you already know about, or one you're willing to research.

And two, check out that grappling hook gun! This is much closer to what a real grapple gun looks like than what Batman has carried since the 1980s, though I'm not convinced grapple guns were that small and handheld in 1940; there could still be some artistic license at play here.

Paper and pencils are good things to find on a defeated mobster, as are cigarettes.

Note the use of "espy" in panel 2, a word I don't think was even in common usage then!

Those are really convenient clues to find in someone's pocket!

Personally, I find the chief spy encounter anticlimactic, but it's certainly surprising and good to pull on your players once.

I think it's amusing how Curtis sort of bumbled into this whole spy ring, like a player getting a lot of railroading help from his Editor.

Comics.org doesn't say who the artist is here, but I suspect Dick Briefer. What do you think?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Jumbo Comics #12 - pt. 2

We'll pick up soon after where we left off in Hawks of the Seas. To recap, Hawk and his small group of castle defenders are in a stand-off, holding onto only the armory/powder room, besieged by pirates who have taken the rest of the castle. Here we get a reverse exploration scenario -- instead of finding their way into the castle, they have to sneak around the castle from one room, gathering the food and supplies they'll need to hold out.

There's also a great example here of outside-the-box thinking when it comes to multi-level hideout exploration; you can always go outside and move from window to window (though you may leave yourself vulnerable to missile attacks!).

I would say that taking a gunshot wound, while swinging on a rope one-handed, would require a save vs. science to keep your hand on the rope. 

Normally, you don't have to worry in Hideouts & Hoodlums about bleeding out and losing more hit points over time, but the Editor can assign this to non-Heroes, as happens here to Tito.

Throwing a curtain on your opponent is certainly cinematic, but how effective is it as a combat tactic? It won't blind or ensnare your opponent for long, as it certainly can't take more than 1 30-second game turn to get a curtain off your head.

However, if you consider the opponent prone, because the opponent cannot see to defend himself, that could mean a +2 attack bonus for the curtain-thrower, on the following turn. If running away, like Hawk is, then the opponent would be getting a -4 penalty to hit for not being able to see (but +1 for attacking from behind), and that is assuming a successful skill check first to hear that Hawk is running and where.

Kudos to Hawk's player for not using player knowledge about what happened to Tito when he tried that same move.

You just don't see hatchets getting used much, exception by Asians and American Indians. How refreshing to see one in pirate hands (even if the scene is unusually violent for the refined Will Eisner).

The pirates have become drunken hoodlums in time for the big brawl, making them slightly tougher foes.

Move silently is an expert skill check, though as a half-pint Jeremy may have a "racial" bonus.

Shoulder paralysis is a complication not normally given to Heroes who have been stunned.

How typically random, like any game session -- the main bad guy goes down right away, and then it's his flunkies who wind up TPK'ing the party.

Hawks appears to be dead at the end of this installment. It will be interesting to see what happens next issue!

Wilton of the West finds a treasure map, purporting to show the way to an unlikely lost Aztec City as far north as Texas.

We have seen before hideouts that can only be entered via water, but not one that requires swimming such a long route underwater to get to, where the chance of drowning before you reach the Aztec city is a dangerous possibility.

As cool as it may be to have your Heroes encounter a step pyramid made entirely out of gold, it's really not a good idea to put that much wealth in front of them and make them greedy. Your entire scenario could become derailed by them trying to steal as many bricks from the pyramid as they can carry.

Getting kings to fail morale saves is highly profitable.

Natives act an awful lot like superstitious hoodlums sometimes. I'm starting to wonder again if I can even distinguish superstitious hoodlums as a separate mobstertype.

This is Stuart Taylor's feature, though he's nowhere to be seen here. Instead, we have Scarpo, an alchemist, Mephisto (the actual demon Mephisto), some unnamed 14th century queen (Queen Philippa?), and a lot of hideout dressing (for torture rooms).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)