Feature Comics #23 - pt. 2

It's little uses like this -- ventriloquism for a non-serious diversion - that led me to rethink one-use stunts and expand it to include a skill system.

Used cigarettes, an empty matchbook, and broken glasses are all good clues to leave behind at a crime scene.

This seems pretty clever -- trick kidnappers into coming out of hiding by pretending you're trying to undercut them.

I also think more good guys should call the bad guys "suckers".

The first mobster clearly fails his morale save upon seeing The Clock. But later, when circumstances change, the same mobster is given a second morale save and gets a different result.

This is Rance Keane. It's unlikely that the rattlesnake is just a wandering encounter; more likely, the Editor has set encounter areas around the waterhole, like an open-air hideout, and the rattlesnake is just in one of them and the bandits in another. It's certainly unusual to set up encounter areas like this that are within line of sight with each other, but would make for a challenging scenario.

A pretty funny Off the Record panel.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Smash Comics #1 - pt. 1

We continue the exciting (cover date) month of August 1939, when a lot of companies first started adding new titles to jump on the sales boost that Superman had begun. Today, we find Quality Comics finally putting a second title out in the field.

Smash Comics leads with Espionage, the best feature from Feature Comics. This story is an allegory for Germany and Europe obviously, and carries with it some significant alternate history for South America. Editors can be free to shake up world history as much as they want in their campaigns.

For some reason Black X is called Black Ace in this story.

Disguise is clearly central to being a Spy, and is the primary ability of the Spy class.

Black X/Ace's strategy is borrowed straight from "A Scandal in Bohemia". Feel free to borrow from the classics when running or playing in your Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns.

I usually give Will Eisner credit for having well-thought out his stories, but this one seems a little lacking. If Koran's empire extends only as far north as Brazil, then does it make sense for the freedom fighters to be in Colombia, outside the empire? And how did Mara Hani get there ahead of Black X/Ace? I could imagine players crying foul there.

The numbness in Black X/Ace's arm seems to be mere flavor text, as it doesn't seem to be affecting his fighting ability any.

Jaguars we've seen before, and were statted in Supplement III.

Another example of a Hero taking "months" to recover from injuries, while a mobster dies from conditions that, for a Hero, could have been avoided with simple first aid and rest.

I include this page of Philpot Veep, Master Detective for three reasons. One, the inside joke on the wanted poster in the background about G. Brenner (long-time readers will recognize that as the creator of The Clock!); two, $8.65 is apparently a reasonable price for a radio, with tubes, in 1939; and three, the casual reference to Sherlock Holmes' infamous cocaine addiction.

Interestingly, we saw this same panel of the gar-wrestling man in another comic book, from a different publisher! This title from Quality and Fiction House's Jumbo Comics both had the Will Eisner shop in common -- does this mean both comic books were produced by his shop? Or was Eisner able to re-sell the already-published page because no one paid attention to the educational filler?

Swordfish were also covered here. A 450 lb. swordfish would only qualify as a large, 2 Hit Dice, swordfish.

This is Chic Carter, Ace Reporter, the new feature from Vernon Henkel, who we've seen before doing Gallant Knight.

A monogrammed broken watch fob is a good clue for an Editor to let Heroes find.

Players will know when they got a good encounter reaction roll, when the police walks in on their Heroes, catches them compromising a crime scene, and still just lets them walk away.

This is not a tactic I would normally recommend, since there's a good chance the bad guys will try harder to lose you. But if you're confident in your driver, you might want to make it easy to let the bad guys know you're tailing them, so they'll stop and attack you or try to capture you.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Popular Comics #40

The Hurricane Kids are lost on a hidden land/lost world island. You can tell that it is by the over-sized fauna and, of course, the presence of dinosaurs. But what kind of dinosaurs? Some variety of carnosaur, it seems. I wonder if I should keep dinosaurs equally generic in Hideouts & Hoodlums, so one carnosaur entry could represent a variety of species.

Although also unnamed, this is likely a pteranodon (or simply pterosaurs if I want to keep labels more generic). Pteranodons are strong fliers and need some special ability for snatching and flying away with people.

Toby might be a surprising source for a consideration of the undead -- but what exactly is that thing Oomog is fighting, and what can it do? It is called both a spook and a ghost in the text. If it is a ghost, then ghosts can be hit by normal attacks (or perhaps only by powerful opponents, of 4+ HD, using normal attacks). Or perhaps spooks are something else, a weaker version of a ghost. Spooks can fly, spook people, and turn invisible, but nothing else (no other special defenses in particular).

I think the mobsters are onto something here. Horned toads may not be dangerous, but I always thought they were creepy. If nothing else, they're good hideout dressing.

From Shark Egan, a rare appearance of a huge eel (not a giant eel, and not an electric eel either). I gave giant conger eels 3 Hit Dice in Supplement II, so a huge eel should have 1+1 Hit Dice.

The Masked Pilot must be using the Aviator stunt Wing Walking to climb out safely onto the tail assembly. He then offers a good suggestion for investigators with bombs -- or any hi-tech item -- to search for clues. Every component has a chance of containing the manufacturer's name or mark on it. Find out who bought the pieces, and you may find the maker.

Here's an early precedent for rubber masks being able to fool people in comic books.

From filler called George Clark's Carnival, I thought this was a pretty good joke.

(Scans from Comic Book Plus)

Crackajack Funnies #12

The theme for today's post is stunts, a game mechanic from the Hideouts & Hoodlums supplements that is being radically overhauled for 2nd edition. In 1st edition, stunts had one-shot activations, like powers and spells, and then automatically worked so long as you made it into the duration before it expired. What will replace this are skills, that you always have a random chance of succeeding at. Mysterymen will still get a chance to use stunts -- a limited number of times per day they can auto-succeed at a skill, with extra panache.

So, despite how heavily the new rules will talk about Mysterymen, they apply equally to Cowboys. Cowboys are from Supplement III: Better Quality, will not make it into the 2nd edition Basic Rules book, but might make it into a later book expanding Hero creation options for different settings/genres.

Here, we see Tom Mix and another cowboy performing a stunt together. Leaping from one moving horse to another seems like a skill anyone might have a chance to accomplish -- though I would make it an expert skill with a lower chance. But leaping while your hands are tied behind your back? That's something extra, and has to be a stunt.

This is something that I had not considered a skill at first, probably because Heroes don't resort to it too often, but hiding is definitely a skill.

Captain Easy is often a good source of inspiration. Here, he teaches H&H players a thing about perseverance! Without any clues to go on where the pirates who kidnapped the girl he was responsible for are hiding, Easy and Tubbs start visiting every island where they could be hiding and checking every one. They have searched 17 islands so far at this point, and are about to finally strike pay dirt on the 18th...

This is a situation where a stunt, Increase Speed, that originally debuted for the Cowboy class, made so much sense that it was also given to the Aviator class (in The Trophy Case v. 1 #6-7), and then to Paladins in Supplement V: Big Bang.  Now it makes sense to just let everyone have a chance at it, which is why it will now be a skill.

I don't have a lot to say about this, and any wargamer worth their minis already knows this, but tactics are important even when your Hero is in a Naval battleship, or a bomb-dropping blimp.

The tropes of the genre work both ways. There's no way that mask should be able to conceal anyone's identity. But if it works for the heroes, it works for the villains (and everyone still has to save vs. plot to recognize him through the mask).




(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Action Comics #12

Superman is one year old! To celebrate, Superman declares war on reckless drivers. This is the kind of proactive playing most game referees just dream about, though it is admittedly hard to prepare for if the players just start a campaign like this off the cuff.

Superman does a lot of wrecking in this story -- wrecking his way through a brick wall, wrecking cars and trucks, and the machines in a factory. He uses his alien abilities of leaping, running super-fast, and naturally nigh-invulnerable skin, and the powers Raise Car and Dig. He probably uses Feather Landing too.

Remarkably, Superman is shown capable of being knocked over by a speeding car when he's not braced for it, or perhaps just because he doesn't have the right powers buffing him.

Scoop Scanlon was seriously injured in last month's segment. A month passes in story time while he convalesces. That's a long, slow rate of hit point recovery!

When Pep Morgan is stuck in a South American country ("Latara" -- I can't even guess what that is code for), he does the smart thing my Monday night group did when they were in Cairo -- seek out help from an American consultate. In this case, Pep can wire home for money and get a few pesos to tide him over (the latter as the result of a high encounter reaction roll?).

Pep escapes from being tied up by exerting "super-human strength." Umm...I don't think that's really Pep's thing. Maybe the rope wasn't very strong?

Zatara is in an explorer's club in San Francisco -- he really gets around looking for plot hooks!  A scientist friend approaches Zatara, for the man has invented a portal to the fourth dimension and wants Zatara to explore through it.

The fourth dimension is a gonzo sandbox setting, with prehistoric flora and fauna, including a saber-tooth tiger (these were statted in Book II). It is also inhabited by green humans who live in nations called Thrule and Arren. The humans of Thrule are masters of biology and have learned how to recreate species from various times in Earth history, like the tiger. They are not good with weapons, though, as the leader of Thrule has nothing but throwing daggers to defend himself with. The people of Arren have weapons that can vaporize people, so it seems a decidedly lopsided war between them. One wonders how Thrule is not yet conquered...

Soon, Zatara is flying a winged horse, but it isn't clear if he made that, summoned that, or was given it for his use by the leader of Thrule. Zatara does cast a spell that reflects missile weapons back on the thrower (Missile Reflection? Maybe a new 4th level spell?), Polymorph himself into a vulture, turns Invisible, uses ventriloquism (a spell, or a skill?), and then Polymorph again to turn a woman into an ugly hag (for a change, all but the first of Zatara's spells were in Book I!).

(Superman read in Superman Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select pages were read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, summaries of the rest read at DC Wikia)

Adventure Comics #37 - pt. 1

Poor hippo!  I hate this cover...

Barry O'Neill and Fang Gow definitely hate each other. Ol' Fang has Barry in a familiar death trap --  "the 'Water Cure' - drops slowly fall on his forehead, which will eventually cause insanity, then death."  I have never understood how that would actually work, but it's enough of a genre staple that it must at least work in Hideouts & Hoodlums. But how, exactly? Since it's obviously not an impatient man's trap, I'd say the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to avoid going temporarily insane. Then the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to avoid going permanently insane. Then the victim would have to save vs. plot every four hours to escape death.

Fang Gow's followers are described as bandits.

Cotton Carver and Volor the Dwarf are overwhelmed by the "reed men", so called because their skin is green like reeds. In situations like this, when "new" mobster types are clearly just "reskinned" humans, I do not plan to give them their own stats; reed men sound an awful lot like natives to me.

The bigger issue is, how to overwhelm foes with superior numbers in H&H?  If, say, 100 natives all try to pile onto a Hero, do you only roll to attack for the 9 who can immediately surround him, or take the collective pushing force, weight, and mass of the whole crowd into account? I here propose rolling to attack for all of them, and giving the Hero a -1 penalty to save vs. science for every hit after the first to avoid being pinned. Even high-level Heroes will have to avoid confronting huge mobs now!

Steve Carson of Federal Men is being led out into a field by three gunmen who plan to shoot him down. No slow death trap, no source of cover -- it looks like Steve's Editor has either decided to stop going easy on him or is ready to end the solo campaign! But Steve's player is smart and comes up with a good plan, to ask the hoodlums which is in charge and get them to fight each other. Given the life-and-death nature of the situation, I might just give him a win and let the trick fool the hoodlums, to reward him for his creativity. But if I was feeling less merciful, I might roll a save vs. plot for the hoodlums to determine if they fall for it or not.

Tod Hunter runs afoul of a jealous wizard with a new magic potion -- Potion of Suggestion (makes him vulnerable to everything said to him, as if the Suggestion spell) -- and a new spell, Life Link. I'd say this spell has to be maybe 7th level, as it's pretty powerful; the Magic-User links his life to someone else and if one dies, the other dies too. Tod gets Dispel Magic cast on him too.

Dale Daring seems a little useless in her scenario; she's surrounded by a company of fighters of up to 4th level (F4 = lieutenant). Still, every good die roll can be important in a scenario, and Dale is able to make the listen check that everyone else fails and allows her to hear the poachers coming.

Captain Desmo is hidden world-exploring and encounters a "prehistoric crocodile."  I'm not sure how big it looks in the comic book, but prehistoric crocodiles could weigh up to 8 tons -- we're talking maybe a 30 Hit Die crocodile here. I'm guessing the author had something less dangerous in mind -- maybe a giant crocodile should only go up to 15 Hit Dice? Regardless, Desmo and Gabby wisely run from it.

The human natives need Desmo's help against giants called the Mudas -- and the summary writer wasn't kidding when he called them giants. One of them apparently picks up Desmo in his hand! So we're talking frost giant size here, if not cloud giant size. And yet...the natives manage to bring these giants down with mostly spears? Something seems amiss here to me. I would probably stat the Mudas as hill giants to make them more killable. And I do plan on weeding out some of the giant types from H&H, so it'll be important to watch how many I recognize here in the blog.

Tom Brent, in a rare stand-alone story...is captured by an old man with a shotgun and misses out on most of his own scenario, as the local police catch the smugglers who threatened him. If you ever have a session of H&H that goes badly for you, you can take some consolation if it didn't go Tom Brent-level bad.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

Star Ranger Funnies v. 2 #1

You wouldn't think someone would give these things much thought, but I have long wondered, if hillbillies were a mobster type, how to stat them differently. Apparently, hillbillies would have a big bonus to save vs. poison.

Strong drink has strange effects on people in comic book campaigns that are light in mood. In this instance, moonshine can make people save vs. science or jump right out of their clothes.

This is actually sound combat strategy (provided no one can shoot you while you're knocking the bee hives down the hill).

And just when I was thinking that everyone should have a chance to track, here comes the Frontier Mysteryman, the Ermine, making a case for tracking being a special skill.  Or maybe everyone should have a chance to cover their tracks, and then only a special tracker can still track covered tracks...?

This is so subtle that I almost missed it. We start the page in broad daylight. The sheriff is measured for a coffin and -- the implication is -- he punches the guy out cold. The guy is seen later, at night, coming around. Now, this is clearly a joke page, but it's still the first evidence I've seen of Hideouts & Hoodlums getting healing right from the start; that healing is very slow and takes hours to get a hit point back.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Crackajack Funnies #8

Sure, it's fun to play an alien superhero who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but the challenge of getting into an upper story window without any super-leaping ability can be fun too. This is one of the reasons the Fighter class is still relevant in a campaign with Magic-Users and Superheroes.

If a Fighter like Dan Dunn wants to cross over to that window, he's going to have to find a ladder long enough to bridge the street, push it over to the window sill, and then balance across the ladder until he reaches the window.

Dan is quite confident that he's hidden the dictaphone well. There's no game mechanic for hiding it well, though -- it all depends on the luck of the searchers.

One of the many balancing acts of the Editor is to make hideouts challenging, but not so challenging that the players just decide to flood the place and be done with it. It's also a good idea not to tempt them by placing large bodies of water so that they would drain into the hideout.

This will not be the last portable time machine in comics. I don't recommend time machines be this portable or easy to use -- time travel could be a campaign wrecker in all but the most capable Editors' hands.

That said, the idea of going back in time and finding talking, intelligent dinosaurs, is intriguing...

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Crackajack Funnies #6

These panels are from Capt. Frank Hawks, Air Ace, and shows the old "shoot the lock off" trick. The game mechanics for wrecking things don't distinguish between what tool you're using, so shooting the lock has the same non-Superhero wrecking chance as going at it with a crowbar.

You can definitely move around in combat, as shone here. You only have to be within 10' of your opponent to stay in melee range with them, so a combatant could move up 10' to engage, then pass and stand 10' on the far side of their opponent, without ever leaving melee.

I've never understood how diving underwater protects fictional characters from bullets so well, but maybe water should serve as hard cover?

And, of course, an amphibious plane is a trophy transport item.  Collect 'em all!

Myra North, Special Nurse, is not normally prone to flights of fancy, so maybe this is a real thing, injecting a capsule into a chicken so that it gets passed through into an egg. It seems a crazy way to pass a secret message to me, but maybe it'll really catch your players off-guard someday.

There's not a really good long shot of this hideout, but it seems to be a cluster of cabins located in a remote mountain pass. You can approach it from either end, and be observed by scouts, or you can climb up over the sides and lower yourself down 70' cliffs by rope. I suppose you could also just drop flaming debris onto the cabins, to the scenario had best call for making sure everyone isn't killed. Indeed, in this story, Buck Jones is going into the hideout to rescue someone.

I liked this idea from Don Winslow -- bad guys drain a lake to reveal a sunken Mayan city. Now the Heroes get to explore the ruins with a nice mix of dry and aquatic encounter areas.

Don's plan to re-take the stolen naval cruiser is to use a tin pan full of flaming oil in the powder magazine to make the crew think there's an out-of-control fire in with the explosives. It's a desperate gamble; I would leave some chance, if I was running this scenario, for the fire to get out of control.  I would also make morale saves for the crew, and some unlucky rolls might mean some of the crew are willing to play hero and go down to fight the fire.

This is Tom Mix, and the hideout here appears to be a cave with a giant secret door blocking the entrance that can only be turned by a crank from the inside. However, since the door is really only canvas on a frame, made to look like stone, it would actually be easy to wreck through. However, because it's only canvas, it's real easy for the defenders to shoot through at anyone trying to wreck through...

And lastly, there is the sanitarium hideout of Doctor Sabin in Tom Traylor. No single page of the story gives you a very good sense of the layout of the place, but it a spacious, well-furnished, house built on the shore of a sound, with a dock and a boat out back. Besides the dining room, sanitarium office, and operating room, there is a radio room, a dungeon (complete with prison cells), and an underground passage that extends from the dungeon up to the dock.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Popular Comics #33

We move into October 1938 now and start with this offering from Dell.  I don't actually have a lot to say about it, but I'm going to share some of it anyway.

Among the gag filler is this panel -- I'm really surprised it took this long to see the cliche of the "Indian rope trick".  Still...Hideouts & Hoodlums is going to need a Rope Trick spell.

I like this Shark Egan; it's got dynamic art and a fast-paced story.  We also learn why it's not always a good idea to keep a crate full of grenades in your plane -- because someone else might find their way into your plane.

We also see that it's awful hard to hit even a target the size of a boat with a grenade, when thrown from a fast moving plane. This matches up with the penalties to hit at high speeds given in the vehicular combat rules of Book III: Underworld and Metropolis Adventures.

And I'm sharing this page only because I think it's funny. I would not expect any Editor to ever let this work in H&H, no matter how light the mood of the campaign was. Now, in a game like Toon, then this could work...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)