Feature Comics #29 - pt. 2

I sure hope those cows are okay!

Rance Keane goes over the evidence and finds the hard-to-miss one -- the railroad spike has been removed -- and one that feels a bit like overreach -- because he only finds the print from a right shoe, he presumes that there was only a right shoe. Odd that he isn't suspicious about not seeing the marks from a cane or crutch at the scene. Did he think the saboteur just hopped around?

Rance not only thinks he has the right to go snooping under the beds of people he suspects, but if he finds two matching shoes he thinks he has irrefutable evidence. This reminds me of a school of thought when it comes to game refereeing which advocates having no planned solution to a problem, but just go along with whatever solution the players come up with.

A rare instance of a hatchet being used as a missile weapon, and of a male supporting cast member fainting (failed morale save, not a failed loyalty save).

This is Captain Fortune climbing around, finding that even on cliffs there can be encounter areas. The skeleton with the warning pinned to it is great hideout dressing.

Slim and Tubby encounter bad guys with an unusual strategy -- they lose on purpose, to make the good guys look bad. In certain circumstances (like this boxing ring) it could work.

And we'll wrap up with Spin Shaw, who's in an aerial dogfight with unidentified, but possibly Japanese, planes. The fighting maneuver most used in this fight appears to be a wingover, though it is never named by the narrator. I just found this Wikipedia entry, which I will definitely have to incorporate in the Heroes Handbook.

Forcing a pilot to crash is, interestingly, not listed among the basic fighting maneuvers I linked to above.

I'm not sure a parachute would just pop open and spread out like that...in fact, I'm inclined to doubt it (save vs. science to make it happen?). I'm also not sure how swinging overhead keeps Spin from getting shot at; more likely he just won initiative that turn.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum.)

Action Comics #11

Superman's powers are starting to look very familiar at this point. We again see Leap I, Outrun Train, Wrecking Things, and probably even Invulnerability (because even Tough Skin might not save you from a sub-machine gun, depending on how you're rolling weapon damage). Story-wise, it is good to see consistency in what a superhero can or cannot do. Superman, for instance, uses a drill to dig for oil instead of the Dig power, and he uses an ordinary torch because he has no powers that generate heat or flame.

In most different superhero RPGs, the superhero would be limited to a specific set of powers. Here, the player is on his honor to only prepare the powers that best emulate his Hero each game session. But this gives the player great flexibility too. In this story, Superman's player decides to use X-Ray Vision and Super-Hearing for the first time. Had he decided to use Blast II and Chick Magnet instead, Superman would have turned out like a very different character!

In Scoop Scanlon's story, Scoop is undercover and, to pass himself off as a mobster, has to shoot his friend Rusty. To keep Rusty alive, Scoop shoots his metal belt buckle -- which seems to me an incredibly risky move. I'm not even sure how I would handle that with game mechanics. A big penalty to hit for a "called shot"?  Or I could treat the buckle as cover and move Rusty's AC from 9 to 8. If Scoop rolled just right to hit AC 9 or 8 it would hit the buckle, but if he rolled any higher than that, he would hit Rusty.

With this issue, Pep Morgan moves closer to being an adventure strip. Press ganged onto a gun smugglers' ship, Pep escapes by swimming to shore ahead of the ship, past some sharks that luckily choose to ignore him. It's easy for the Editor and players to fall into the trap of thinking that all encounters need to be adversarial encounters, but that's too limiting for a RPG -- which is why we have encounter reaction tables in the first place. The sharks should be just as likely to be uninterested in Pep (if they've eaten recently), and what a more memorable encounter it would be if the sharks turned out to be friendly!

The gun smuggling ship captain takes shots at Pep as he swims away, but luckily the water serves as cover.

How The Adventures of Marco Polo hails from different times! A leopard hunt is already over when Marco decides he wants a leopard cub to train. So he instigates a fight with a female leopard protecting her cubs, the poor mother is killed by others in his hunting party -- and Marco is commended for his bravery! You know, instead of everyone telling him what a Class A jerk he was. At least, from this scenario, we see trained cheetahs being used like hunting dogs (an interesting idea, though I doubt wild cats would do that unless being magically controlled), jackals being used as a clue during the hunt, and a pack of leopards.

I almost want to keep jackals out of H&H -- they're so small they would, at best, share stats with a giant rat. A cheetah I would give 2 Hit Dice, the same as I would give a leopard. There would be little reason to stat them differently, except to give the cheetah a faster movement rate.

Tex Thompson and a party of supporting cast members explore a lost island. Despite the H&H rules on languages, Tex can't speak to the local Malays and needs an interpreter. Supplement I: National suggested an optional rule for language barriers. Basically, instead of tracking how many languages your Hero can speak, you track the exceptions (this will be explained as such in 2nd ed.).

Tex has to pass three challenges on the Malay island. The first challenge drops him through a pit trap into a pool with a shark in it. The second challenge is to overcome a warrior in single combat. In each challenge, the Malays are generous and make sure Tex always has a weapon. The third challenge is to get through a wall of fire. Here, Tex plays it smart and goes through the previous two rooms to look for items that will help him get through the wall of fire. He settles on a flag from the warrior room that he soaks in water from the pool room. It is important for the Editor to allow for multiple solutions to a puzzle like this; don't penalize the players if they fail to come up with the single solution you had in mind (so long as their solutions also make sense!).

Chuck Dawson's adventure reminds us that it's important to give some thought, when you're constructing a trap for your players, as to how the trap would be reset. In this story, a trapdoor in a cabin has a concealed pull-string rigged up so you can pull the trapdoor closed from outside the cabin (though, in this case, I don't get why you would need something so elaborate).

Zatara has a travel adventure -- that is, an adventure that happens to him as he's traveling from place to place, rather than having to travel to the adventure. His cruise ship crossing the Pacific is haunted by a ghost that can't be harmed by magic. Zatara figures out (before I did!) that the ghost is an illusion spell. This story sets a precedent for people being "killed" by illusions -- the body is convinced it is dead and stops functioning, so the person is effectively killed -- but a person killed by an illusion can be revived if done quickly enough before all body functions cease.

For spells, Zatara throws around a powerful polymorph spell that can turn a man into a door (that's got to be pretty high level -- it not only affects the man, but a nearby wall as well!), a Polymorph spell on both himself and Tong -- to turn them into mice (setting a precedent for how small the new form can be with that spell), and Gaseous Form on himself (this lets him move through keyholes). He casts some kind of spell that creates a hole in the wall (like Stone Shape, but is not limited to stone -- maybe it's just a 3rd level spell called Create Hole?).  He casts a polymorph spell that turns one object into another (4th level?).  He casts a spell that conjures items (Minor Creation?), then Fly Sphere on the audience around him. He casts an "astral form" spell that seems to be linked to the spell Locate Object -- this reminds me of the Improved Locate Object spell I already planned to introduce. He uses Phantasmal Force/Silent Image, and Dispel Magic. Finally, he uses Flesh to Stone.

Zatara must be at least 12th level magic-user at this point, and probably more like 16th level.  In comparison, Superman is probably only a 5th or 6th level superhero at this point. Which is why I plan to flip the xp charts around and let magic-users advance much faster than superheroes.

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

Feature Funnies #19

Hideouts & Hoodlums' combat rules do need to take special maneuvers into some consideration, but I am very hesitant to allow a combat move like this neck twist (demonstrated in Joe Palooka), which bypasses the hit point mechanic and automatically* removes a combatant from play (*and, yes, I realize that it wouldn't really be automatic if a saving throw was allowed). It seems too much like the superhero power Sleeping Nerve Pinch to allow just anyone to use.

This next page serves as an example of why I don't want too realistic a combat system for H&H, but for a different reason. While super-neck twists could end a fight faster, complications incurred in addition to hit point loss -- like blurred vision -- would slow fights down and put combatants at an increased disadvantage the more they are already losing. It may be more realistic, but it does not make for epic fight scenes where the good guy, on the ropes, keeps fighting in peak form all the way up to the end. Further, such an additional penalty might scare players off from risking hit point loss during combat at all.

It turns out not to be a real banshee haunting Lena Pry and Daniel, so I won't be adding that mobster-type to H&H yet, but this story never does explain, over the following pages, how the "banshee" survived being shot in the head. Fake undead still needs to become a mobster-type (not sure if I'll call them "fake undead" though), and maybe they should have some measure of real undead's special defenses until unmasked?

Although comedic, Archie O'Toole is still an adventure strip and could serve as the basis of a light-hearted campaign. I definitely think Count Morris Hackula of Brooklyn would make for a fun encounter. Here we see the traditional vampire power of being able to turn into a bat (and could this be ghosted by Will Eisner? Countess Hackula looks an awful lot like one of his femme fatales...). Except, on the next page, we learn that the Countess isn't really a vampire, but a jitterbug. When she bites you, you go mad and don't want to do anything but dance. It's a ...somewhat intriguing notion, though I don't know if I'll be adding jitterbugs to the mobster section anytime soon.

You never know with these non-fiction pages how non-fiction-y they really are. This one is As Strange as It Seems, and while I'm not sure how representative that really is of West Indies fashion in the 1930s, it's the first panel I've seen set in the West Indies in modern times. I just recently ran two H&H scenarios in that part of the world and had to rely on real world research to guess at what it was like.

True or not, I like the idea of "living lanterns" being a regional thing there and, if one of those scenarios ever sees print, I might add this in for color.

I could also see an exciting story where the hero finds himself in a horse race with little or no rules...

This is Espionage, by Eisner. I normally feel I can trust Eisner to have done his homework, but I'm a little incredulous this time that you could get a working plane in the cargo hold of a ship and not be asked for an inspection (though I suppose the machine guns could have been hidden elsewhere during inspections?). I'm also a little ...surprised that Black X keeps something in his wallet that identifies him as spy.

Speaking of things that surprise me, if a lariat is really able to stop a tiger, as shown here in Big Top, then why even bother using other weapons? Special maneuvers with lassoing is going to need more thought.

Here's an idea for incorporating war tactics and strategy into a game without war -- stage it as two "armies" of half-pints having a snowball fight, so that no one gets hurt in the scenario (well, unless one side fights dirty and switches to ice balls...).

This is from Off the Record. The first gag I think is pretty funny -- and the second one is another goat joke! Am I going to have to go back to tracking how many goat jokes I've seen so far?

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Adventure Comics #36 - pt. 2

Tom Brent runs into two bad guys in China who are interesting because of their titles. One is the Russian Count Roloff.  Counts turn up all the time in comic books as bad guys (as do barons). Maybe nobles need to be statted as a mobster-type?  The other is a bandit leader, specifically called General Chang. "General" is a level title for fighters of at least 8th level!  I was more conservative with my entry on bandits in Book II, topping off their leaders at 4th level.

The Golden Dragon serial concludes in this issue. The gold dragon is killed after it shows off some wrecking things skills. The gold dragon does not appear to be Lawful either, nor particularly intelligent. The dragon is dropped by a hail of bullets (JUST like what happened the first time I used a dragon in one of my H&H games).  The dragon guards a treasure room with enough treasure for ten camels (I often take shortcuts like that too, instead of giving the heroes a careful inventory of what all their treasure entails). The one trophy item they acquire is the Seal of Genghis Khan, that assures them safe passage anywhere in Mongolia.

And lastly, in Anchors Aweigh, Don Kerry uses the old trick of throwing sand in someone's face to blind them. This dirty fighting trick should require a successful attack roll, followed by a failed save vs. science, and then the victim is blinded and fights at a -2 penalty for the next 1-6 turns of combat.

(Summaries read at DC Wikia)

The Funnies #29

Alley Oop (not pictured here) doesn't name the dinosaur in the background this month, but it's very clearly a triceratops. For such a well-known dinosaur, I'm frankly surprised there have been so few triceratops in comic books so far. Triceratops was, of course, statted in Supplement I: National for Hideouts & Hoodlums.

This "rough and tumble" style of fighting might need some examining. Bat's leap attack reminds me of the panther attack we just saw in Gallant Knight the other day, and is clearly a trip/overbearing type attack. Bat's "claw yer eyes out" attack is a bit harder to quantify in H&H.  Do we need a blinding attack? I don't see most comic book characters fighting this dirty. For Bronc's turn, he kicks, and Bat hits his head. I would not add extra damage for Bat hitting his head; rather, this could be flavor text explaining a high result on the damage die.

I tell my players that they should bring supporting cast members with them so they'll earn more xp -- but the big secret is that's not really it. The reason I want them -- like Wash -- along is in case I expect the Hero to rescue the femme fatale in the next cell over and he surprises me by refusing. If it's really important to me for the plot that she be around, then I can have the supporting cast go free her!

Book III: Underworld & Metropolis Adventures had a list of metropolises and their challenge ratings, but that was just a broad overview -- if each metropolis was detailed gazetteer-style (like the treatment Duluth got in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 1), there would be sections of each city with different challenge ratings. That would give you parts of town so tough they are "too tough for the cops".

Ben Webster and his pals have special glasses that allow them to see invisible things.

The missing links have a special kind of invisibility that makes you unable to hear them as well as see them. It's more like the psionic disicpline of invisibility that just makes people unable to notice you. Psionics were introduced in Supplement III: Better Quality and will probably not go in the 2nd ed. basic rulebook.

Here's a nice selection of spells being cast. We see Wall of Stone, Wall of Fire, a new spell -- Wall of Water -- and several castings of Dispel Magic.

I call your attention to The Crime Busters because it makes me question if a sub-machine gun couldn't be on the starting equipment list. It seems that people in the '30s only had to wait a few days to get one!

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

More Fun Comics #17 - pt. 2

Mark Marson of the Inter-Planetary Police is new to me, but there are some familiar tropes here.  The "sun-ray cannon" sounds a lot like a Laser, but is probably meant to be a heatray (since Lasers hadn't been invented yet in the 1930s).  The electro-ray pistol is also already statted for H&H, as an electric raygun.  And pit traps!  Gotta have pit traps.

On this page you can see how the cliched tropes of the adventure genre can be used to make future scenarios feel retro.  The only thing different about this enclosing room trap is the "gripping ray" that acts like telekinesis on Gail.





I'm not sure what I'm reading about in Bob Merritt.  The snaky tentacles in the clouds -- are they going to have some natural explanation for that or not?  And the "bursting hand grenade" in the bottom panel -- I'm no expert on weapons, but I didn't think an exploding grenade normally made that much light.  If it was some sort of magnesium grenade that just gave off blinding light, that would be a pretty neat trophy for Heroes to have.

Speaking of trophies, Brad Hardy and his fellow escapees run into some new trophy weapons -- guns that shoot "poisonous shrapnel darts".  So, 1d6 damage + a save vs. poison.

There is a lot of flavor text in this page long struggle, but I think we can break it down into 3-4 turns of combat.  Turn 1:  grappling on both sides.  Turn 2:  Jack fails to grapple (described by the Editor as falling backwards), and Villa fails to hit with his knife.  Turn 3:  Unsuccessful grappling on both sides; Editor allows them both to get to their feet instead.  Turn 4:  Jack punches Villa, using a special maneuver to push him back.  The Editor may or may not choose to roll a saving throw for the window glass (since it's such a cinematic image, he might just choose to allow it to automatically break). 

Since the knife is ignored after turn 2, turns 3 and 4 could be compressed into 1 turn, since unarmed combat allows for two actions per turn.  They do not both have to be the same action.

Young Jeff is so good at hiding, sneaking, and attacking from behind, he might be a Mysteryman!

Sandy Kean runs afoul of a racketeer!  Should racketeers be their own mobster-type?  Perhaps ones with special connections to corrupt politicians?



(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Detective Picture Stories #1

In Centaur's Detective Picture Stories #1, two beat cops take on a robber and a thug.  It's a pretty serious fight, with cop #1 just punching while being shot at by the thug and cop #2 grappling the robber. Remarkably, the thug goes down in turn 1, but it looks like the robber is going to off cop #2 in turn 2.  However, cop #1 wins initiative in turn 2 and is able to pick up a dropped gun and still shoot first.  Now, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't, nor are there any set rules on what constitutes a "free" action that would not delay or prevent you taking your turn; this is all left up to the Editor's discretion. In this case, I would say a generous Editor allowed the gun to be picked up without delaying the attack (I would have made them him go simultaneous with whoever was next!).

This page likely represents just 2 turns of combat. I would ignore the 2nd panel as being flavor text setting up the missed hit in panel 3. Hitting the wall hard enough to bleed must be flavor text from the Editor as well, as there is nothing in the rules about taking damage if you miss with a punch within proximity with a wall. Since you get 2 attacks per turn in unarmed combat, panels 1 & 3 take place in turn 1, followed by the kick in turn 2.

 Our Hero, Ed, revives really quickly. In the current rules, even unarmed combat is potentially lethal and healing from it is a slow process. In the next edition, unarmed combat will be treated as subdual damage instead of real damage and people will recover faster from it.

According to the Experience Point awarding rules for monetary rewards, possession is 10/10th of the law.  By turning down his reward, Ed is turning down 5,000 XP, in exchange for 100 XP for the good deed of giving it to the widow. If Ed had taken the money first, and then handed it over personally, an Editor would be within his rights to give Ed 5,100 XP.

An interesting idea for a scam -- hoodlums simply overcharging drunks at a roadhouse. Apparently, a bill of $56.75 was outrageous for all but the fanciest restaurants in 1936.

Okay, the ol' yank-out-the-rug trick. It's really just a special maneuver for tripping an opponent, so you need to hit by 5 or higher and your opponent has to miss a save vs. science. It probably be better in most situations just to punch the guy.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

More Fun Comics #16

It's the last More Fun of 1936 and Sandra of the Secret Service is dodging machine gun fire!  This is why Hideouts & Hoodlums needs the save vs. missiles mechanic -- because Sandra would be toast without it.

Sandra and Lorenz dive into the moat to escape. The rules cover falling damage, but are less specific about falling into water. Editors are free to hand-wave all damage away, reduce, or minimize damage in any way that makes sense in such an instance. Note that reduced damage is a privilege, not a right!  Heroes need to do all they can to minimize their damage; belly-flopping into the moat just to test the Editor should not be given any reduction.

Look out, Spike Spalding, they're searching for you!  Thank goodness you didn't have to bother with putting points into a skill like Hide just so you could have a chance of remaining a fugitive. In H&H, you just tell the Editor that you're hiding and the burden of finding you is entirely on the mobsters. Most everyone has either a 1 or 2 in 6 chance of finding concealed doors, which applies to concealed people too. Of course, some exceptions to this are the Mysteryman, a class with a higher chance of hiding, and the Magic-User, who has even better spells of concealment like Invisibility.


In this month's installment of Dr. Occult, we learn more about the magic belt that he picked up during his Egyptian quest. The belt is controlled by buttons that are pressed on the belt; one button activates a Fly function (as per the spell) and another button activates a petrification function (as per the gaze of a basilisk).  There is no indication of how many times he can use these functions. It is interesting to note that how the magic belt seems to resemble advanced technology, especially since the villainous Koth's origin on the next page is tied to outer space and a downed spacecraft on Earth in eons past. The implications of combining magic with technology were discussed in Supplement IV: Captains, Magicians, and Incredible Men, in the Dr. Fate entry.

It is even more interesting to note that Koth's origin is almost exactly like Superman's; the difference being that Koth didn't land alone, and his spaceship landed on Earth in the primitive, superstitious past. Had a nurturing society taken in Koth instead of slaughtering his shipmates, he wouldn't have wanted to wipe out mankind for eons!

Midshipman Dewey's Editor has created a bit of a poser for himself. Dewey is tied to a mast; he has cover, but not mobility.  Is he still entitled to a save vs. missiles?  I would be inclined to rule 'yes', but at a penalty.

Jack Woods is sort of dealing with a problem I often have when running H&H -- keeping track of ammunition. I am always grateful to the players who do a good job of tracking it for me. For those less fortunate, I have written some tips for "cheating" on ammo tracking in various sources, like allowing a weapon to fire for a random number of turns (determined by a die roll at the beginning of combat). 

Note that Villa isn't trying anything trickier than trying to get a surprise attack when he reaches the top of the stairs. He won't have any better a chance of surprising than anyone else would, though he won't have less because he is acting with caution.

Jack demonstrates the Cowboy stunt, Disarming Shot.  In theory, anyone could try this as a special maneuver, but would have to roll 5 or more higher than needed to hit, and Villa would have to miss a save vs. science.

After all the creatures Don Drake has defeated, these guys with whips must be awful good for Don to surrender!  Interestingly, Don, Betty, and Zira are kept prisoner in a room filled with blinding light, so they cannot see to escape.

The rules don't specifically cover shooting through doors, as happens to Sandy Kean here in Calling All Cars, but it could be assumed that Sandy has hard cover and is effectively invisible (so -2 to hit and -4 to hit).



(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)