Famous Funnies #34

You'd think a kid who's name is Dickie would be more sensitive towards minorities, but that must just be my modern sensibilities talking. Once you get past the "me savee good!", you get modern and antique diving suits, a giant octopus, and a giant clam. The suits and the octopus are in Book II: Mobsters and Trophies.

Giant clams I'm a little less sure about. Is it a mobster, because it's alive, or is it a trap, because it's stationary and reacts to being stepped on, not unlike a bear trap?

A witch never leaves footprints, because it's a trait all witches have, or because it's a spell? Do witches need a mobster entry, or a Pass without Trace spell?

"Magic Moccasins" look a lot like a magic item, but it's probably the spell Locate Object we're seeing here.

Hideouts & Hoodlums does include three kinds of antique armor already. Here we see Roman segmented armor, which could fill a gap in the Armor Class scheme at AC 6.

One of the antique armors is platemail, but this isn't platemail -- this is full plate armor. Full plate would be AC 2.

Chloroform is a common story device and acts as a sort of poison -- save vs. poison or fall asleep.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Comics #3

A marksman, like the Lone Marshal, might get some kind of bonus (+1?) to hit with a firearm at medium or longer range. Doesn't seem distinct enough for a new class or sub-class, so I'd probably save that for a Cowboy Stunt.

I'm not sure if the science behind this is kosher, but secret writing on skin and chemicals that can make it visible seems feasible to me. Since I introduced the Spy Character class in The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 5, one could play a H&H campaign as a spy campaign, sending secret messages on your backs or searching for same on enemy agents.

But mainly I just shared this because the goatee guy is the Golden Age Doctor Doom, which just seems crazy wild.

Notice how ineffective the sub-machine gun is in melee combat, as opposed to an ordinary chair?  I'm tempted to prohibit or penalize missile weapons from use in melee combat, but I hesitate to restrict combat options for players...

The smugglers are sure scared of rushing that shack! They're more willing to take a range penalty for shooting at what looks like medium range, along with the hard cover penalties.

It must just be a thing that all bad guys leave their keys in the ignition.

I may not be a huge expert on boats, but that "yacht" looks more like a merchant vessel to me. I don't think I would allow Heroes to install an anti-aircraft gun on the deck of a yacht.

When I wrote up a Naval destroyer as a hideout for The Trophy Case no. 9, one of the things that struck me about the layout was that it was so necessarily compartmentalized into small rooms and areas, that -- despite the large size of its crew -- it would be awful easy for a small team to sneak on board and target small numbers of crew members at a time. Much as we see here.

I may not be a huge expert on mines, but I'm pretty sure mines are not/were not this a) spacious and b) well-lit. In many ways, this reminds me more of a fantasy mine from D&D than any real mine I've seen pictures of.

Ah, the 1930s, when punching an orangutan was seen as heroic adventure! Frank Buck is practically the model for the Explorer character class (from The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 2), with its bonus to damage vs. natural animals.

As for the animals, there is a giant poisonous snake in Book II: Mobsters & Trophies, but I would make an ordinary cobra 1-1 HD, with a weaker poison (save at +2 or comatose for 1-3 days). Apes are in the same book and I would make orangutans only slightly weaker (the Ape entry assumes a gorilla is being discussed). Tigers have already been discussed here.

 
It's not very heroic to rely on animal companions, but it is an option to consider, especially for a scenario that is proving particularly challenging for low-level Heroes. Here, six 1 HD hunting dogs would make a huge difference in a fight if that cougar decided to come down and start roughing people up.

More on the strange nature of quicksand in comic book -- apparently quicksand can be found in the middle of ponds.



(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

The Funnies #8

We reach May 1937 today and this issue from Dell Comics gives us... goat joke #9!

We've already seen underwater entrances to hideouts, but this scenario has a twist on that -- the entrance is only visible for a few minutes while the tide is lower.

I'd say a horse throwing its body to the ground in an attempt to crush someone could do a lot of damage?  But how much?

A 180 lb. man falling on top of you might be uncomfortable, but I can't see it being able to knock anyone unconscious (not from weight alone, though you could factor in other possibilities, like an elbow strike while dropping).

But an obese man, let's say 210 lbs., maybe that alone could hurt you if that much bulk fell on you. Let's assume that a horse weighs 1,000 lbs.  If a 210-lb. man can do 1 point of damage, then a horse should only be able to do 1-4 (actually, it should probably be much higher, but recall that H&H game mechanics are incremental instead of exponential). Rounding up for other considerations (the continued movement of the horse, the length of time it crushes), 1-6 points of damage would not be unreasonable -- exactly the same as the default damage for weapons in H&H.

H&H allows for firing missile weapons into melee, though at the risk of hitting a random other target if the initial target is missed. In this case, the shark is certainly in melee range already, though because of the order of combat it will not get its melee attack until after being shot at. Both the shark and the damsel in distress have soft cover from swimming most under the surface of the water, so Tommy better be a lucky shooter...

Binding wounds does not figure into the early drafts of H&H rules, but two versions of house rules have entered the game since. One is that binding the wounds makes hp recovery happen twice as fast. The other gives you an immediate 1-3 hp back.  Each Editor can decide which, if either, rule to use.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Star Comics #2

Ah, Centaur Publishing...this has got to be the weirdest gag page I've ever read. So his hot dogs came to life and scared a burglar away?  Did he reward them by not eating them?  It does give me an idea for making a burglar mobster type, though, which has to make a morale save whenever he hears dogs barking.

Pushing bad guys off of walls is something of a favorite tactic of mine in D&D games, but in H&H it doesn't feel quite right -- not heroic enough.  It's also difficult to recreate in H&H, since the climbing part can only be done by a Mysteryman, unless you are allowing other classes to use stunts.  The actual pushing would be a simple attack roll, followed by a save vs. science to avoid falling (with maybe a +2 situational modifier for attacking by surprise from behind).

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Detective Picture Stories #5

Lots of stuff was cheap in the 1930s, but there were still things to spend your money on. The mortgage for a good home in NYC must have been about $74,000.

Before this, the Clock was just a two-fisted Fighter who sometimes carried a gun, but with this installment we see the beginning of the Mysteryman class, demonstrating non-combat skills. Here, the Clock (in disguise, sort of), demonstrates a "hear noise" skill.

We also get a trap -- a gun set to go off and shoot anyone who enters this room.

Here the Clock demonstrates "open locks".  Apparently he does not have "find/remove traps", or simply did not think to use it.

Here we see the Clock attack from behind. In another game, this might be called a "backstab".  In Hideouts & Hoodlums, it is called a "signature move".  This allows for more variety. Even punching on the jaw might be someone's signature move.

I can't decide if make-up artists should become a mobster type or not. I don't really want to give slick hoodlums another skill, because their charm ability already makes them really tough. Unless I swapped out disguise for charm. It's worth considering.

Though poorly drawn, this would actually make for a useful game aid. Some early RPG adventure modules came with illustration booklets drawn from the player-characters' perspective, much like this. It would also be useful just to have a random assortment of clues to find in a room, much like the "100 Random Clues" article I wrote for The Trophy Case v. 2 no. 1.

Though drawn in a silly, bigfoot style, this is actually a pretty good scenario for an H&H adventure. From a drunken hoodlum, the Heroes learn that a string of recent burglaries have been committed by a dozen huge, trained gorillas (maybe 5 HD?) who answer to Arachno the Spider Man, so named because he has spiders crawling on him. Arachno and his gang are holed up in Blimey Castle, the dungeons of which are accessible via a trap door.

 Here we see our first evil Mysteryman, the Wanderer, using a stunt called Disarming Shot (first assigned to the Cowboy class in Supplement III: Better Quality).

A generous Editor allows his Heroes a chance to save themselves from taking lots of falling damage. A save vs. plot to snag a tree before falling is not entirely unreasonable.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Famous Funnies #33

There would be pretty good money for Heroes in collecting reward money. Just information leading to the capture of one of the FBI's most wanted in the 1930s was worth $5,000.  Actually capturing one was worth $1,500.

Spotting someone in a crowd of people could be as difficult as finding a concealed door -- 2 in 6 chance -- depending on how crowded it is, lighting conditions, and how much the person is trying to blend in.  In that yellow hat, I'd probably give the officers a 4 in 6 chance to spot Dillinger, though.

Leaping to one's death is difficult in a game where falling damage is only supposed to render one unconscious. This rule may be ignored for non-Heroes, however, at the Editor's discretion.

Cover takes a lot of forms; even a human shield can count as cover, albeit only soft cover in most cases (one could make an argument for hard cover, maybe, depending on how narrow the range of fire will be coming from).

As for using a table to batter down a steel door...the wrecking things mechanics in the game should not normally get any modifiers, unless the Editor feels the situation warrants it. Trying to batter down a steel door would be more about luck than brute strength, I should think.

A speeding ticket was a $5 fine, at least in 1934...

Golden Age notions of hi-tech could be funny sometimes. Take the long range telescopic movie film projector -- it somehow processes the film and projects it automatically, much in the way that a television shows images instantly, but with much more complexity.

Also useful is some plane info on the sidebar, like how air freighters in the mid-30s could carry less than 7,000 lbs., or that the most passengers a passenger plane could hold was 70.

With very little imagination, we can see Hold Person ("Witch's Circle") and Charm Person ("Witch's Gaze") being cast here.  We also get a new spell, Magic Cloak, which can cause something to disappear underneath it. I would keep this a 2nd level spell by limiting how long it can make something disappear.

And we also get a rhinoceros.

Hold Person/Witch's Circle has an unusual way of breaking the spell duration early.  Poor bird.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Star Ranger #2

It might not be common knowledge that TV sets were already around in the 1930s. The reason you don't hear too much about it is that there was almost no programming to watch on TV sets back then.

Lariats as an entangling weapon have already been considered, but what about a dragging weapon?  I don't have a game mechanic worked out for this, but if  someone were to, heh, drag one out of me, I'd have this do 1d6 damage for every time Movement doubled beyond the base of 60. 

More evidence of the Mythic West existing into modern times (though the jalopy in the picture might not be 1930s vintage, so...).

 Editors will have to think long and hard about how lenient they would be about a plan like this.  It seems to me that an ordinary rope would just snap if a plane this large hit it.  Not that I've ever tried it.


Centaur comics never grew into a major player in the comics field, but it was the first home to some important artists. We've already seen Will Eisner's earliest work in other Centaur comics and, here, we see some of the earliest work from Fred Guardineer and Craig Flessel, who will go on to become DC stalwarts. 

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)