Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 3

In Anchors Aweigh, Lt. Commander Kerry and Lt. Murphy are on vacation in California when they encounter spies who are armed with rifles and hand grenades (that's pretty dangerous to use against a party of two!). The spies have taken over a cottage because the land is useful for them to reach via seaplane. There are five spies, and they already have a radio room set up in the cottage's basement. Seemingly unknown to them, the shack behind the cottage is the lab for a chemist making another one of those super-explosives, and Kerry uses the explosives to blow up the spies. The one interesting wrinkle in the story is that the chemist initially appears to be a bum just pretending to be smart.  The explosive solution winds up being worth $500,000 to the chemist (good news, since Kerry blew up his house!).

Lastly, Cotton Carver has a new quest in his hollow world adventures -- the pirate chiefs (who are good guys?) ask Cotton to lead them to the mythical land of Sere, which is rich in radium. Cotton thinks this sounds like a great idea, despite the fact the people of Sere seem to be the rightful owners of the radium (Chaotic?), and that the Princess of Barlunda wants to marry him. Or does she? She doesn't put up much of a fight when he leaves ("You need excitement, Cotton.").

Barlunda has advanced airships that travel through unknown means (jets?). He also has a personal flier that looks like a surfboard on wheels (really not sure how that one flies). The flier is tough; Cotton can crash it through a wall without it getting a scratch. It can carry two people in a pinch, so long as one lays on top of the other.

The people of Sere (Sereians?) have advanced tech too; they can control the weather with electrical control staves; a priestess decimates Cotton's ship and his pirate allies by whipping up a tornado. Staff of Weather Control duplicates the mad science machine found in the trophies section of Hideouts & Hoodlums, only is much more portable.

Luckily, the priestess has another quest for Cotton, and when that turns out to be incredibly easy, he gets back to Barlunda and finds that the princess has been kidnapped. Really, if the Editor just put more effort into these scenarios, they would last longer and he wouldn't have to come up with so many of them.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)

Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 2

Steve Carson of Federal Men has an awful easy time investigating this one. When a judge appears to have been kidnapped, Steve naturally suspects the most current criminal defendant and just happens to spot two well-known mobsters outside the man's office. He follows them to a well-known pool-parlor (apparently pool hall is not a common term yet) frequented by the underworld. Now, how does Steve recognize all this? Maybe the Editor gave all that information away as freebies. Maybe he made Steve make skill checks to know it. Or, if Steve's player requested information, and the Editor could not decide if Steve should know it or not, the situation should be resolved by saves vs. plot instead. At lower levels, a basic skill check is easier than most saving throws to make, but an expert skill check is harder than both, so players might do well to be inquisitive and risk that saving throw.

Steve is shown to use an automatic pistol in this story. The judge was actually not kidnapped but was hiding out on his own after thinking he'd run someone over and killed him. The fake accident was arranged by the man on trial. Interestingly, the judge does not recuse himself, but continues with sentencing.

Socko Strong has a strange working relationship with Jerry Indutch; in addition to being Socko's trainer, Jerry is a photographer for the Daily Bulletin. Jerry and Socko are both lured out of town before a match by fake telegrams, but they luckily run into each other on the road as Jerry is driving back. The odds of that seem low, but a basic skill check could be allowed for each of them to recognize the other's car en route. A lucky encounter reaction roll from a motorcycle cop gets them a police escort back to the match (going over 80 MPH, no less -- must have rolled double 6's!).

Captain Desmo's adventure takes place at "latitude 70 degrees, longitude 30 degrees," which is odd because that's nowhere, but if you flip latitude and longitude it would be in modern-day Pakistan, which makes perfect sense for the adventure. The villain in this piece is Vasili Gerke, the sort of Golden Age villain name that is almost impossible to take seriously. Vasili has yet another of those rayguns that can make planes stop flying, but also has a complex irrigation system that allows him to drain lagoons and make them look like suitable landing fields, then flood them again later to hide the evidence. I'm hard-pressed to think of any other adventures where a mastery of irrigation made a villain dangerous...

Skip Schuyler is referred to as a lieutenant in this story, but I had to go back nine issues to find a reminder that Skip works for the U.S. Intelligence Service. Skip is romancing a general's niece outside a party and goes back in to get punch when she is kidnapped and dragged off. Skip can see the evidence of where she was dragged away, but apparently blows his skill check and is unable to track them further. Skip covers for his failure later when talking to her uncle, saying it will be easier to find them in daylight...you know, hours later when they could have done anything to her. Her uncle doesn't seem remotely worried; when Skip tells him he just goes "Hmm..." like he'd just been told a good brain-teaser.

While flying around over the area in his plane, the only clue Skip gets is seeing the sun flash off of something metal among the trees. Skip's player meta-games and assumes this is too important to pass up. Sure enough, that was exactly where the girl, Linda, was taken. Though the story began in the real city of Shanghai, it moves now to the fictional island of Hanyow. The kidnappers try to move Linda again by boat, but Skip makes his skill check this time to spot her. The kidnappers have a repeating rifle (automatic rifle?). Skip flies too fast for the rifleman to aim, but Skip has no trouble hitting their boat at the same speed -- this could be easily explained by the luck of the dice, though.

Skip's shots disable to the boat, but the kidnappers bring up a good point -- Skip isn't flying a seaplane, so he can't get to them and it's a stalemate. The scenario is effectively over for Skip at that point, who has to radio in Army seaplanes to finish his rescue for him.

Rusty and His Pals are in England (still? I'm pretty sure this isn't where they started, but their parents must not be missing them). To get out of the rain, they have to go try to find shelter at a spooky old mansion.  I think I've written about this before, but in comic books, if it's raining, you have to save vs. plot to resist seeking shelter. The old man in the mansion seems paranoid, until his bodyguard (not much of a bodyguard) is dropped by a dart to the neck, and then the old man has a heart attack (Editor's fiat, no game mechanics apply to heart attacks).

(read at fullcomic.pro)

Adventure Comics #46 - pt. 1

This month's Sandman feature teases out more information from Wesley Dodds' past; now we know he was on a rowing team at university -- without any clue as to which university, or when (though it was likely '32 or earlier, since we know he was piloting in '33).

The Sandman keeps his costume in a trunk in a closet. He owns at least two cars -- which makes sense for a billionaire, and we know the license plate on one is B7501. He carries a pocket light in this adventure, in addition to his gas gun. The gas gun is shown to have a range of at least 15'. He also still carries a pouch of sand to scatter as his calling card.

On the scene of his old college roommate's death, Sandman makes a basic skill check to spot blood on the floor, a basic skill check to hide in shadows (in some situations this would be an expert skill check, but it's in a living room with lots of furniture), and when he (apparently) fails a pick locks check, he simply removes the locked door from its hinges.

The murder suspect fails to recognize the Sandman on sight and calls him "mystery man" instead (she knows his Hero class!). The Sandman hints that he might resort to torture on her to find out what he wants to know, but he shows no sign of following through on it. She honks his car horn, summoning a policeman, and it is true that making extra noise can trigger sooner wandering encounter checks. In the end, her intuition tells her she can trust him and he buys her story -- sense motive skill checks?

At the Coin's lair, the Sandman is able to shoulder open a (apparently) locked door. The Coin sounds like a cool name, but he turns out to be a rather ordinary counterfeiter, his only gimmick being cross-dressing as an old woman for a disguise.

Barry O'Neil is still trying to rescue Jean Le Grand from lions. A lion claws at Barry, but only shreds off his shirt. There is a rich history of pulp heroes being men in torn shirts -- should there be a rule about losing your shirt to soak up damage? If so, I would only implement it for flavor and allow it to soak up no more than 1 point.

The lions (there were three) do not all attack Barry right away; something important to remember about Neutral mobstertypes is that they do not have to want to attack, or even continue attacking from turn to turn. Encounter reaction checks are just as important as morale saves for determining this.

In typical racism of the times, Fang Gow's Chinese followers seem unable to identify a plane on sight, with one of them calling it a "great bird."

In unusually tough odds for an early comic book adventure, Barry finds their escape next blocked by at least 16 bloodthirsty/yellow peril hoodlums, and naturally he is captured.

Fang Gow's castle is said to be 50 kilometers south of "Dyon" France, which probably stands for Dijon, France. That puts them somewhere in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne. Inspector Le Grande plans a rescue mission made up entirely of non-Hero characters, which is spotted by a lookout on its way to the castle. Fang Gow has the bridges leading to his castle dynamited and rings the castle wall with machine guns, but his sentries fail to spot Le Grande and his men scaling the castle walls under cover of darkness. A terrific battle ensues, which must have been incredibly boring for Barry's player, as he has to sit it out and be rescued only once it's all over. Fang Gow, of course, uses an escape tunnel and gets away.

(Sandman story read in Golden Age Sandman Archives; the rest read at fullcomic.pro)

Detective Comics #35 - pt. 2

Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator is next. Speed calls himself a detective in this story, but by now he should have enough accumulated XP to be a 5th-level captain. He goes against a villain called the Snake Master in this Cuban-/voodoo-themed story. According to this story, Cuba is inhabited by natives who attack with darts. Speed is able to identify hemp rope as coming from Haiti just by looking at it (expert skill check?). Despite darts not having a great range, Speed has darts thrown at him three times before he is finally able to spot the thrower. By using a guide, Speed is able to avoid concealed snake pits on his way to the Snake Master. Not one of the Snake Master's followers has better than darts for weapons, so Speed just waltzes in with a gun and takes out the cult leader.

This month Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise seems to be all over the place. He starts out looking into the case of a man who escapes jail by appearing to be dead, then he's investigating the murder of a police captain who was looking into the case (weird, that a captain wouldn't have delegated that responsibility), then he's following a Hindu because the captain had mentioned a dragon before he died (even though India isn't known for its dragons), then he's in disguise as a bum, trying to get invited into the home the Hindu went into (why he thought a bum would be invited in, I don't get, but somehow it worked). The best part of the adventure is that the bad guys trap him in a room and talk to him through a bronze dragon statue, as the room slowly fills with poison gas. Cosmo survives by making his saving throw (with some likely modifiers for laying on the floor and covering his mouth with a wet handkerchief  -- wetting the handkerchief in a fish tank was particularly ingenious).

There's a second trap that's not as good -- he drops through a pit trap into a room the floods with water -- but the plot twist is rather clever that Cosmo is saved by city water works employees, investigating that the house was leaking water into the street. It turns out that the owner of the house is the man who escaped jail by using the "Oriental trick" of suspended animation. That doesn't sound like an Oriental trick -- that sounds like a psionic discipline.

Bruce Nelson is continuing an adventure in ...Africa? I forget. He and his native guide Mambu are canoeing along rapids, dodging whirlpools, probably requiring expert skill checks to avoid being in situations where they have to save vs. science to avoid drowning (I would be okay with affording them that double layer of protection because the penalty for failure is so steep). The "white goddess" they rescued last time wakes up after being splashed in the face, something I don't recommend for H&H play, so maybe it just coincidentally coincided with a duration ending.

Bruce learns the name of the "white goddess" and immediately recognizes who her father is. Should recognition be a skill check? The girl, Toni Hutton, was drugged by the natives with something that would knock her out for two days at a time (long duration!).

In Slam Bradley, Slam and Shorty are paid to bodyguard a group of swells on a "slumming tour" of dangerous dives. This should be an example of a situational modifier that increases chance of wandering encounters. Someone is murdered and Slam beats people up until a barkeep gives up the name of the murderers. Slam and Shorty deliver the suspects' names to the police and Shorty is ready to end the scenario, but Slam wants to pursue it further. This is one of the ways that traditional RPGs are so flexible, that the players can decide -- not just the referee -- when the scenario has been successfully completed. Luckily, Slam must have some supporting cast in the FBI, because he is able to just waltz into their HQ and request to see the files on the suspects.

On a crazy whim, Slam decides to sign them both up for the French Foreign Legion just because the suspects used to be Legionnaires (apparently it was for strictly enforced five-year stints too). Now, I'm not a very flexible Editor. When I'm running games, I have a story in mind and when Heroes go too far off the rails, I'm comfortable with just saying there are no leads in that direction. But Slam and Shorty have a very flexible Editor, because he rules that the killers are exactly where they get shipped off to, and even tosses in the wrinkle that one of the suspects is their sergeant!

To get rid of Slam, Sergeant Jensen sends them out into the desert and they are attacked by nomads. Slam, who can usually handle any fight, is overwhelmed by six-to-one odds. In fact, the scenario gets way out of hand and Slam is about to be executed by firing squad, so the Commandant of the Foreign Legion has to ride in at the last moment and save the day for him.

(Read at fullcomic.pro)  

Detective Comics #35 - pt. 1

This installment of The Batman infamously opens on Batman standing in a doorway with a smoking gun in his hands -- it has nothing to do with the story, but must have impressed Kane as being a really cool opening panel.

This is, I think, the only story that makes out Bruce to be an amateur writer.

The story is a confusing jumble of racism, as the Batman tangles with Indian natives, working for a Chinese Fu Manchu-like character, who is actually a white man in disguise.

The Batman pauses to announce his presence before springing on two robbers, making me think his initial signature move was making sure bad guys got a good look at his costume before attacking them (and it makes me wonder if I should have rules on changing signature moves over time).

The "Batmobile" (not yet called that) is still only a high-powered roadster the Batman happens to drive.

Sin Fang's henchmen use khopeshes (swords; at least they aren't hatchets). Sin lures the Batman into a trapped room where the door slams shut and it slowly fills with mustard gas. Anticipating the 1960's Batman, the Batman just happens to have an anti-mustard gas pellet in his utility belt (marking the first time something weirdly random is drawn from the utility belt). Utility belts have been a trophy item since Book II: Mobsters & Trophies.

Despite the fact that Sin has lured the Batman into a mobster encounter and a trap already, the Batman still falls into another trap -- this time, a pit trap that is filled with water at the bottom, but there's a pipe in the wall partway down that he can grab at.

The Batman seems unconcerned when he knocks "Sin Fang" out a window to plunge to his death.

Fictional names for foreign countries often change from issue to issue, but this is the second issue in a series of Spy stories where Germany is "Luxor."  Being a spy is easy when you see the ambassador walking down the street and then just have to look through a door transom and you spot him colluding with a submarine commander in person.

Bart Regan uses a "sensitive microphone" to listen to a conversation through a brick wall. He wears a bulletproof vest in his installment.

Tangling with the commander, Bart is grappled, thrown prone, shot at, and knocked out with a blow to his head. The shot narrowly missed his ear -- though combat in Hideouts & Hoodlums is abstract enough that it could have been a "hit" and still caused hit point loss, without causing any physical wound.

Commanders are 7th-level fighters, so Bart is hard-pressed every time they fight. Bart is twice saved by convenient encounters -- the first time by a passing beat cop, and the second time by a rival spy who takes Bart out of the scenario and finishes it himself (poor refereeing!).

Buck Marshall, Range Detective starts off with an unusual premise, making it the best start to a Buck Marshall story yet -- Buck robs a stagecoach! It turns out, Buck is robbing it because he knows robbers are on their way that are too numerous for him to stop (6 to 1 odds), so he appears to rob the coach and tricks the robbers into chasing off after him. Finding their lair, Buck puts aniline powder in all the gloves he finds, so the dye will make their hands and they can be found later. Aniline powder is a real thing.

One of the robbers calls Buck a "gink" -- this is old slang that only means "guy." 

Next up is Steve Malone, District Attorney. This story establishes that Steve is based out of New York, and that his secretary's name is Nancy. Steve has three assistants who serve as supporting cast in this story, but none of them are named.

Ethnic restaurants are not treated with much respect circa 1940; an Italian restaurant is called a "spagetti house" (not my misspelling).

The hideout of the kidnappers Steve is after is only accessible by a bridge. The kidnappers watch the bridge and plan to shoot anyone crossing it, but Steve foils them by swinging hand-or-hand underneath the bridge (basic skill check?)

(Batman story read in The Batman Archives v. 1; the rest read at fullcomic.pro.)

Amazing Mystery Funnies v. 3 #1 - pt. 3

This is Don Dixon, in a rather exciting but hard-to-follow installment. What I do know is that a dam breaks and an enemy army is wiped out by the ensuing flood. The question for me to ponder today is: is there a way to work out how much damage being hit by water should do?

Yes, there should be a way to work out a formula for how much a certain volume of water weighs, factor in the speed it hits you, and assign it a number of dice of damage. I think it would be high. But there are other things harder to factor for, like the chance of drowning, or the chance of being slammed into a solid object. For attacks this unpredictable, that's why we have a saving throw system. So this should be a save vs. science to avoid death for everyone caught in the path of the floodwaters.

I suspect this will be a stand-alone story and, judging by the crude artwork, its cancellation would be a mercy killing.

We've seen lots of trophy planes by January 1940 already, most of them being faster, but none of them have had silent running yet. It seems like that would be really hard to do with a plane, but I certainly see the value of it, when wanting to fly up to a hideout unannounced.

Sorry, I'm going to make you look at the amateur artwork on this page just for the last panel and the assertion that "they have no chance to use their guns." Should that be true in Hideouts & Hoodlums? Well, it sort of is, if the other side won initiative and rushed into melee before you could get off your missile fire. This is why it's good to let an entire side go before the other side in order of combat.

Not always is "hideout" an analog for "dungeon" -- sometimes it really is a dungeon! And this is another example of why I had to break down and open up wrecking things to all classes in 2nd edition.

Note panel 6 and, if you can follow this narrative, a pilot's plane is missed by anti-aircraft shells, but the shrapnel from the explosion still pierces the cockpit and knocks out the pilot. This is evidence that cover does not protect you from area of effect attacks.

This is Jon Linton, and he's pretty lucky because before he goes on an expedition he gets a map of the whole place from a handy non-Hero character. Most Heroes don't get a map to work with at the start of the scenario, but are asked to draw their own -- and, indeed, this exploration component is a vital part of what makes a RPG Old School.  I also think this is a great page of building suspense. 

Wow -- not only do we get to see the map, but we get the scale for the map too!

This is why you put bosses at the end of hideouts, because the Heroes need to gather XP and level up before they can face them.

The iota-ray tube is not unlike a magic wand that combines Hold Person with wrecking things.

Speed Centaur is still in his medieval lost world. We see lots of lances on display here, but also a "mace" being used by his supporting cast member Reel -- though it looks like it would more properly be called a flail, making it one of the earliest, if not the first, flails in comic books.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)

Amazing Mystery Funnies v. 3 #1 - pt. 2

And we're back to The Inner Circle, where we see the players have figured out that, if they pool all their supporting cast members together, they can form a military force of 30 men -- or more (depending on how high their Charisma scores are)!

But then this page shows us the disadvantage of having too large a fighting force on your side, as they easily take the "Mafio" island without any challenge or suspense. The Editor could always up the challenge level they encounter to match -- maybe give the Mafio some heavy artillery of their own -- while other Editors might feel that is cheating and run their scenarios as-is.

This is the first I've ever seen of Tippy Taylor, which is odd because it seems so tailor-made for Hideouts & Hoodlums conversion.

First we get a lot of establishing of a real world setting, with references to place (Metropolis, California, Mt. Arrowhead) and time (topical reference to Amelia Earhart's disappearance).  This is the first mention of a city named Metropolis in comic books and, while Mt. Arrowhead is fictional, there is a Lake Arrowhead in California.

The scenario really starts when Tippy and Hunk wash up on the island -- everything before it could be backstory read to the player at the start of the game. The dinosaur gains surprise on them, but has a neutral encounter reaction to them and does not attack.

Here we see more sauropods, apparently of different species, all socializing together. The dinosaur chasing Tippy seems to be more curious about him than hostile -- which is very good since Tippy is probably no more than a 1st-level fighter!  We also see that dinosaurs -- or at least sauropods -- do not run faster than humans (but not slower either).

This is interesting because we don't often see Heroes failing skill checks. It's so necessary for the plot that he fall in that pit, though, that it makes me wonder if the Editor did not fudge the results against him -- bad form, I say, favoring story over the dice. Or perhaps there are multiple ways to reach the underground lair, and Tippy just fell into the first one.

Wax statues of guardians seems like a good trick to put in your hideouts.

Well, it turns out they aren't just wax dummies after all, but androids waiting to be turned on!

The old man's recipe for activating androids is a quest worthy of an entire mini-campaign.

Tippy gets a free ride to the next destination on his quest on the back of a gryphon! I'll have to include a note that there's a chance they can talk.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus.)