Jumbo Comics #4

Ouch!  Take that, Bob Kane -- Peter Pupp is bumped off the lead feature this month in favor of Inspector Dayton.



This page reminds me that not all traps need to be intentionally left in a hideout. Rotting floorboards giving way (maybe a 2 in 6 chance if normal weight steps on them) could lead to a serious fall.



And if any one ever says to you in Hideouts & Hoodlums that there is only a 1 in a million chance of something working, you know that's got to be only character-driven hyperbole!  In H&H, there should always be at least a 1% chance of anything happening.

I have no game mechanics to discuss from this page of Will Eisner's Hawks of the Seas.  Just enjoy this page layout, as Eisner slowly develops into the powerful storyteller he will become.

This is quite a horrible death trap -- not only is the old man about to be impaled and crushed by a spiked platform descending towards him, but his daughter is chained up nearby and being forced to watch! Extrapolating from this, an evilly-inclined Editor can see how a Superhero could be forced to remain in a deathtrap, without wrecking his way out, by threatening innocents (especially supporting cast!) within sight if the Superhero foils the trap.

Didn't I just see a one-eyed oriental in Tex Thompson? Is this a pulp novel archetype I'm just seeing now?



I think it's interesting that the little girl calls this guy a bogeyman. H&H doesn't currently have any mobster type called a bogeyman. And I like how he can hypnotize and levitate others. Maybe this needs to be a thing? Maybe they could even all have a weakness for tea...

Maybe a pepper jar should be on the starting equipment list? It does seem to be particularly good at blinding bad guys, besides the more obvious use of making people sneeze.

Bob seems to be changing classes (something that was detailed in Supplement I: National). He's going from a Fighter to an Explorer (a class introduced in The Trophy Case v. 1 no. 2) and picking up the tracking skill, plus he seems to be improving with his chance to hit with thrown missile weapons (a bonus not currently available to the Explorer class).


In H&H 2nd ed., though, the Explorer class will likely no longer exist. In that case, Bob's training is all flavor text describing his leveling.

This seems like it would be an interesting jungle-based hideout. The natives here have a lair in a petrified forest so dense that it's just like tunnels underground.

This page shows that even a thrown rock should be allowed to do real damage. But how much? The full 1d6 in the original, more abstract weapon damage system, but probably 1-3 in the expanded weapon damage system.




(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Funny Pages v. 2 #12

After taking nearly two weeks off (yikes!), I'm back and looking at Centaur to see what they've got going on there back in December 1938.

This is new aviator strip hero "Skid" Davis. I share this page because I currently have an Aviator Hero in one of my two Hideouts & Hoodlums campaigns and one of the things I worry about is coming up with more aviation-themed things for him to do. Rather than just be the party's chauffeur, I have tried to keep him busy in his downtime with racing and pilot rivalries. But it's important to remember that a good pilot is going to be sought out to do all kinds of experimental flying -- any of which could become a plot hook in the right hands.

This is from The Arrow. While we still don't know where the Arrow is from, we at least know for sure it's not Chicago, because he has to go to Chicago for this one adventure.

There's also a bit of a history lesson here, as to how police officers timed speeders before Radar guns were invented.

I love how this cop has a gun trained on a seated Arrow, but the Arrow still has time to jump up and notch an arrow before the cop can shoot him. This proves that you should always have to roll for initiative each turn in H&H.

Yeah...I've never shot an arrow into a keyhole before, but I'm thinking an arrow couldn't really do that. Now, if The Arrow was a Superhero, and there was some sort of "hold portal" power, this could be the flavor text explanation of how it works.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Action Comics #7

The Superhero power Raise Elephant comes from this issue's story of Superman joining the circus.

Superman's adversary, Derek Niles, faints from fright when Superman confronts him. Maybe this should be a failed morale save result.

Though this story of Superman rescuing a circus from bankruptcy is iconic, it gives us little to consider about game mechanics...except perhaps the curious incident of Clark Kent pulling off Curly's clothes as a prank in the last panel. This is going to be a disturbingly frequent stunt from the Flash two years from now, so it seems like the same power is in play here -- a 4th level power called Invisibly Fast.

Chuck Dawson, urging his horse Blacky to go faster, seems to be an example of the Cowboy stunt Increase Speed.

Virginia tells her dad that she believes Chuck can be trusted, even though there is mixed evidence to support this. Perhaps Chuck just got a lucky encounter reaction result...but I'm wondering if there should be Father's Daughter as a Lawful version of the Vamp mobster. The father's daughter would be able to detect good and heal wounds at least as well as a Hero with a first aid kit.

Chuck creates a diversion to move some gunmen away from the cabin so he can escape. The Editor could simply wing how long a diversion lasts, roll 1d4 and have it last that many minutes (combat turns), or make the bad guys save vs. plot each combat turn to realize they were hoodwinked.

In The Adventures of Marco Polo, Marco runs into two medieval versions of drunken hoodlums. The bandits are armed with whips and plan to use flaming oil. Hideouts & Hoodlums might need a rule about how much damage burning oil does when crossed, or when it's thrown as a grenade-like weapon.

So far, we have yet to see a story where a Hero gets amnesia, but here in Scoop Scanlon we see a hoodlum suffer temporary amnesia after a car crash. This would be an appropriate complication, then, when non-Heroes are reduced to zero hit points.

Tex Thompson is in jail, believed to be his doppelganger, Captain Diablo. A guard comes into Tex's cell with a gun trained on him, but because the guard doesn't have surprise Tex gets to roll initiative against him normally and manages a disarming kick before the gun can be fired.

Bob Daley is able to tell it's Tex and not Capt. Diablo, so SCMs at least have a good chance of seeing through the deception of doppelgangers. Also, we learn that doppelgangers do not match the fingerprints of their lookalikes.

In the Zatara story, Zatara and Tong are on a boat to South Africa. For a man with access to teleport spells, Zatara sure likes slow forms of travel. One of the Tigress' henchmen, Harold Faomes, is a slick hoodlum who comes up with an interesting strategy against Zatara. Knowing he can't possibly win in a fight with Zatara, he tries to blemish Zatara's reputation by convincing Zatara to play cards with him, but then loudly and publicly accusing him of cheating. Zatara clears his name, but lets Faomes get away, which of course works to the story's advantage later.

Faomes' real goal was to hire the local natives to attack a diamond mine. Zatara thwarts the attack by making himself look like their leader (either by illusion or polymorph isn't clear). Zatara learns that the Zulu attack was just a diversion, though, and Faomes has already stolen a bunch of diamonds and escaped. Faomes has been sighted heading north into Bantu territory, so Zatara and Tong follow. They are somehow captured by the Zulu, escape, and finally capture Faomes, only to learn that Faomes and Tigress pulled a rather clever trick on them -- Faomes was a second diversion, having already passed the diamonds off to Tigress, who is fleeing South Africa even now.

Somehow, Zatara gets back to Capetown fast enough to spot Tigress' plane leaving (Teleport, finally?). He uses some spell to force the plane to land (Telekinesis?), and Tigress is finally arrested for the first time.

(Superman story read in Action Comics Archives vol. 1, select Tex Thompson pages read at the Babbling about DC Comics blog, the rest based on notes found at DC Wikia)

The Funnies #27

Captain Easy is on a new adventure. His plot hook came to him from a mystery lady who slipped it in his pocket. Was that the pilfer skill of a 3+ level Mysteryman, or a skill everyone should have? I could see femme fatales being statted as Mysterymen...

This strikes me as a fun trap to even use on Heroes. At a dead end the Heroes find a hatch they can open. They pull open the hatch and out pops a boxing glove to smack them in the face.   One person takes 1d6 damage, and everyone gets a good laugh.

I kind of like this idea for a twist on the cowboy vs. horse rustlers scenario -- horse rustlers transporting via river barges. I also like that it takes place on a real river, as opposed to some generic locale.

With such panoramic vistas it would pay to use photos as visual aids.

I don't really want to keep discussing this story in Ben Webster's Page, but I keep thinking of more things to say. "Snakes and centipedes and lizards and toads" is a wandering encounter chart for deserts -- which would be challenging if these were giant animals.

The missing link uses the magic word "Tamaruntch" to make Mary Jane not scared. A Remove Fear spell? Is the missing link a Magic-User?

Lost cities are a tricky business. How would planes not spot a brightly-colored city in the middle of a desert, even with cliffs around it. All I can say for certain is that the missing link is casting a Knock spell. He's at least 3rd level!

On this page the missing link even admits to using magic.

The gates cannot be magically opened from the inside -- an interesting bit of hideout dressing.

Shrapnel rifle?  I'm not sure what that is. A shotgun? Just a rifle shooting shrapnel bullets?

This gag filler is called Hold Everything.  I feel the same way about hockey.

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Feature Funnies #15

Continuing through the last published titles cover dated December 1938, we come back around to the flagship title of Quality Comics and a page of Joe Palooka. Is this evidence that falling damage needs to round up to 10', instead of starting at 10'?  Unless that's a really deep pool?

The Jane Arden strip was a lot like the Federal Trade Commission, educating the public about scams.  Here, the scam is a slick hoodlum who appears to have a cashier's check he needs cashed offers someone a commission to cash it for him, but the check is a forgery he wants to trade for real money.

Here's a thought -- black cats as a mobster type? It seems a common enough trope to have black cats crossing people's paths and, indirectly or not, causing bad luck. The bad luck might be a -1 to all rolls for the next 1d4 hours, while the cat might have 1-2 hit points.

This is The Clock, and the trope here is that the Law always overreacts when a Hero is suspected of a crime and goes after the Hero harder than they ever seem to do to criminals. Of course, the real reason behind this is so the Hero can go up against Lawful opponents for a change of pace.

Malta is an example of a slick hoodlum. The charm ability of the slick hoodlum might be easily misunderstood; it's less like hypnosis or mind control and more like the ability to tempt the Hero -- either tempt him to take a bribe, simply let the hoodlum go, or go along with some plan. The Clock clearly made his saving throw.

Will Eisner seems to have had his hand on the pulse of American society, circa 1938, on where they stood on going to war. This will change later, of course.

Several things about this page of Espionage, starring Black X.  One -- should Heroes have an easier time seeing through disguises than others? Maybe only spies?

Two, that's a pretty cool encounter area -- a secret door in the back of an office that leads to outdoor steps that one can take down to a concealed dock.

Three, living shields -- how would that work? For one, I would require a non-Fighter to make a save vs. plot to use someone else as a living shield, the same as if they had tried to fire at the victim themselves. Then, I would treat the living shield as soft cover. Then, only if the attack missed by 1 or 2 would I treat it as a hit on the living shield. I would not encourage this by making it too effective.

This is from Mickey Finn and doesn't really have anything to do with Hideouts & Hoodlums -- but I have never liked escalators and always imagine something like that happening to me on them.

(Scans courtesy of Digital Comic Museum)

Star Comics #16

At least I still have some primary sources to work from!

This is a gag filler called Davy Jones, but it's also a passable adventure scenario. Davy doesn't do any fighting, but the deckhand does and he seems to be remarkably high-level -- he kills all three sharks between this last panel and the next one, with his bare hands.

I would not normally recommend a supporting cast character be able to overshadow the main character, but if we considered the roles reversed and Davy the useless sidekick, this makes more sense.

One of the nice things about campaigning with a light tone is that wandering encounters don't have to make a lot of sense. A tiger on a deserted island? Sure, why not?

This is new sports genre hero Brad Donovan, worth noting here only because I think it's great that the ringleader of this crime ring is an old lady with a pet duck. I can't wait to roleplay this character!

This is from Carl Burgos' The Last Pirate (like Bill Everett, Carl also worked at Centaur before Timely).  I'm not sure why firing the cannons would make them ruined, unless the crew just doesn't know how to reload them -- or, what if all gunpowder weapons were treated like wands with charges; once they run out of charges, they're no good any more and have to be discarded? It would be another way to restrict over-reliance on guns in Hideouts & Hoodlums...

(Scans courtesy of Comic Book Plus)

Adventure Comics #32

These are dark days for this blog, for that amazing resource Comic Book Archives has finally had its plug pulled by a vengeful DC Comics. Which means we're back to secondary sources for much of DC history not currently collected in Archive editions.

What I can tell you about this issue is that, apparently, Barry O'Neill picks up where he left off last time in Fang Gow's flooded room trap. Barry quickly finds a way to deactivate the trap and, it does make sense to have a way of deactivating the trap in the same room as the trap -- for the meta-gaming reason of helping Heroes stay alive, as well as the practical reason of allowing villains to deactivate their own traps if they happen to get caught in them.

A hideout burns down in Steve Carson's Federal Men adventure.  Players will always have to weight carefully the option of burning the hideout down. Will innocents be harmed? Will valuable trophies by damaged or destroyed? Do the mobsters have an escape route to get out, or will they charge out and attack the Heroes en masse?  Would the Heroes have an easier time going in and picking off the bad guys room-by-room?  In this case, the fire is accidental and caused by a dropped cigarette. Smoking rates really peaked post-War, but smoking was still very popular in the pre-War years. Smoking mobsters could be as big a danger to master criminals as Heroes.

Dale Daring, in her adventure, deals with the touchy subject of colonization, South American rubber plantations, and slave-like labor. Bear in mind that this is 1938, so Dale's progressive position is that the natives should be treated well and not beaten -- not paid a fair wage, allowed to unionize, or other modern considerations. Players should not be penalized for approaching these issues from a modern perspective, but neither should they be penalized for putting themselves in the mindset of the times.

The Captain Desmo adventure pits him against bandits and, like many earlier comic books, treats "bandits" as an ethnic/cultural role. Also like in some comic books, these bandits are well-armed with both rifles and machine guns.

Pre-Aragorn, Steve in Rusty and His Pals uses pillows stuffed in a bed to fool an assassin. This seems to be such an old trick that it must work on most people, unless they make a save vs. plot (like seeing through a disguise).

(Summaries read at the DC Comics Wiki)