Pyramid Review
Shane Lacy Hensley's Savage Worlds
Published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Written by Shane Lacy Hensley with John R. Hopler & Zeke Sparkes
Illustrated by Paul Daly, Marcio Fiorito, Tom Fowler, Mike Osadciw, Richard "Rico" Pollard, Jay Rozen, Chad Sergesketter, Loston Wallace, Cheyenne Wright & Kieran Yanner
$29.95
From the outset, Shane Lacy Hensley's Savage Worlds touts itself as many things -- "Fast! Furious! Fun!" and also revolutionary. It is designed as both a roleplaying game and a miniatures game, but it cannot claim to be new. The mechanics and system for Savage Worlds are derived from the Origins Award winning skirmish rules, The Great Rail Wars Miniatures Battle Game, themselves based upon the Deadlands: the Weird West RPG and setting that Pinnacle is best known for. At its heart, the aim of Savage Worlds is to be fast -- both in setting a game up and in its play -- and also able to handle mass combats as easily as it does between single opponents.
Savage Worlds comes as a sturdy, but slim hardback that is decently illustrated and reasonably well written bar the occasional typographical error. It should be pointed out that Savage Worlds is not being presented in the originally proposed format, which was a three-ring binder into which can be slipped the rules, plus updates and errata as necessary. Further, it does feel rather overpriced for what you are given -- even though it does turn out to be rather good. Along side the main body of the rules, the author . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: May 9, 2003
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