Savage Worlds Science Fiction CompanionHighly anticipated among Savage Worlds players, both the Super Powers Companion and Science Fiction Companion were released by Pinnacle Entertainment this week. Available now as ebooks at $15 each, the two volumes can also be preordered in print ($20 softback, $25 hardback). Unfortunately, while at a discounted price of $5, Pinnacle still charges extra to add a PDF copy to a print order.

The new Companion books expand Savage Worlds Deluxe in two popular genres. As Shane Hensley of Pinnacle explained to Purple Pawn:

I think we’ve done so much with horror—particularly historical horror with Deadlands, Solomon Kane, Weird War Two and Weird Wars Rome—that [science fiction] is really just a niche we haven’t served. We released Slipstream several years back, but that was space opera and a very defined setting. A lot of folks want to play Star Frontiers, Traveller, Star Wars, and games in those veins, and the tools to do so have so far been scattered and inconsistent.

We were fortunate to be able to do both Super Powers and Science Fiction at the same time to make the underlying “math” make sense. We do a *ton* of work behind the scenes to make things flow, and if the math isn’t solid…at least within a narrative framework like our chase rules…it won’t work.

I think the updated Super Powers Companion was so anticipated because super heroes are so hot right now. Most every convention I go to has Savage X-Men, Savage Avengers, or Savage Dark Knight. And they’re *really* fun. The new edition adds even more options and streamlines things even more, so I suspect we’ll see LOTS of super hero games this year.

Savage Worlds Super Powers CompanionThe Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion is a second edition that features a new “graphic novel format” and includes a powers construction system, thematic hindrances, setting-specific options for death and defeat, HQ construction guidelines, and an extensive rogues gallery.

A new book (though it does draw on earlier Toolkits), the Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion gives special attention to refined rules for creating new species, while of course also addressing cyberware, power armor, starships, vehicles, and walkers.

With the Science Fiction Companion, [my favorite part] was probably the running huge space fleet battles with the Chase rules. I ran about 20 of them and had a *blast* every time. They work quite well, I’m happy to say, and provided a lot of drama in the playtests as ships would make a killing blow just as their last shields gave out or they were down to their last wound.

I’m looking forward to running an integrated military sci-fi game where some of the heroes are defending a ground defense battery in power armor while other player characters are duking it out in space fighters above to keep the bombers off their backs.

And maybe…with groups who are into that kind of thing…throwing in giant walkers for the bad guys and some super-powered reinforcements for the heroes, something like DC Comics’ “Green Lantern Corps.”