I cracked open Savage Worlds: Adventure Edition to prepare for a sci-fi tabletop game. Called “The Last Star,” our intrepid group of explorers guided a mobile space station to—you guessed it—the last star in the galaxy. I played Oyster, a mushroom inhabiting the dead body of a catboy. Oyster’s girlfriend was a Giant Spider Lady. Together our group popped a cap in God’s ass and “reignited” all the stars in the galaxy, giving everyone a new chance at life. 

It was super duper fun y’all. 

I’ve played a couple science fiction tabletop games, but Savage Worlds-driven “The Last Star” was a spatial frolic head and shoulders above the rest. Much of the fun is of course because of our fantastic game master. However, this is StoryGraph, so I’m going to focus on how the mechanics lent a hand. 

In the introduction, the gamebook’s writers explain that they created Savage Worlds as a universal rule set. The mechanics are not tailored to one type of setting—it’s designed like a mold you can fill with whatever type of candle wax you want. Because of this universality, there are always relatable footholds for my fantasy-familiar brain. My friends have read much more science fiction than I have. When we played a Star Wars ttrpg, I learned how to swing my character’s sword, but much more than that felt impossible. Here, the more genre-neutral language means I needn’t have read 100 volumes of pulp ‘70s sci-fi beforehand. 

The variety of dice rolls are very fun. I was really happy to be able to use ALL my dice. Too often my d4s, d10s, d8s, and d12s just stare sadly at me from the corner. Raises (or as we called them “exploding dice”) made me feel badass as hell. The initiative cards are at times a nuisance, but gotta love when the party draws a Joker three rounds in a row. 

The biggest boon was the speedy level-up system. I don’t care our characters got ridiculously OP. If I want to revel in failure, I seek Mr. Eaten’s name in Fallen London. Quick advancements meant none of our characters died, we started as good in areas and became experts by end game, and we had room to pad out fatal flaws. In the beginning, Oyster was fairly good at research—by the end my Research rolls were guaranteed successes. As we played I realized I couldn’t muddle by without some Shooting and Piloting. Oyster learned the basics of piloting and shooting quick enough for them to not die horribly in space. Sometimes with tabletop games, it feels like new players are punished for not thinking through every implication of every rule. Not here. 

The only real annoyance happened during character creation. While creating my own Fungoid aliens species was fun as all get out, the pages necessary for it were NOT near each other. Thank God for Ctrl + F. I’d recommend getting the PDF version just so you can use the “Find Command.” 

I haven’t played enough tabletop systems to say that Savage Worlds: Adventure Edition is my favorite, but “The Last Star” was the first time I felt an actual affinity for the ruleset. Try it out! Unleash the mycelial network! Date Shelob! Kill John Gaius!