Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Classic Fantasy, Crunchy, Descending AC, Dungeon Crawl, Inventory Management, Random Tables, Tactical, Vancian Casting	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics
Core Mechanic	Roll a d20 on combat attack matrices to determine whether an attack hits a descending Armor Class. Characters advance by class level through experience, and spellcasters memorize specific spells before using them.	Build a d10 pool from an Attribute plus an Ability and count each die that meets or exceeds the difficulty, usually 6. Each rolled 1 cancels a success, and a roll with no successes and at least one 1 botches. Magick uses Arete instead: the highest Sphere plus coincidence or vulgarity and witnesses establishes the base difficulty, with situational modifiers applied afterward. Successes determine the Effect, and vulgar casting risks Paradox.
Dice	d20	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Very High	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	TSR Games	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	1977	2015
Languages	English	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want a demanding, referee-led fantasy campaign with class-and-level advancement, resource pressure, and detailed combat procedures.	Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world.
Highlights	Class, race, level, alignment, and prepared spells establish distinct adventuring roles. The Dungeon Masters Guide supplies encounter, treasure, dungeon, and campaign procedures for referee-built play. Reference sheets and extensive tables consolidate combat, spell, and campaign data.	Nine Spheres combine to build open-ended Effects, allowing the same capability to emerge through different paradigms, practices, and instruments. Coincidental and vulgar classifications make subtlety a tactical choice because conspicuous magick raises difficulty and accumulates Paradox. Focus ties belief to procedure, so a mage's worldview determines the tools and rituals used to alter reality.
Considerations	Combat relies on class and monster attack matrices instead of a single universal action procedure. The core delivery distributes rules across three books and reserves substantial procedures for the Dungeon Master. Optional psionics and detailed special-case rules add rules to learn before using them.	Improvised Effects place frequent adjudication on the Storyteller, who must apply Sphere permissions, focus, required successes, and consequences consistently. Vulgar magick generates Paradox even on success, so overt power can punish a mage through injury or metaphysical breakdown. Faction choices can make a cabal internally hostile, so character concepts need shared motives before play.