Against the Darkmaster vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare Against the Darkmaster and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Against the Darkmaster	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Crunchy, Combat-Heavy, Deadly, High-Fantasy, Journey, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics
Core Mechanic	Roll d100 + skill bonus against a difficulty threshold for skill checks, or against an opponent's defensive bonus for attacks. Rolls of 01–05 are automatic failures (fumbles); rolls of 96–00 are open-ended, allowing a second d100 roll added to the first for explosive results. Attack rolls that exceed the target produce hits on weapon-specific attack tables, with high results triggering critical strikes that cause injuries, bleeding, and conditions beyond simple hit point loss.	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	d100	d10 dice pool
Complexity	High	Very High
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	Proprietary (open00 SRD planned)	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	Open Ended Games	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	2020	2015
Languages	English, Italian	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want an epic good-versus-evil campaign with deep character creation, detailed travel mechanics, and crunchy percentile combat with critical hit tables: especially fans of Rolemaster or MERP looking for a modernized take.	Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world.
Highlights	Character creation combines Kin, Culture, Vocation, and Background into highly differentiated characters with personal Passions that mechanically drive play. Detailed overland travel system with terrain-specific hazard tables, foraging, camping, and safe haven mechanics. Magic system with 30+ Spell Lores and over 300 spells, available to all Vocations at different costs. The Darkmaster creation system lets the GM build a campaign-defining antagonist with servants, artifacts, and a dark stronghold.	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	574-page core book requires significant reading investment before first play. Open-ended d100 rolls and critical hit tables can produce extreme outcomes that swing encounters unpredictably. No published setting: the GM must build or adapt one, though the included introductory campaign provides a starting framework. Character creation involves multiple layered steps (Stats, Kin, Culture, Vocation, Skills, Backgrounds, Passions) that can take an entire session.	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.