Alice Is Missing vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Alice Is Missing and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Alice Is Missing | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | GM-Less, Diceless, Mystery, One-Shot Friendly, Experimental, Drama, Investigation | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | No dice, no GM. One player facilitates setup, then all communication happens via text messages on players' phones for 90 minutes. A timed playlist sets pacing: when the timer hits the number on the back of a face-down Clue Card, that player flips it and follows the prompt, drawing a Suspect or Location Card and weaving the new information into the group text conversation. Characters exchange messages in a group chat and in private, building the story of what happened to Alice Briarwood. The 10-minute card determines the ending. | 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 | Diceless | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Low | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | 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 | Hunters Entertainment / Renegade Game Studios | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2020 | 2015 |
| Languages | English, French | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups looking for a unique, emotionally intense one-shot experience played in complete silence through real text messages on their phones. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Played entirely in silence through real phone text messages: no speaking after the game begins, timed playlist structures 90 minutes of play with Clue Cards triggered at specific intervals, voicemails recorded during setup are played at the end as a group debrief, won three Gold ENnie Awards in 2021 including Product of the Year | 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 | Requires all players to have phones and each other's numbers, designed as a single-session experience with no continuation: replaying with the same group revisits familiar territory, emotionally heavy content including themes of loss and violence requires safety tools and player buy-in, facilitator must thoroughly understand the rules beforehand even though the role is lighter than a traditional GM | 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. |