Barbarians of Lemuria vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Barbarians of Lemuria and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Barbarians of Lemuria | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Pulp Action, Sword & Sorcery, Beginner-Friendly, Fast-Paced | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + attribute + career (or combat ability), 9+ to succeed. Four attributes (Strength, Agility, Mind, Appeal) and four combat abilities (Initiative, Melee, Ranged, Defence) rated 0–5. Careers replace individual skills: if your career is relevant, add its rating. Boons roll 3d6 keep best two; flaws roll 3d6 keep worst two. Hero Points fuel dramatic escapes and heroic feats. | 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 | 2d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Low | 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 | Beyond Belief Games | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2015 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want fast, pulpy sword and sorcery in the vein of Conan: career-based characters, boons and flaws, and combat that resolves in minutes. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Career system is intuitive and fast, combat resolves in minutes, Hero Points enable pulp heroics, simple to learn and teach, spawned the Everywhen universal toolkit | 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 | Tightly coupled to its Lemuria setting, limited character advancement, combat lacks tactical depth | 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. |