Batman Role-Playing Game vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare Batman Role-Playing Game and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Batman Role-Playing Game	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Superhero, Modern	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Licensed IP, Heroic, Investigation, Crunchy, Tactical, Character Building, Martial Arts, High-Power, Strong GM Support, Beginner-Friendly	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics
Core Mechanic	Abilities and quantities such as weight, distance, and time are rated in Attribute Points (APs), a scale on which each AP doubles the last. A Dice Action rolls 2d10 against a Success Number found by crossing the Acting Value with the Opposing Value on the Action Table. Doubles add and may roll again, while double 1s always fail. When a roll of 11 or more beats the Success Number, it earns a Column Shift for each entry counted rightward past the Success Number that is at least 11 and no higher than the roll. The Effect Value is then crossed with the Resistance Value on the Result Table, moved left by the Column Shifts, to give Result APs (RAPs) of damage or effect. Before the roll, both sides may bid Hero Points, each adding 1 AP to one value without more than doubling it.	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	2d10	d10 dice pool
Complexity	High	Very High
Accessibility	Very Low	High
Runnability	Low	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	Unavailable	$$
Publisher	Mayfair Games Inc.	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	1989	2015
Languages	English	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want to play the Batman, his allies, or original Gotham heroes in detective and street-crime adventures against his rogues gallery.	Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world.
Highlights	Hero Points serve as both the bonus for rolls and the currency for advancement, so every point spent to win a scene is a point not banked toward growth. Starting Killing Combat forfeits all of a hero's Hero Point awards for the adventure, building the Batman's code against killing into the reward system. Interrogation and Clue Analysis turn Result APs into graded information, so a stronger roll reveals more of what a suspect or clue can tell.	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	A Dice Action reads its Success Number from the Action Table and, only when the roll succeeds, takes a second lookup on the Result Table for its effect, so each successful attack or other rolled action needs two table references. Designing a Gadget runs a multi-step Hero Point cost formula with Reliability Number modifiers, Drawback discounts, and a final halving. Only one player can be the Batman, so everyone else plays another listed hero or one built with the creation rules.	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.