Carbon Grey RPG vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare Carbon Grey RPG and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Carbon Grey RPG	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Crunchy, Tactical, Corruption, Roll to Cast, Licensed IP, Pulp Action	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics
Core Mechanic	Roll a pool of d6s equal to attribute + skill, sum the dice, and beat a Difficulty Number from 5 (Very Easy) to 30 (Extremely Difficult). One die in every pool is the Wild Die: a 6 grants an Advantage (Hero Point gain, success upgrade, or aid to an ally) and a 1 hands the GM a Complication that can deepen a failure. Margins above and below the DN scale results from Partial Success up to Exceptional Success and from Ordinary Failure down to Catastrophic Failure. Hero Points (start at 6) fuel doubled die codes, rerolls, and injury-level reductions.	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	d6 dice pool	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Medium	Very High
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	High	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	Magnetic Press Play	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	2022	2015
Languages	English	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want dieselpunk WWI-flavored heroics (trench fighting, airship dogfights, espionage, and court intrigue) with an opt-in reality-warping subsystem that physically and mentally scars characters who lean on it.	Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world.
Highlights	Wild Die mechanic builds tier-based outcomes into every roll: a 6 grants an Advantage the player can spend on extra Hero Points, an upgraded success, or aid to an ally; a 1 hands the GM a Complication that can turn an ordinary failure into a Catastrophic one. Continuity Flux skills (Manipulate, Divine, Transmogrify) let characters bend reality but each use raises a tracked Surge Count, and a roll-low check at session end against accumulated Corruption Points can permanently strip an attribute, transform the character into an enemy-controlled stone demon, or erase them from existence. Character Persona stack (Quirks rolled on a d66 table, Obligations to factions or ideals, and Remarkable Abilities) pays out Skill Points at the end of any session the player honored their Obligation, and a session in which the character switches allegiance grants no Skill Points at all.	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 layers multi-action penalties, scale rules between personal, vehicle, and grand-scale targets, weapon properties like Bypass ARM and Continuous, and dedicated subsystems for grenades, artillery bombardment, flak, hail of bullets, and minefields: each with its own DN, reaction options, and damage table. Continuity Flux powers are gated behind the Latent Flux Talent ability or GM-granted shard exposure, so a party without one is shut out of the reality-bending side of the setting unless the GM hands out access. Setting is tightly tied to the Carbon Grey graphic novel (eight named nations with specific factions, mythologies, and political alignments), so adapting the system to a homebrew dieselpunk world means cutting the lore that anchors most published episodes.	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.