Chronicles of Darkness vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Chronicles of Darkness and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Chronicles of Darkness | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Atmospheric, Character Building, Character-Driven, Classless, Corruption, Drama, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Improvisation, Investigation, Strong GM Support | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Build a d10 pool from an Attribute plus a Skill and count each 8, 9, or 10 as a success. Tens reroll, five successes are exceptional, and a pool reduced below one die becomes a chance die that succeeds only on a 10. | Roll an Attribute-plus-Ability pool of d10s and count dice meeting the difficulty, usually 6. Each rolled 1 cancels a success. A roll botches only when no die meets the difficulty and at least one die shows 1. Magick instead rolls Arete, the mage's enlightenment rating, against a difficulty based on the highest Sphere used and whether the effect violates ordinary reality. Successes determine the effect's extent. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $ | $$ |
| Publisher | Onyx Path Publishing | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2015 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want modern supernatural horror built around investigating mysteries, navigating personal consequences, and confronting threats before they overwhelm an ordinary life. | Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality. |
| Highlights | The investigation system can reveal an Incomplete clue on a failed roll, preventing a mystery from stopping at one check. Conditions, Aspirations, and Beats link consequences and personal goals to character advancement. Horror Anchors create investigative inroads for supernatural threats. | Nine Spheres combine into improvised magical effects beyond a fixed spell list. A mage's beliefs determine the practices and instruments that make those effects possible. Concealing magick within plausible events reduces the risk of reality's backlash. |
| Considerations | The core contains detailed procedures for combat, chases, investigation, social maneuvering, and supernatural threats, so groups need to decide which rules to emphasize in a campaign. Damage, Integrity breaking points, and Persistent Conditions create lasting consequences. Social Maneuvering includes sexual goals and hard leverage, so players should back away from uncomfortable concepts. | Improvised magick requires the group to agree on what an effect can accomplish before rolling. Accumulated Paradox can injure a mage or trap them in a distorted reality. Cabals need shared motives to keep incompatible faction loyalties from pulling the campaign apart. |