City of Jerry vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare City of Jerry and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	City of Jerry	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Modern	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Comedy, Fiction-First, Gonzo, Improvisation, Low-Prep, Mystery, Noir, Playbook-Driven, Random Tables, Rules-Light	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy
Core Mechanic	When an outcome is uncertain, roll a d12 plus Heal or Harm and read the result on a five-tier scale: 12+ is a Critical Success, 9–11 a Success, 5–8 a Mixed Success, 2–4 a Failure, and 1 or less a Critical Failure. Natural 12s and 1s are always critical. Good or Bad Luck adds d12s and keeps the highest or lowest result.	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	d12	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Low	Very High
Accessibility	Medium	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Made for Mischief Third-Party License	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Made for Mischief Third-Party License	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$	$$
Publisher	Drimbus	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	2026	2015
Languages	English	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish
Best For	Groups who want low-prep noir mysteries with body-pun humor, player-created connections, and fast conflicts inside a human body.	Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality.
Highlights	Challenges, combats, and conversations share a Conflict framework, so one procedure supports objectives, fights, and persuasion. Matching results on multiple Luck dice trigger the Twist table, turning stacked advantages or disadvantages into an unexpected complication or benefit. Five biological Roles provide curated Abilities and Traumas, giving each Agent a distinct way to help or harm Jerry.	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	Agents choose from five biological Roles, so concepts outside the Immunization Task Force require reskinning. Each Wound adds a penalty, and a third Wound triggers a Death Roll, making dangerous conflicts costly. Investigations use general Challenge Counters rather than a clue or deduction subsystem, leaving evidence details to the Jerry Master.	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.