Delta Green vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Delta Green and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Delta Green | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Horror, Modern | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Investigation, Deadly, Roleplay-Heavy, Character-Driven, Gritty | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Roll d100 under your skill percentage to succeed. Matched doubles (11, 22, etc.) are critical successes or failures. Six stats (STR, CON, DEX, INT, POW, CHA) derived from percentile rolls. Bonds represent personal relationships and can be damaged as agents lose SAN. Sanity tracks Breaking Points: cross enough and you develop disorders. | 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 | d100 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Very High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very 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 | Arc Dream Publishing | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2016 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want modern-day investigative horror where federal agents sacrifice everything (careers, relationships, sanity) to protect humanity from threats that should not exist. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Bonds and sanity mechanics create personal drama, Need to Know quickstart is free and complete, strong atmospheric design, profession-based characters feel grounded, well-regarded published scenarios | 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 | Dense investigative scenarios require significant GM prep, limited character advancement between operations, bond deterioration can feel mechanically punishing, SAN loss mechanics can remove player agency | 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. |