Dogs in the Vineyard vs Mage: The Ascension

Compare Dogs in the Vineyard and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Dogs in the Vineyard	Mage: The Ascension
Genre	Historical, Fantasy	Fantasy, Modern, Horror
Tags	Narrative, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Tag-Based, Corruption, Drama, Improvisation, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Combat, Strong GM Support	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics
Core Mechanic	Each side rolls a mixed pool of d4–d10 dice from applicable Stats and Relationships at the start of a conflict. A turn uses two dice to Raise with an action, and affected opponents See by spending enough dice to meet it. Traits, belongings, and escalation add dice as they enter play. Seeing with three or more dice causes Fallout, while Giving concedes the stakes.	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	d4–d10 dice pool	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Medium	Very High
Accessibility	Very Low	High
Runnability	High	Very High
License	Proprietary	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	lumpley games	Onyx Path Publishing
Year	2004	2015
Best For	Groups who want episodic frontier drama built around difficult moral judgments, with a GM who presents each town's crisis without planning its solution.	Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world.
Highlights	Raise and See uses one exchange for words and violence, allowing an argument to escalate into gunplay without changing resolution systems. Fallout converts the blows a character accepts into lasting Traits and Relationships, tying conflict consequences to later play. The town-creation ladder turns pride into escalating injustice and corruption, giving the GM a crisis whose outcome remains open to the players' judgment.	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	The Faith's patriarchal theology and colonial frontier frame are built into the town-creation procedure, so adapting the setting requires replacing more than names and imagery. Conflicts abstract range, movement, and weapon differences into arena and die-size choices, leaving little support for positional tactics. The GM must present moral crises without a preferred solution, which rules out plotted outcomes and prewritten answer keys.	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.