Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Classic Fantasy, Dungeon Crawl, Hexcrawl, Resource Management, Deadly, Vancian Casting, Descending AC, Domain Management | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 1d20 and meet or exceed the attack or saving-throw target supplied by class, level, Hit Dice, and descending Armor Class. Exploration, reactions, morale, thief abilities, and treasure use their own d6, 2d6, or percentile procedures. | 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 | d20 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | 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 | TSR Hobbies, Inc. | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 1981 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want a dangerous, referee-led fantasy campaign that starts with mapped dungeon expeditions and grows into wilderness travel, retainers, strongholds, and territorial play. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Ten-minute dungeon turns connect mapping, searching, light, encumbrance, rest, and wandering-monster pressure. Reaction and morale procedures allow negotiation, evasion, surrender, and retreat to matter alongside combat. The Expert volume expands the campaign into hex travel, naval expeditions, magical research, strongholds, settlers, and rulership. | 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 complete level 1 through 14 game requires both the Basic and Expert rulebooks. Descending Armor Class, class-specific tables, and separate procedures replace a universal action mechanic. Low hit points, poison saves, and other severe effects make early play highly lethal. | 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. |