Epyllion vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Epyllion and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Epyllion | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Narrative, Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, Rules-Light, Fiction-First, Character-Driven | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Roll 2d6 + stat (Courage, Charm, or Cunning): 10+ is a hit, 7–9 is a partial hit, 6− is a miss. Friendship Gems are passed between players to reward virtuous behavior and spent to power moon magic. A Shadow Track measures the Darkness's hold: fill it and you become your corrupted Shadowself until friends pull you back. | 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 | 2d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Proprietary (PbtA) | 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 | Magpie Games | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2016 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Families and groups who want a heartfelt, friendship-driven adventure where everyone plays young dragons protecting their world from a creeping Darkness. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Accessible gateway RPG for families and new players, friendship gem economy makes cooperation mechanical, dragon setting with its own lore, six playbooks with distinct Shadowself arcs | 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 | Very niche: you must want to play young dragons, limited mechanical depth, tightly bound to its setting | 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. |