Fiasco vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Fiasco and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Fiasco | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | GM-Less, One-Shot Friendly, Rules-Light, Narrative, Collaborative, Drama, Fiction-First, Low-Prep | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | No GM. Setup uses cards (or dice in Classic edition) to establish relationships, needs, locations, and objects between characters. Scenes alternate between Establish and Resolve: other players either frame the scene or choose its outcome. The Tilt at the midpoint introduces chaos. The Aftermath tallies white and black dice to determine each character's fate. | 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 | d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | Very High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Proprietary | 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 | Free | $$ |
| Publisher | Bully Pulpit Games | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2020 | 2015 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Spanish | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | One-shots where players collaboratively build and then dismantle a story of desperate people with big ambitions: inspired by Coen Brothers films and crime-gone-wrong cinema. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Zero prep, no GM required, playsets define different settings and genres for each session, Diana Jones Award winner, plays in 2–3 hours | 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 | Heavily dependent on player chemistry and group dynamic, Tilt can derail carefully established narrative threads, new players often struggle with self-directed scene framing, outcome quality varies significantly between groups | 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. |