Forbidden Lands vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Forbidden Lands and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Forbidden Lands | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Sandbox, Hexcrawl, Gritty, Survival, Deadly, Exploration, Base-Building, Random Tables | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Roll a pool of d6s (attribute + skill + gear dice). Each 6 is a success. You can push your roll for extra dice, but risk damaging gear and taking conditions. Gear dice degrade on 1s. Year Zero Engine. | 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 dice pool | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Medium | Very High |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | High | Very High |
| License | Year Zero Engine OGL | 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 | Free League Publishing | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2018 | 2015 |
| Languages | English, Swedish, German, French, Spanish, Italian | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Sandbox hexcrawl campaigns with stronghold building, resource management, and a dark fantasy tone. Great for groups who want to explore and carve out their own corner of the world. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Detailed sandbox tools and hexcrawl structure, stronghold building adds long-term goals, push mechanic creates meaningful risk, low-prep with random encounter tables and legend handouts | 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 | Tightly tied to its Ravenland setting, push mechanic can frustrate cautious players, stronghold rules require the full boxed set, hex encounters can feel repetitive without GM preparation | 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. |