GunCraze vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare GunCraze and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| GunCraze | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Post-Apocalyptic, Modern | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Tactical, Crunchy, Classless, Skill-Based, Deadly, Gritty, Miniatures | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy |
| Core Mechanic | Statistic Test: roll 1d10, add the relevant Attribute or Skill rank plus modifiers, and meet or beat a target number; contested actions are Opposed Rolls where the higher total wins and ties favor the defender. A natural 9 or 10 on a combat test banks a Craze! Point, and up to three Craze! Points can be spent after a roll to add +1d6 each. Attacks roll a d10 for hit location and deal damage in d6s against per-location hit points. | Roll an Attribute-plus-Ability pool of d10s and count dice meeting the difficulty, usually 6. Each rolled 1 cancels a success. A roll botches only when no die meets the difficulty and at least one die shows 1. Magick instead rolls Arete, the mage's enlightenment rating, against a difficulty based on the highest Sphere used and whether the effect violates ordinary reality. Successes determine the effect's extent. |
| Dice | d10, d6 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | High | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | Proprietary (GunCraze OGL v1.1) | 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 | Action Tactics Roleplay Gaming LLC | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2025 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want crunchy, grid-based tactical gunfights with genuine lethality in a post-apocalyptic setting and don't mind learning a dense rulebook before the first session. | Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality. |
| Highlights | A natural 9 or 10 on a combat roll banks a Craze! Point, and up to three can be spent afterward for +1d6 each or to dive for cover mid-attack, but never to boost damage, keeping firefights swingy without softening lethality. Damage tracks per body location, so a destroyed limb is disabled and spills further hits into the torso past armor, turning partial wounds into mounting handicaps rather than one shared health bar. Characters are built from specializations, tiered talent trees, ranked skills, and jobs rather than classes, letting any blend of gunplay, melee, and noncombat skill live in one survivor. | Nine Spheres combine into improvised magical effects beyond a fixed spell list. A mage's beliefs determine the practices and instruments that make those effects possible. Concealing magick within plausible events reduces the risk of reality's backlash. |
| Considerations | Social conflict resolves through single skill tests, with no structured subsystem for extended negotiation, interrogation, or social maneuvering. The rules cover realistic firearms, melee, and cybernetics only, with no rules for magic, psychic powers, or other fantastical abilities. Installing cybernetics requires both Surgery and Engineering (Robotics) skill ranks plus high target-number tests, gating the augmentation catalog behind dedicated character investment. | Improvised magick requires the group to agree on what an effect can accomplish before rolling. Accumulated Paradox can injure a mage or trap them in a distorted reality. Cabals need shared motives to keep incompatible faction loyalties from pulling the campaign apart. |