Into the Odd Remastered vs Mage: The Ascension
Compare Into the Odd Remastered and Mage: The Ascension side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Into the Odd Remastered | Mage: The Ascension | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy, Modern, Horror |
| Tags | Rules-Light, Dungeon Crawl, Weird, Low-Prep, Attacks Always Hit, CC-Licensed Rules | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics |
| Core Mechanic | Three ability scores (STR, DEX, WIL) rolled on 3d6. No to-hit rolls: attacks always deal damage directly. Saves are d20 roll-under the relevant ability. Damage reduces HP first, then STR; at 0 STR you die. Arcana are unique magical objects that grant strange powers. | 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, d4–d12 | d10 dice pool |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very High |
| Accessibility | Medium | High |
| Runnability | Medium | Very High |
| License | CC BY-SA 4.0 | 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 | Bastionland Press / Free League Workshop | Onyx Path Publishing |
| Year | 2022 | 2015 |
| Languages | English | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want an ultra-streamlined OSR game where character creation takes minutes, combat is fast and deadly, and strange Arcana replace traditional spell lists. | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. |
| Highlights | Character creation in under five minutes, no wasted turns thanks to auto-hit combat, Arcana system offers wide creative options, fits in about 50 pages, spawned an entire design movement (Cairn, Liminal Horror, etc.) | 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 swingy random ability scores at creation, tightly coupled to its Bastion/Underground setting, no structured advancement beyond finding Arcana, auto-hit combat removes tactical decisions around accuracy | 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. |