Mage: The Ascension vs Pasión de las Pasiones
Compare Mage: The Ascension and Pasión de las Pasiones side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Mage: The Ascension | Pasión de las Pasiones | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Modern, Horror | Modern |
| Tags | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics | Drama, Playbook-Driven, Narrative, Roleplay-Heavy, Social Intrigue, Character-Driven, Collaborative, Fiction-First, Low-Prep, Rules-Light |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Most rolled moves have you roll 2d6 with the questions. Each yes to the move's two questions or your playbook question adds +1. The total modifier stays between -3 and +4. A 10+ is a strong hit, 7–9 a weak hit, and 6 or less a miss. On a miss the MC (the game's GM) makes a move unless the move says otherwise. Marked conditions are emotional states that each give +1 to one basic move and -2 to another. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Very High | Low |
| Accessibility | High | High |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | No verified route found |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $ |
| Publisher | Onyx Path Publishing | Magpie Games |
| Year | 2015 | 2023 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish | English, French, Italian, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want long-form modern occult campaigns about reality-shaping power, ideological conflict, and the consequences of imposing belief on the world. | Groups who want a short season of melodramatic romance, betrayal, and shocking reveals, with players taking turns as the audience that steers each other's stories. |
| Highlights | 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. | Move questions such as "Are you dressed to impress?" replace stats, so each roll's bonus comes from what is happening in the scene. Players outside a scene act as the show's audience and can boost a character's roll or reveal off-screen events. A successful Accuse Someone of Lying roll can declare your character right despite what earlier scenes showed. |
| Considerations | 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. | The game assumes romance and works best when every player character is a possible love interest. There are no in-depth combat rules: a punch uses the same move as calling someone cruel names. Every player character is expected to be Latinx. |