Mage: The Ascension vs Playing God
Compare Mage: The Ascension and Playing God side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Mage: The Ascension | Playing God | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Modern, Horror | Fantasy |
| Tags | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy | Collaborative, Diceless, GM-Less, High-Power, One-Shot Friendly, Roleplay-Heavy, Sandbox, Solo-Friendly, Superpowers, Worldbuilding |
| Core Mechanic | 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. | Playing God uses no dice for its core resolution: players choose from the minor and major wonders allowed by their divine rank, and each wonder takes effect without a success roll. Devotion plus History determines divine rank, which expands the number and scale of wonders available each age. The optional Deck of Fate adds uncontrollable mortal events, while avatar battles use a separate card-hand procedure or another system chosen by the table. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | Diceless |
| Complexity | Very High | Medium |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | All Rights Reserved | ORC License |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault | Commercial publishing allowed — ORC License |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Cost | $$ | $ |
| Publisher | Onyx Path Publishing | Gnome Made Games |
| Year | 2015 | 2025 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish | English |
| Best For | Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality. | Groups who want to create a shared mythology across ages, either as a standalone campaign or as a foundation for another RPG setting. It also suits solo players and GM-less tables that enjoy negotiating divine alliances and rivalries. |
| Highlights | 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. | Each of the 23 domains grants a distinct wonder and modifier, making a god's portfolio mechanically consequential. Wonders permanently alter the shared multiverse, producing a usable mythic setting as play advances. Lower-ranked deities can pool their allotments to perform major wonders they could not enact alone. |
| Considerations | 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. | Play centers on choosing and narrating godly wonders, with little direct support for character-scale action. Avatar battles use a brief card-hand procedure or another game chosen by the table, so the core book does not model positional combat. The optional Deck of Fate can impose Devotion losses or dictate a deity's next wonder, trading player control for unpredictable mortal events. |