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, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics | Collaborative, Diceless, GM-Less, High-Power, One-Shot Friendly, Roleplay-Heavy, Sandbox, Solo-Friendly, Superpowers, Worldbuilding |
| 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. | 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 |
| 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 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 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. | 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 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. | 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. |