Mage: The Ascension vs Spire: The City Must Fall

Compare Mage: The Ascension and Spire: The City Must Fall side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Mage: The Ascension	Spire: The City Must Fall
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	Dark Fantasy, Narrative, Character-Driven, Espionage, Social Intrigue, Fiction-First, Gritty, Deadly, Mission-Based, Roleplay-Heavy
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.	Roll a pool of d10s (one base die, plus an additional die each for having the relevant skill, domain, and mastery) and take the highest result. Results run from 1 (critical failure, double stress) through 2–5 (failure), 6–7 (success at a cost), 8–9 (success), to 10 (critical success). Difficulty reduces the pool by 1–2 dice.
Dice	d10 dice pool	d10 dice pool
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	All Rights Reserved	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Commercial publishing allowed — Storytellers Vault	Not yet researched
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Cost	$$	$$
Publisher	Onyx Path Publishing	Rowan, Rook and Decard
Year	2015	2018
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish	English, Italian
Best For	Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality.	Groups who want long-form campaigns as operatives in a revolutionary resistance movement, where faction politics and moral compromise shape each session as much as the missions themselves.
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.	Five separate resistance tracks (Blood, Mind, Shadow, Reputation, Silver) let different types of harm accumulate independently, each with its own fallout table. Fallout mechanics convert accumulated stress into concrete narrative consequences (broken limbs, criminal records, vendetta NPCs, or being burned by the Ministry) rather than flat stat penalties. NPC Bonds maintain their own stress tracks; calling in favors puts allies at risk, and bond fallout can cost safe houses, informants, or key relationships. Character advancement is tied to changing the city itself: small changes earn Low advances, moderate changes Medium, and huge or irreversible changes High. The change does not have to be for the better.
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.	The drow revolution premise is deeply embedded in the fiction; the game is built around this specific setting and repurposing it for other campaigns requires significant adaptation. Combat has no rounds, turns, or initiative system; engagements are resolved as a narrative conversation with the GM choosing the order of action. Fallout can permanently remove or severely restrict character capabilities, including arrest, lost limbs, or exile from the Ministry.