Mage: The Ascension vs Tales of Argosa
Compare Mage: The Ascension and Tales of Argosa side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Mage: The Ascension | Tales of Argosa | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Modern, Horror | Fantasy |
| Tags | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics | Deadly, Sandbox, Combat-Heavy, Dungeon Crawl, Roll to Cast, Gritty, CC-Licensed Rules, Sword & Sorcery |
| 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. | Roll d20 under attribute to succeed (roll-under). Luck saves deplete your Luck attribute with each success, ratcheting tension. Combat uses Nat 19 effects, Exploits, Fumbles, Crits, and Trauma tables. Dark & Dangerous Magic risks madness and Veil monsters when casting spells. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | d20 |
| Complexity | Very High | Low |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Very High |
| License | All Rights Reserved | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
| 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 | Pickpocket Press |
| Year | 2015 | 2024 |
| 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. | Sword & sorcery fans who want fast, brutal combat with diminishing Luck, dark & dangerous magic, and rich emergent sandbox play: group or solo. |
| 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. | Distinctive diminishing Luck mechanic, combat with Exploits and Trauma is consequential, large GM toolbox (hexploration, oracles, hirelings, mass battle), solo rules included, Creative Commons license |
| 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 Diminishing Luck mechanic means characters weaken as they succeed. There are limited magical options in the core rules. The game requires GM comfort with sandbox hexcrawl prep. |