Mage: The Ascension vs The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Compare Mage: The Ascension and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.
| Mage: The Ascension | The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy, Modern, Horror | Historical, Fantasy |
| Tags | Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, Fiction-First, Character-Driven, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics, Urban Fantasy | GM-Less, Diceless, Comedy, Narrative, Improvisation, Rules-Light, Gonzo, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions |
| 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. | There are no dice. Each player starts with a purse of coins equal to the number of players, or five each with fewer than five players. In turn, a player tells a first-person tale of about five minutes on a subject another player names just before it starts. A listener with a coin may interrupt by staking one coin on an objection. The teller either keeps the coin and works the objection into the story, or pushes it back with a coin of their own. A refused objection normally goes back and forth, one coin and one insult at a time, until one side backs down and takes the pile. A teller who backs down must then use the objection. After everyone has told a story, each player gives their whole remaining purse to the story they liked best, never their own, and the largest pile wins. |
| Dice | d10 dice pool | Diceless |
| Complexity | Very High | Very Low |
| Accessibility | High | Medium |
| Runnability | Very High | Low |
| License | All Rights Reserved | All Rights Reserved |
| 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 | Fantasy Flight Games |
| Year | 2015 | 2016 |
| Languages | English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish | English, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish |
| Best For | Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality. | Groups who want a short, GM-less party game of competitive boasting that needs only a handful of coins and quick wits, including tables new to roleplaying. |
| 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. | Objections are wagers, so a sharp teller invites interruptions that can be woven in and pockets each accepted stake. Appendix One gives 186 ready-made story subjects that a player can hand to the next teller. Two coin-free versions for online play let the game run asynchronously over email or a forum, or live in text chat. |
| 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. | A storyteller normally improvises a tale of around five minutes on a subject named moments before, which can put hesitant players on the spot. There are no advancement or campaign rules, so play suits one-off evenings rather than long campaigns. The core game assumes drinks are flowing, and a player who declines to tell a story must buy the company a round. |