Mage: The Ascension vs Those Who Wander

Compare Mage: The Ascension and Those Who Wander side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Mage: The Ascension	Those Who Wander
Genre	Fantasy, Modern, Horror	Fantasy
Tags	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics	Heroic, High-Fantasy, Character Building, Classless, Tactical, Worldbuilding, Vancian Casting, Crunchy
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 + ability bonus + proficiency bonus against a Difficulty Score. Abilities use direct modifiers (−1 to +5) instead of base scores, removing a calculation step from every roll. Character progression replaces classes and levels with a 20-step path: at each step you choose between two or more diverging features, and prerequisites gate later options.
Dice	d10 dice pool	d20
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	Very High	High
License	All Rights Reserved	Proprietary (free Essential Rules quickstart)
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	Gnome Made Games
Year	2015	2022
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 familiar with d20 fantasy who want deeper character customization, inclusive design covering any parentage pairing and accessibility for disabled characters, and long campaigns where each hero's 20-step path diverges from the rest of the party.
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.	Parentage system inherits traits from any two birth parents across 15 peoples (dwarven, elven, human, halfling, avian, celestial, draconic, genie, gnoll, gnomish, goblin, kobold, infernal, orc, plus Complex Parentage) for hundreds of pairing combinations. Accessibility rules treat Blind and Deaf characters as mechanically viable heroes and integrate prosthetics and wheelchairs as part of the character. The 20-step branching progression replaces classes and levels: each step is a choice between two or more features that gate further specializations. Awakening heirlooms (weapons, armor, trinkets) gain new properties as characters take steps, growing in power and personality alongside their owner.
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.	477-page rulebook with substantial mechanical innovation in character creation requires significant reading before a first session. No adventures are included in the core rules: GMs must design their own scenarios or source from d20-compatible content. The steps system departs from familiar level/class structure, so players coming from d20 fantasy must learn a new progression model. No native rolled initiative: the storyteller chooses one of four ability-based turn-order methods at the start of each combat.