Mage: The Ascension vs When Sky & Sea Were Not Named

Compare Mage: The Ascension and When Sky & Sea Were Not Named side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, cost, and more.

	Mage: The Ascension	When Sky & Sea Were Not Named
Genre	Fantasy, Modern, Horror	Fantasy
Tags	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics	Tactical, Theater of the Mind, Resource Management, Faction Play, Lore-Heavy, Base-Building, Exploration
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.	Each hero has four action dice, one for each action type (Attack, Brace, Compel, Maneuver), with the die size set from d4 to d12 by the relevant attributes. To act, roll the matching die and read it against two thresholds. Against an obstacle, the Guide sets a failure threshold and a struggle threshold. Against a foe, the target's attribute is the failure threshold and its defense is the struggle threshold. Beating the higher number is a Success, beating only the lower is a Struggle that costs something, and beating neither is a Failure. Attacks deal damage equal to the roll minus the target's Guard and Armor, so one roll settles both the hit and its severity.
Dice	d10 dice pool	d4–d12
Complexity	Very High	High
Accessibility	High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Medium
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	$$	Free
Publisher	Onyx Path Publishing	Purple People Games
Year	2015	2023
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish	English
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 settling in for a multi-session campaign who want combat built on resource trade-offs, spellcasters that each play differently, and a Guide comfortable improvising rulings. The island-hopping rescue-and-rebuild structure rewards tables that enjoy both tactical fights and settlement-scale stakes.
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 four defenses both resists incoming actions and doubles as the resource a hero spends to power abilities, so every turn weighs guarding against acting. A hero rolls a different die size for each of the four action types, so strengths and weaknesses live in which die they pick up rather than in numeric modifiers. Invoking an Ideal after a roll spends Spirit for an advantage die the Guide sizes to how dramatic the moment is, linking vivid roleplay to a mechanical boost.
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 three spellcasting callings each run a separate resource economy, creating a real skill gap between players who take a magical calling and those who do not. The Shinarian origin locks Agility at 0, which bars the Wanderer calling and leaves those heroes unable to evade, outflank, or hide effectively. Sizing invoked Ideal dice, setting challenge thresholds, and reading the Dreamshape table all rest on Guide judgment rather than fixed numbers, which favors improvisational Guides over those who want firm procedures.