Mage: The Ascension vs Wyld

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

	Mage: The Ascension	Wyld
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	Rules-Light, Classless, Dark Fantasy, One-Shot Friendly, Roll to Cast, Inventory Management, CC-Licensed Rules
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 2d6 plus the relevant ability point (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Empathy, each rated 0–4) for any risky action: 10+ is a Success, 7–9 a Partial Success that lands with a complication, 6 or less a Failure. Double 6 is a Critical Success that grants the player a Fortune Point (spendable to boost any later roll, max 3); double 1 is a Critical Failure that hands the GM a Misfortune Point (spendable for out-of-turn foe actions, max 5). Physical attacks bypass the test: the attacker rolls the weapon's damage die, adds STR (melee) or DEX (ranged), subtracts the target's Armour Protection, and applies the remainder to Hit Points. Spellcasting reuses the 2d6 test against INT (Primordial utility) or EMP (Elemental damage), with a partial success triggering a d20 Wyld Flare table for unintended magical chaos.
Dice	d10 dice pool	2d6
Complexity	Very High	Low
Accessibility	High	Very High
Runnability	Very High	Medium
License	All Rights Reserved	CC BY 4.0
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	Quest Giver Games
Year	2015	2026
Languages	English, French, German, Italian, Russian, Spanish	English
Best For	Groups who want long modern occult campaigns about conflicting beliefs and the consequences of reshaping reality.	Small groups who want a short, classless fantasy zine for anthropomorphic animal-folk in a pastoral world that gradually darkens: built for the tonal slide from cozy Wyld Folk daily life into encounters with corrupted Ravenous, Carrion undead, and ascending Mythics.
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.	Weapons strike without a roll: physical attacks resolve as damage die plus STR or DEX minus Armour Protection, removing the to-hit layer that slows similar 2d6 systems and reserving the test mechanic for risky non-attack actions, spellcasting, and contests. Magic splits into Elemental spells (EMP: damage with element-specific riders such as Air pushing the target, Earth knocking them prone, Fire bypassing armour, Light blinding, Dark dropping Strength) and Primordial spells (INT: non-damage utility from 25 paired opposites like Repel/Attract, Heat/Cool, Shrink/Grow, Slick/Friction), with a partial success on either rolling on a d20 Wyld Flare table for chaotic side-effects instead of a wasted turn. Hitting exactly 0 HP triggers the Scars table: rather than wound penalties, every entry pairs a permanent cosmetic mark (a limp, coloured-vein blood poisoning, lingering green spots, an inner-child episode) with a chance to raise an ability score or add to maximum HP, so near-death consistently bends toward leaving the Wyld Folk marked and more capable.
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.	Combat is one-way damage (attackers roll, defenders don't, with no dodge, parry, or active defensive reaction beyond Armour Protection), so player agency in defense is limited to wearing or removing armour rather than mid-combat maneuvering. The world of Sunder is sketched in broad strokes: its history, factions, geography, and the nature of the encroaching darkness are conveyed across a few paragraphs and bestiary entries, leaving the GM to fill in most lore at the table. Character growth caps at level 10 with a hard ceiling of 4 in any ability score: numerical advancement runs out quickly, with later gains limited to extra Martial Foci or additional spells slotted within those existing caps.