Mage: The Ascension vs Zombicide: Chronicles

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

	Mage: The Ascension	Zombicide: Chronicles
Genre	Fantasy, Modern, Horror	Horror, Post-Apocalyptic
Tags	Freeform Magic, Character Building, Crunchy, High-Power, Roll to Cast, Skill-Based, Lore-Heavy, Fear & Stress Mechanics	Survival, Tactical, Mission-Based, Base-Building, Licensed IP
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 a dice pool of d6s equal to Attribute (Muscle, Brains, or Grit) + Proficiency (Athletics, Attitude, Background, Combat, Perception, or Survival): the cross-product forms an 18-Action matrix (Fight, Shoot, Sneak, Scavenge, Tinker, Heal, etc.). Each die shows Molotov (success), Zombie Head (failure), or a number (failure forceable to success by gaining Stress during Mission Phase). One success is ordinary, two is superior, three or more is outstanding. Difficulty Levels subtract 1 or 2 dice; pools beyond six convert the excess into Mastery dice that may reroll a Zombie Head once. Rolling more Zombie Heads than successes triggers Trouble: a GM-determined complication on top of whatever the roll resolved.
Dice	d10 dice pool	d6 dice pool
Complexity	Very High	Medium
Accessibility	High	High
Runnability	Very High	Very High
License	All Rights Reserved	Proprietary
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	CMON / Need 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 who want a tactical zombie-apocalypse RPG with structured Mission and Shelter phases: leaving the safehouse to scavenge, fight hordes, and clear districts of the dead, then returning to manage supplies, plan the next run, and fortify the shelter. Designed to drop in alongside the Zombicide board game's tiles, miniatures, and Equipment cards if the group already owns them.
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.	Mission Phase and Shelter Phase run on different rules: Mission Phase activates Stress, Adrenaline, and Trouble for high-tension play, while Shelter Phase resets HP/Stress/Adrenaline to zero and uses simpler resolution for downtime activities like Supply Checks, Shelter Actions, and planning the next run. Stress-to-force-successes drives a tight feedback loop: Mission Phase players can convert numerical dice results above the weapon's Accuracy into successes by gaining Stress, each forced success also feeds the Adrenaline track, and Adrenaline thresholds unlock additional Skill slots (Yellow at Level 1, Orange at Level 3, two Red at Levels 5 and 7). Native board-game compatibility: combat uses the same Zombie types (Walker, Runner, Brute, Abomination), Targeting Priority Order, and Weapon stats as the Zombicide board game, so groups who own it can swap in physical tiles, miniatures, and Equipment cards as table aids.
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.	Setting is locked to one unnamed American city with nine fixed districts (Downtown, Old Town, Fun Zone, University District, Heart of the City, Slums, Suburbia, Uptown, Industrial Park) plus the Undercity: adapting to other locations or rural campaigns means rebuilding the district map, Travel Rolls, and Threat Level scaffolding. Combat dominates the rules: Survivor Phase, Zombie Phase, Targeting Priority, Major Injury table, weapon traits, and the Zombipedia bestiary occupy most of the page count, while investigation, social intrigue, and faction politics get comparatively light mechanical support. The Mission/Shelter alternation imposes a session-level rhythm: Stress, Adrenaline, and Trouble exist only in Mission Phase and Shelter Phase wipes them clean, so improvised open-ended campaigns outside this structure need GM adjustment.