My kids (10 & 13) and I are wrapping up our first campaign together in D&D 5e, and I'm starting to think about the next one. It's going to be a homebrew setting--future humanity decimated by climate change, but also elements of weird magic with giant plants and insects, inspired by things like Studio Ghibli, Kipo, etc.
After watching the recent Critical Role - Tears of the Kingdom oneshot, I started tinkering with my own system (PbtA based, with lots of opportunities for inventive crafting, and a video-game-inspired skill tree rather than strict classes) which is fun, but really time-consuming.
Wondering if anyone knows of an existing system that would work well for this setting? I'd like to find something simpler than 5e (which is the only system I know well), since they mainly enjoy the story and role-playing rather than lots of number crunching and detailed rules.
How simple do you want to get? You could reduce PbtA down to a single move Defy Danger. Still works.
I guess I'm aiming for something that fairly straightforward for the kids to learn, so they can understand what their characters can do without needing to read 200 pages of rules, but also something with enough steam for the characters to grow and develop new skills--our current campaign has been going for around 18 months, so I expect something similar for this one.
That Defy Danger system looks like it has most of what I'm looking for. Could be a good starting point for me to tweak. Thanks for sharing it!