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.
Recently I’ve tried Blades in the Dark which from my perspective ticks a lot of your boxes. Simpler than D&D for sure, similar to PbtA in terms of rolls and character sheets, and set in a post-apocalyptic world (albeit Victorian era).
Other than that I love the flexibility of Savage Worlds with its kind of simple rules and many many different extensions for different settings. Good base for tinkering imho.
And of course if you mention PbtA, why not go with Apocalypse World?
Interesting, BitD has come up a few times as I’ve been trying to research other systems. I’d better check it out. Apocalypse World would take a lot of censoring from what I’ve seen of the character sheets! I do really like the flexibility and leveling options of Savage Worlds, so that’s definitely a contender. Thanks!