What Should I Play?

Was a while since I played any Fate but if memory serves (think it does after a quick googling) a key part of it are aspects. And those are cool. City of Mist, a thicc and chonky PbtA, also uses aspects but they call it tags. The hefty book is both setting and really many words about tags, how to use then and how to get more. I really like the system but nit the setting. Lyckily they are working on a mythic cyberpunk adaptation of it and there have for a long time been talk of coming out woth a generic toolset.

Maybe Runequest?

Skill based systems are kind of nice. A few recs

• Runequest. D100 system in the same family as CoV, same publisher even. It is a fantasy system set in a near east bronze age world. Mythology matters, faith matters, community mattersand character matters. The latest version is good snd really prettty.

• Mythras. Formerly known as Runequest 6 but Chaosium took back the license. So they removed all the Runequest stuff and republished it as Mythras. Made it as a more generic fantasy toolkit. Has a really good combat engine.

-Genesys, or the Star Wars line it came from. Uses funky narrative dice and through those creates a really dynamic narrative.

Have you looked into Strike! RPG? Setting agnostic tactical combat on a grid heavily derived from dnd 4e but with all the fat stripped, leaving a very light, low-math, simple to run combat with a ton of depth but low number crunching. All that is paired with a narrative system that's very intentionally kept light and with intent to get out of your way.

If you're looking to run something where the PCs are a crew of specialists with distinct roles, this might be worth considering.

Going to recommend City of Mist to you as well.

Was a while since I played any Fate but if memory serves (think it does after a quick googling) a key part of it are aspects. And those are cool. 13th age' one unique thing and skill system can also be seen as tags. City of Mist, a thicc and chonky PbtA, also uses aspects but they call it tags. The hefty book is both setting and really many words about tags, how to use then and how to get more. For a PbtA system it is teally mechanically dense. I really like it but nit the setting. Lyckily they are working on a mythic cyberpunk adaptation of it and there have for a long time been talk of coming out woth a generic toolset.

Have you tried Fabula Ultima? It's based on JRPGs, and it's built on having multiple classes. In fact, you start with levels in 2-3 classes! The combat is also quite easy. It all feels very video game-y but it's quite easy to understand, and the inventory system is also lovely. (Instead of having items, you have inventory points, and when you need a potion or something, you just detract the needed amount of inventory points. Really good for the part of me that always hoards consumables because "I might need it more later.")

There's a quickstart available that runs you through it very well! It even has numbers on the pregens' character sheets that are like. Don't look at this part yet; that'll become relevant in part 3. I suppose that's also based on good tutorial design in video games; things are explained in gameplay instead of rule-dumped at the start.

Of you like Jeremy's work I bet Stonetop is on your radar. It was kickstarted a while ago and work is ongoing. Think the rules section is pretty much done and it's only the setting book left. Stonetop is a Dungeon World hack centered around the settlement of Stonetop. The material for that I've looked at really makes it centered around the village, playbooks are based on roles in the village and there are rules for developing the settlement. Looks good and they even have a so far short edited and annotated let's play to highligt the system.

If you like weapons that matter I think you should have a look at Mythras and its pretty awesome combat engine. In short you make a roll (possibly opposed because active defense), see what sucess level you land at and choose special effect(s). These range from disengage and choose location (mace to head goes bonk) to impale and sunder armor. Good crunch and impactful.

Also it comes with five magic systems that aren't just different spell list but they actually work differently.

I don't have any recommendation for you (other than maybe Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition which takes D&D 5E and adds more customisation), but that sounds a lot of fun and I need to check it out!