A note, if you pursue this: There’s fate core and fate condensed that are very similar, but have a few minor changes. Stress (similar to HP) is handled slightly differently between them. I prefer core’s method, but some people like condensed.

There’s also fate accelerated which is even lighter weight.

They’re all free on the website linked above - https://fate-srd.com/ - rules drop down has all the options

You could use Fate. Fate is a generic system that can do high fantasy just fine. It doesn’t need a full party like D&D does. It handles social and physical conflict equally well. The way aspects work is very “As long as I can justify it in the story, it could happen”. You can spend fate points as a player to alter the story, too, which is fun. I also like that it’s generally “You can get what you want, if you’re lucky or pay the price”. “Succeed at a major cost” is almost always on the table.

The downside is it has big “tyranny of the blank page”. D&D-likes you can just point at “Human Fighter” and go. Fate asks you to come up with your high concept, trouble, and background on your own. If you’re creative and that excites you, it’s freeing and exhilarating. If you’re shy, it can be overwhelming.

The core rules don’t have a detailed magic system. It’s up to you to decide how you want it to work, or to buy a splatbook where someone else made a system. It’s pretty easy to tinker with.

It’s also up to the GM to make sure the threats are reasonable. There’s no “CR” system like D&D. But players also always have the power to concede, where they lose the immediate conflict but survive. You don’t have to worry about accidentally wiping the player(s) usually.

You could look for some PbtA games, which are extremely popular. I personally don’t like them much because playbooks feel more like mad libs than creative writing. I also don’t like the dice system, and often find it punishing to the point of not being fun. (I just played a PbtA game last night and don’t think I rolled even a success on like 6 rolls in a row. I felt incompetent and it sucked).

I definitely learned from the experience. Specifically, be explicit about what tone and such we’re going for, and be firm if someone is going off in some other direction.

In her defense, she’d played little to nothing before.

Then again you did say they physically stopped the player so maybe they’re not the only person whose lines are a bit blurred.

I communicated poorly! In-game they stopped the player character by saying their characters physically took the instruments away. We were playing remotely, so no one was physically interacting.

I’d never heard of “Bleed” until one player got very in-real-life upset about their character having a moderately bad time. The rest of us were like “this is some great drama and storytelling! And good job {upset-player} roleplaying!”, but then they were like actually mad at us. Kind of unsettling. Not a good experience.

Their character was a musician and had been cursed, in a recent session, so if they played music then unknown bad things to the tune of a demonic incursion would happen. The other players didn’t like this, and the bleed player didn’t really believe it. They’d tried to play a song anyway, and when I described how the lights in the room became thin they physically stopped the player character from continuing, and put their instruments in their locked chest. The bleed-player didn’t like this. They secretly went and broke into the chest to get their stuff back. The other players were then mad, in-character, that this had happened. Like, they put the group at risk by fucking with their curse, and also broke into their personal belongings. It was good drama. Good interpersonal conflict. Big argument and juicy scene. Both sides had good points.

Except the bleed-player was actually, genuinely, real-life, upset about all of this. We had to pause the game.

To me it just felt messy and, I don’t know, like poor emotional regulation. You can feel a thing but why are you lashing out at the other players?

Maybe that’s not a typical usage of bleed, but that’s what they said was happening.

I’d want to do some research before making a serious answer, but firing from the hip, not in order:

• DND 5e. It’s the big one. Even if you don’t like it, it’s popular. If you’re going to learn about a hobby you should learn what’s popular in it.
• a white wolf game like Vampire. This was also pretty popular. It’s got dice pools, no levels and classes, and themes that are more than “get treasure”
• a pbta game. They’re popular now and typically have a very different feel from DND. I’m not sure which one to pick but there are many.
• one of those one page games, where you have like two stats. I don’t like them but it’s a good exercise to show what’s possible.
• some other indie game with an unusual mechanic, like drawing tarot cards instead of dice, or using a Jenga tower.

This is cruel and even if gender affirming care for minors was a problem (it is not), there are so many other more pressing issues at hand.

Some of it depends on what system you’re playing. I always recommend reading more games, because even if you don’t adopt their rules wholesale there’s often ideas you can steal.

CofD had this idea of “aspirations”. Players are asked to write down one long term thing they want to see happen to their character as a player. That’s not necessarily what the character wants. The players should also have one or two short term aspirations. Since these are for the player and not the character, they might be something like “Get in a car chase” or “Take a hit that would fell a normal human” This gives the GM a little guidance on what the players want, and if they’re like “i dunno” that’s a prompt to talk about why they’re here.

More general advice: Engage with the game and its premises. If you’re playing a game about superheroes that go out and fight street level crime, don’t make a character that spends all their time making a mundane brass band. If you’re playing a scrappy militia defending an outpost from a zombie threat, don’t play a guy whose current obsession is writing poetry. Engage with the premise. “Wacky” stuff gets old fast. Playing safe to the tune of “Oh that sounds dangerous I’m just going to stay in the fort” makes for boring gameplay.

I ran a game that ended unhappily because of this. I wanted it to be “explore the cursed island full of monsters and traps”, and one of the players just wanted to open a restaurant. No. Bad. Engage with the game as pitched. If you want to play something else, talk about it instead of rowing against the current constantly.

Engage with NPCs. I have a lot of players that just don’t ask NPCs anything. That doesn’t mean the NPCs are going to drop everything to help you, but if the GM is doing a decent job they have their own motivations and desires. They should be more than Final Fantasy NPCs that have a few fixed lines and a quest reward that pops out.

I’ve played a fair amount of PbtA and close relatives, mostly at a meetup I go to that does one shots. Never seen anyone playing apocalypse world.

I don’t really like pbta that much, though, so I’m not seeking it out.

Could be. I’m not sure what games have defenders roll where a 10 is a questionable result. Such games exist.

But I think it’s more likely the title was written by someone who’s heard dnd terms and doesn’t really play the game. It’s got a “how do you do, fellow kids” feeling.

I don’t think D&D 3e has the defender roll to dodge. There’s only second roll from the attacker to check if it does extra damage or is a regular hit.

Fate also has the defender roll, but it doesn’t have a concept of a “critical strike”.

What system has you rolling to dodge critical strikes?

D&D, especially 5e, is just missing broad sections of game stuff so it can “leave it up to the DM”. Other stuff is really underbaked. Degree of success, succeed at a cost, non-violent conflict, ending combat other than totally wiping the other factions…

That can be fine if everyone’s on the same page, but since D&D is the mega popular game you’re likely to be playing with new players, or just randos, and that can lead to tension.

We used to talk about how to cure Vampires in Mage (awakening, 2e).

The easiest is probably time magic. With Time4, rules as written you can rewrite their history so they never became a vampire. It persists until the spell elapses, but you could make that last a year without too much trouble (assuming time4, gnosis3, a rote skill of 4).

With Time5, the “fuck you” level of Mage, you can use the Unmaking practice and prevent them from being embraced, though that’s big hubris and risks butterfly effects at the GM’s discretion.

Other approaches I’m less sure about. You could probably do something with Life5 (make a new body), 5 or so points of Death or Spirit to get a new soul (fun fact: in awakening, souls are fungible), and Mind5 to put their mind in the new body. Kind of a ship of Theseus situation.

I do feel like sometimes players have a sort of laid back, “we should just win without too much trouble” attitude. Sometimes this manifests as “we take a long rest after every fight”. And that’s a fine way to play, so long as everyone’s on board.

It can be kind of bad when half the group is kick-in-the-door-lol and the DM is expecting more tactical depth.

I think because D&D is many people’s first RPG, you’ll find a lot of bad habits there as new players rediscover them.

Running games has definitely helped me run meetings.

• Establish turn order.
• let people finish their thought instead of immediately following some dumbass tangent
• take notes

I think Mage: The Awakening 2nd edition was a cleaner version of the game, but yeah no version is something you can just phone in.

I ran a game of it a year or so back, and one player just refused to read the book in any detail. She was always frustrated by not knowing what she could do, or how to do it effectively.

Well, technically there’s Vampire: The Requiem. It’s very similar, but not in the exact same universe. Some of the names are reused, but there’s no canon metaplot, and many details are changed. I personally liked it a lot, but I think it’s less popular than Masquerade.

If you want to roll your own setting, I bet there are generic systems that would work. Fate is my go-to, and I can see how it would work. (Probably a stress track for hunger, some consequence boxes for becoming a monster)

try to talk them out of the idea of “Leveling” they get scared and run back to the system they’re familiar with.

I still think about the time in college I tried to get a D&D friend to consider Mage. I was telling him about how you can just do magic, and the real limitation is paradox and hubris. Like, it’s often not about ‘can you?’ but rather “should you?”

He couldn’t get over “you can just cast whatever you want? Fireballs every turn?”

“Yes, but that’s probably going to make a lot of paradox, and probably isn’t the best way to solve your problem”

“Sounds broken,” he said, and lost interest.

I’m partial to Fate.

It’s very open. You don’t have to worry about looking up the right class or feats. You just describe what you want to play, and if the group thinks it’s cool and a good fit for the story, you’re basically done.

Now, the downside is this requires a lot more creativity up front. A blank page can be intimidating.

I like that players have more control over the outcome. You can usually get what you want, even if you roll poorly, but it’s more of a question of what you’re willing to pay for it.

Every roll will be one of

• succeed with style
• succeed
• a lesser version of what you want
• succeed at a minor cost
• succeed at a major cost
• (if you roll badly and don’t want to pay any costs) fail, don’t get what you want

It’s a lot more narrative power than some games give you. I don’t like being completely submissive to the DM, so I enjoy even as a player being able to pitch “ok I’m trying to hack open this terminal… how about as a minor cost I set off an alarm?” or “I’m trying to steal his keys and flubbed the roll… How about as a major cost I create a distraction, get the keys, but drop my backpack by accident. Now I’m disarmed, have no tools, and they can probably trace me with that stuff later. But I got the keys!”.

It’s more collaborative, like a writer’s room, so if someone proposes a dud solution the group can work on it.

The math probability also feels nice. You tend to roll your average, so there’s less swinginess like you’ll get in systems rolling one die.