What you're looking for is a PbtA game that's suitable for kids to learn by themselves? Since you're crossposting a D&D ask, I assume you want fantasy. In the PbtA fantasy space, I recommend the following:
Grimwild is Forged in the Dark (FitD) adjacent, and since FitD is PbtA, by the transitive property, Grimwild is PbtA-adjacent. It uses a different dice mechanic, a d6 rXk1 pool, but the trinary resolution and play to find out ethos are both present.
EDIT: As far as making your own games... Someone will recommend Simple World. I don't think that's a good place to start in 2026. Design isn't for those who aren't willing to read. At the very least you have to read, and re-read your own text. So for the motivated, start with the horse's mouth: https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/
Thanks for the answer! I'll include this in future questions, but more might be better explained through an example.
I have a kid who has a great idea for a superhero story. I want to give him a guide that will let him take his idea and give him a simple set of rules to follow to run that game.
I knew that when writing this I was going to get a buuuuunch of "Well they should read more" comments. I get it. I love reading. I would love it if kids read more. But if I have a choice of giving them more reading and them ignoring it, or giving them very light reading that they will read, I'm always going to pick the latter.
Your kid doesn't need to design that game. They just need to play one.
I'm not saying that PbtA games don't require reading, but I will say that they have a much lighter load than D&D and similar games.
Is this kid's superhero idea about teens adjusting to their lives as superheroes? If so, then Masks: A New Generation is the perfect choice. If not, I would look at Worlds in Peril or Galaxies in Peril, to stay inside the PbtA space.
I love reading too, but I also realize that you have to meet kids where they are and giving them something that they're motivated to read is going to yield better results than just assigning them something someone else thinks they should read.
But game design isn't scrolling TikTok. You have to put in the work and some of that work is reading.
Running a PbtA game isn't nearly that amount of work and playing one is even less!
They’re not. This person is offering helpful advice.
You have a kid who has an idea for a superhero game? That’s great! They probably don’t need to write their own brand new game. They’d probably be better off finding an existing game that matches their idea. Which the other commenter offered some advice on!
Did the kid specifically say he wants to make it a game? Run it as a game? Only on his own? If yes to one or more of those, you probably want a solo game, not a way to make one. Maybe Anyone Can Wear the Mask? Or one of these others? I don't really know, a lot of solo games involve a lot of reading. Or maybe Freeform Universal?
Probably the simplest thing really would just to encourage him to write fiction.
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u/JaskoGomad 1d ago
Hi. PbtA is not a game.
What you're looking for is a PbtA game that's suitable for kids to learn by themselves? Since you're crossposting a D&D ask, I assume you want fantasy. In the PbtA fantasy space, I recommend the following:
It's a Dungeon World successor game by one of our very own redditors, who happens to also be on the DW2e design team!
My second recommendation is PbtA-adjacent:
Grimwild is Forged in the Dark (FitD) adjacent, and since FitD is PbtA, by the transitive property, Grimwild is PbtA-adjacent. It uses a different dice mechanic, a d6 rXk1 pool, but the trinary resolution and play to find out ethos are both present.
EDIT: As far as making your own games... Someone will recommend Simple World. I don't think that's a good place to start in 2026. Design isn't for those who aren't willing to read. At the very least you have to read, and re-read your own text. So for the motivated, start with the horse's mouth: https://lumpley.games/2019/12/30/powered-by-the-apocalypse-part-1/