This is great, thank you. I especially like the thought of a GM's commentary on the game as it runs. That reminds me of the session summaries Matt Colville used to do for his games. Those were very helpful to me when I first started running a game and I'd imagine seeing it alongside the actual session would be more-so.

Thanks for the thorough response. What hack do you use for Dungeon World? I've heard of things like World of Dungeons or Stonetop, but I didn't know enough about the core system to have looked into it. I'll read through the resources you listed. I think understanding the flow of any PbtA will just help me wrap my brain around the game before I run what will probably be Avatar to start.

It's interesting to hear you talk about some of the principles of PbtA being things like treating the game as a conversation and making rolls contribute to the narrative by not making them binary pass/fail states. I've heard a lot of advice to do things like that for DnD, especially in OSR circles. I feel like I've heard some strong reactions against stuff PbtA from similar circles though. Wonder what the disconnect there is.

That's the first time I've heard someone call Forged in the Dark mechanically heavy. Though whenever I've talked about it its' been in comparison to DnD. So maybe it's less complex in that context. I haven't read any Forged games yet so I'd trust your opinion over mine.

Monster of the Week is definitely on my list of games to try. I'll have to see about running it around Halloween. If it brought you back to the hobby, it has to be something special.

There's Quest RPG. It's a simple system that's meant to be an introduction for RPGs in general. They do the degrees of success thing with a d20. I looked into it as a lighter, more story focused alternative to 5e and used the dice roll mechanic to run an improvised game for my kid niece and nephew that went pretty well.

There's also a mech game called Salvage Union that uses the same system. Don't know if there are any others.

Thanks. I did find an actual play Magpie did for Avatar and a few how to videos. There's a few for Glitter Hearts too, but there's definitely not much compared to all that there is for DnD.

Thank you for the thorough response. I'll definitely give Spout Lore a try to begin with. I've been a little curious about Dungeon World as a replacement for 5e. Combat drags on in my games and we've got a limited time to play week to week so I was thinking it might be snappier to play and help us focus on the story. I know very little about PbtA though so maybe that isn't valid.

One of my players gifted me the Avatar Starter set so I was leaning toward running through that. Would you have any advice to help the transitions to and from combat work better?

I picked up Glitter Hearts a while ago because one of my players is wild about Magical Girls and there wasn't much out there I could find aside from it at the time. Have you looked into Girl By Moonlight at all? I haven't played anything Forged in the Dark but I know that the system is well-regarded. I'll give Hearts of Harmony a look too.

Are there any particular PbtA games that you would say take good advantage of the system? I was hoping to use this game as a jumping off point to explore other games and genres in the future if this went well. There's a remarkable number of games that use the system from what I can tell.