Grey
Dialectical Hermeticist
Have I already made you read Dungeon World? Because it sounds like you want Dungeon World. Maybe Earthdawn.
And yeah, I plan to make the diceless RPG choice-based - you have a resource to perform actions with, and you choose which action is the best use of that resource, but you don't get to do everything. So you can, say, spend 5 Vigour for a difficult climb up the side of a building, which means you might get there faster but have less Vigor, or you can search for the hidden staircase for 3 Vigor, but it'll take you a bit longer. Which affects what you find when you get up there, narratively.
What you're describing is also achievable in FATE, but most modern RPGs try to avoid book-keeping like that. They either have a fairly hefty character creation (or very streamlined) to root you character in the world of the game, and then keep things efficient beyond that rather than layering on mechanical complexity where narrative complexity would be preferable.
Although I'm working on an Elder Scrolls RPG system that might also work for you - I wanted to preserve the series tradition of getting better by doing something, even if you fail, rather than spending XP or having strong class-level paradigms.
And yeah, I plan to make the diceless RPG choice-based - you have a resource to perform actions with, and you choose which action is the best use of that resource, but you don't get to do everything. So you can, say, spend 5 Vigour for a difficult climb up the side of a building, which means you might get there faster but have less Vigor, or you can search for the hidden staircase for 3 Vigor, but it'll take you a bit longer. Which affects what you find when you get up there, narratively.
What you're describing is also achievable in FATE, but most modern RPGs try to avoid book-keeping like that. They either have a fairly hefty character creation (or very streamlined) to root you character in the world of the game, and then keep things efficient beyond that rather than layering on mechanical complexity where narrative complexity would be preferable.
Although I'm working on an Elder Scrolls RPG system that might also work for you - I wanted to preserve the series tradition of getting better by doing something, even if you fail, rather than spending XP or having strong class-level paradigms.