Cloudbreaker Alliance
Look. we’ll just ignore the fact that the name sounds like a euphemism for a fart
Genre: Fantasy
Touchstones: Final Fantasy, Star Trek
What is this game?: Cloudbreaker is a fantasy game about trying to solve problems creatively rather than with violence
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How's the gameplay?: Cloudbreaker uses a simplistic 2d6 system, characters can sometimes gain an edge when rolling which makes them roll a 3rd dice and drop the lowest die, character creation is fairly simplistic but still customizable, players choose a Simple class (which has two branching paths), and later on get an Advanced class (Which also has two branching Paths) based on what simple class they took, each advanced class can come from one of two simple classes, characters are as such fun and varied. Characters also take Quirks and "Lifeforms"(Species) which each have mostly flavor based abilities. A primary focus of the game is the Research and Pacification system, where characters can analyze enemies to learn their weakness, and when they do they can leverage that weakness to finish a fight without killing an enemy! Cloudbreaker's gameplay is fairly deep and hard to explain, being a D&D-Like means its got a lot of finnicky subsystems that would take too long to explain, but if any of the prior concepts sound good Cloudbreaker may be for you!
The game also asks GMs to focus on non-violence objectives for action scenes, maybe you need to escort a target or clear a path for a large vehicle!
Another thing of note in the gameplay is it's magic system, characters choose a school of magic to be attuned to, and they can cast ALL spells from that school, later on they can learn more schools, and combine different schools to get special spells, or even mix together schools to create new schools
What's the setting (If any) like?: Cloudbreaker is setting in the fantasy post apocalyptic land of the Cloudlands, where people must break through thick barriers of Clouds in order to get to places, within those cloud are highly agressive Monsters, who must be pacified or killed in order to pass through safely. Players work for a guild dedicated to helping and researching the lands, and missions will often involve saving people from dangers, rather than just killing things mindlessly
What's the tone?: Cloudbreaker's setting is about upstart youths part of a guild meant to assist the needy and beaten, its tone tends to lean more hopeful as such
Session length: 2-4 hours, a major positive of the game is that combat is lightning fast
Number of Players: 4-6 players
Malleability: Cloudbreaker's game design feels stuck to a setting at first, but at a closer look its extremely malleable, you could probably run a few different settings in this
Resources: Sadly not a lot right now, though a form fillable character sheet is available
Cloudbreaker is probably what you're looking for if you want to leave 5e but don't like PF2 or any other 5e equivalent, well at least until I write the emberwind write up... any day now