a.k.a as System: Unique Die
I don't know if it will be of any use for you or not, but just in case, may I drop here a two-minute system of mine ?
- General info: name, (age,) sex, appearance.
- 1 goal to flesh out the character's main motivation.
- 4 Specialties that depict what the characters are good at (by that I mean "really better than the average of humans").
- A list of stuff they own (nothing, gold coins, robot parts, Asian noodles, pirate ship, etc.) You can make up a list of goals and specialties, just as an example or as a list in which to choose.
For every obstacle, be it a fight, a fight move, a difficult physical action, a negotiation, anything you want, these are the steps :
a) If a character has a Specialty that ties directly and quite obviously into the action to do, he/she automatically success — it's up to you to determine the nature of the success.
b) If not, you, the DM, have to set a difficulty level between 1 and 6. The character trying to overcome the obstacle must roll a d6 equal or higher than the difficulty level. So difficulty 1 represents any feasible action, difficulty 6 will be dangerous actions with only 16.7 % of probability of success, and 2 to 5 are in between. The DM sets the nature of success or failure as they see fit, and I usually recommend to use failures not as punishments for bad luck but as opportunities to derail the story into more unplanned adventures.
Advantages : simple system. Quick resolution. Quickly adjustable difficulty.
On NPCs: they can be generated the same way the player characters are. If there is a fight / duel / contest between a PC and an NPC and they both fight over the same Specialty, the resolution is d6 against d6, equal means rolling again (with or without time passing).
Aaaand... that's all ! It's also adaptable to every setting you can think of. You can houserule or complexify it easily. When set in a defined universe, I usually prepare a list of goals and Specialties related to the setting and the players choose from them, roll in them or propose some of their own, that I then accept or not after a discussion.
For the setting you depicted, these are the editable archetypes I propose:
Wizard
Maladar the Elder, 189 years old, male, long white beard, blue mage robes adorned with stars and strange symbols.
Goal : More knowledge. Always more knowledge.
Specialties : Ancient runes, Fireball spell, Open Lock spell, Potion making (Note : you can make the magic as wide or narrow as needed)
Stuff owned : A spell book, two potions
Pirate
Sohane the Fearsome, 24 years old, female, pirate outfit, tricorn, eye patch
Goal : Become rich !
Specialties : Sabre dueling, Seafaring, Treasure looting, Understanding what the parrot says
Stuff owned : A living colorful parrot, a steel sabre, a small ship
Cyborg
Jason Korell, 28 years old, male, bald, two prosthetic legs and one prosthetic arm, one prosthetic eye
Goal : Discover who scammed him with a fake implant. / Fighting the cyberpunk corporation.
Specialties : Infrared vision, Jumping high, Strong arm, Computer science
Stuff owned : His implants, a smartphone, some stuff to repair the prosthetics if needed
Private investigator
Sally Greenvale, 37 years old, female, long black hair, a hat, a cream-colour trenchcoat
Goal : Bringing justice.
Specialties : Gun slinging, Decyphering archive files, Law, Hiding
Stuff owned : A gun, some money
It is suitable for campaigns / multiple adventures if your players don't care much about getting XP / stat increases.
Admittedly, it's not suitable for everyone, then. :p You can houserule it like this : instead of guaranteeing auto-success, each Specialty can rank from 1 to 3 (you start with the 4 specialties at 1). If using a Specialty when overcoming an obstacle, you can add the rank of the Specialty to your die roll.
At the end of every adventure / session / whenever you want, you can allow one stat increase in a Specialty if it has been used or the character trained. You can even choose to materialize levels : each character starts at level 4 (1+1+1+1) and the level can be tracked by the number of increases (a 3+2+1+1 character will be level 7). And you can subtract 3 from the result if you want characters to start at level 1.
You also can choose to dabble in a whole new Specialty.
Oh, and with this rule, you can set the difficulty levels up to 9 for extremely difficult (legendary...) actions.
You can even houserule it harder by allowing the stats to rank from 1 to 10 and using a d20 for the resolution.
But honestly, I plan to rely a lot on in-character rewards : wealth, items, new connections, new steps towards the character's Goal, succeeding with the adventure with an original way... You can also give "Fate points" upon shiny roleplaying that could give the ability to reroll a die, or something like this.