Kevin Brennan's page

I would still prefer if we get lots of ancestry features at 1st level and any feat tied to ancestry should be some kind of upgrade of default features.

Having run the game for complete newbies before, I'm glad the ancestries are slimmed down. The players got really frustrated with all of the miscellaneous abilities they needed to write down before they got going, the vast majority of which never came up.

Speed, HP, size, and attribute bonuses/penalties are frequently relevant. An AC bonus against specific enemies, the ability to talk to burrowing animals, and proficiency in specific weapons are all just wastes of character creation time unless the player actively wants them.

I'm totally in favor of giving one or two decisions at level 1 that let players choose something that THEY find compelling rather than loading people up with several lines of extra, irrelevant text to copy down before they can start playing the game.

HWalsh wrote:

...

Uh, I can't think of a system that didn't have a critical hit rule to be honest.
...

I don't think Dungeon World and friends had them. But yeah, some sort of critical hit like rule is pretty common. I am not convinced that PF2E's particular implementation is great, but it isn't unusual simply for having them.

The Apocalypse World Engine arguably has two different ways to crit depending on how you're defining "crit":

If you're focusing on "crit" as "better than a normal success," the AWE starts with two tiers of success: a "partial" success on a 7-9 (usually the more common result) and a "full" success on a 10+. Whether or not the 10+ result feels like a "crit" or just a normal hit depends on both the move being rolled and the player. Beyond that, some implementations of the engine have the option to upgrade your character to allow for a third tier of success at 12+.

If instead you're focusing on "crit" as "bonus damage," many AWE games have that as an option even on a 7-9 -- it just comes with strings attached in that case.