Building a Minecraft RPG: a Worthwhile Endeavor?

^{A little logo I just threw together}

I am slowly working on the idea of a Minecraft RPG. The purpose of this game is to introduce younger kids to the world of table-top role-playing games with simple rules in an environment they are familiar with.

It will have a feel similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but extremely simplified. Characters will be made on 3x5 cards or something similar. Monsters will also have their own cards. It can be played with miniatures on a map, or not. Possibly a hybrid system where you use a battle map for combat and other location-specific tasks.

The game will use two six-sided dice (2d6). The reason for this is simple: Most kids can easily get their hands on 2d6, and that's the only die shape possible in the world of Minecraft. Roll 2d6 and take the highest value. a roll of 5 or 6 on either is a hit. (a 3.33-in-6 chance, a little better than 50/50). A roll 2 5's or higher is a great hit, and 2 6's is a crit (double damage, double ore found, no damage taken from a surprise creeper explosion, etc), and 2 1's is a botch (really nasty failure. Don't roll this!).

With weapons, I figured flat damage. Copying from the game, wood swords do 5 damage, stone does 6, iron does 7, and diamond does 8. Pretty simple and straight-forward.

Armor in the game, however, certainly is not. It is done on a percentage system. Diamond armor, in a full set, reduces damage by 80%, iron by 60%, and everyone else roughly, chain 50%, gold 45%, and leather 25%. That's quite easy to code in a computer game, but not so easy for kids to do. So I thought a flat armor score. But with a flat armor score, it will only work with full sets. So to keep with the theme of simplicity, I'm leaning toward full sets.

Now how much damage reduction is tricky. Setting it too high and no one (except a creeper of course) can damage someone wearing diamond armor. Too low, and what's the point of diamond armor. Perhaps a reduction set as leather 2, gold 3, chain 3, iron 4, and diamond 5? In this case, a diamond sword will still be able to do 3 damage to diamond armor, a little below half. Up the armor 1? ok, 2 damage to diamond armor, but then only an iron sword can harm someone in diamond armor. Oh, and a bow.

A further alternative could be to have weapons not do flat damage. Like maybe 1d6 + some number. It adds some complexity, but keeps things from being useless later in the game. maybe we'll go with the armor rating. Diamond armor rating is now 6, so a diamond sword will do 1d6+6 damage, there by always at least 1 more than is soakable?

That's where I'm stuck now. Do you like the idea of a Minecraft RPG? Is this rule-set snippet pretty straight forward? Do you have any ideas that could make this better? Or any ideas at all that you'd like to see in the game? Let me know! It feels like a fun idea. I hope I'm not the only one who thinks so!