That sounds cool, I might check them out! I think it’s hard to draw a balance between randomization and making games feel like luck isn’t a huge factor. I love betrayal at house on the hill, but it definitely feels like luck is a huge part of the game. I really like King of Tokyo and Wingspan because they have a lot of randomization, but it always feels like you’re given enough choices that the randomness doesn’t matter as much.
That’s true, I really love the rules for a lot of PbtA games! I think my personal GMing style doesn’t mesh well with them though, something about how much rigid narrative control the moves have trips me up. I’ve run Monster of the week, The Sprawl, Dungeon World, and some space PBtA that I forget the name of, and they are pretty good for a few sessions but by session 3 my table usually wants to play something else.
I’d say give One Piece another shot, it’s long but it’s great the whole way through so it never feels like a slog.
Choujin X is a more recent one that’s super good, amazing art and interesting characters in a pretty mysterious world. It has an amazing first chapter and first volume in general, so give it a try!
Finally, I’d give Undead Unluck a shot. It’s gonna be an anime soon, but it keeps getting better and better in my opinion.
Hope that helps!
You make a really good point! My table doesn’t like 5e or pathfinder because, as you said, combat drags on a lot, there’s a lot of ways to just avoid problems via spells, and there isn’t a lot of tension. We went pure OSR systems and it went the other way, players were so focused on problem solving out of combat the planning phases would drag on - instead of having cool tense moments, they were agonizing over making the correct decision so their character wouldn’t die after one or two bad rolls. EZd6 feels like an excellent middle ground - as long as they players have karma, they feel empowered to make mistakes and try things. Once it runs out, death is only one or two bad rolls away and they need to strategize.
Your idea of giving big bads Luck Dice rocks! I might even test having decisions the players make add or subtract from their luck dice pool - the longer they take to kill the big bad, the more luck die they have, for example, or the more magic items they take from the tomb the angrier and more powerful the guardian mummy becomes. Thanks for the idea!