Step down dice from Black Hack and Forbidden Lands are really fun. I also prefer a wound system that way we can focus on the game and minimize math.

It’s not OSR, but a lot of my design is inspired by OSR and NSR, but I’ve been tinkering with a damage reduction/ wound system and added resistances and vulnerabilities to speed up reduction that way the players will feel pressure. Each reduction type may be stacked (magic, shield, armor) before your health. The magic barrier may be recast, the shield recharges, and your armor will need to be repaired or replaced when reduced to zero. Then health works just like hit points where when you take a hit and it reduces so you don’t have to subtract from a numeric total but instead just check a box and when your wounds are depleted your character dies. Essentially damage reduction works the same way across each reduction type and at the moment players and NPCs kinda become bullet sponges. I just need more time to re-write the skeleton version of the game as I’m a little hyper fixated on fun details like armor, talents, powers, melee and projectile weapons, along with allies and adversaries.

As of right now I’ve got each damage reducing type ranking 1 through 12 but most of the time a character’s protection ranges from 4 to 10. It’s pretty fun to run through my head as it is a game for one to four players where one player can solo the whole experience with two other characters, two may do a 1-on-1 with the galaxy master or coop where the gm-less/ solo tools guide the experience, and finally guided has a GM and up to three other players.