[quote=@tipssyCalibrator] What I really want is something that's a good medium. Something that's mostly fun and bombastic, but not so much that it can get dumb. If I ever implied that I wanted something other than that, then I apologize for misleading you. This is why I'm willing to bend on the item creation somewhat [/quote] If you don't want over the top and want something more mild instead of spice, then you might not wanna mention shonen. Sounds like your wanting something more like Super Sentai, where things aren't as over the top and follow a theme, even if the story itself can be very nonsensical. [quote] I don't really like that idea for the same reason I don't like it in those stories, it makes death meaningless and feel like there's barely any stakes [/quote] To be fair, death means almost nothing in most shonen animes, even the serious ones. Someone is going to be brought back by alchemy, or by dragonballs, or the like. And your probably going to need a system like this in place if you want a large character RP in shonen, as everyone will want to be the 'main character', and in shonen ones where death means something, the main character never dies or dies at the very end. And that sort of storytelling doesn't work when there will be 10+ main characters running around. Or go the One Peace route and people are ultra durable and hardly ever die. No matter how bad the situation is. And only save death for a device where you need to progress the story. Either way, if you want to tone down shonen, I'd recommend picking Super Sentai instead.