This is a quick review (sort of) of the quickstart for Meilakanjan from Nosfecatu Publishing. It's written by Billy Recio and is probably the first game to try to introduce the Filipino idea of utang na loob into RPGs. For those who don't know, utang na loob is the idea of an individual embedded into a system of debts to society and the universe as a whole. It's a bit like the ideas of dharma in hindu society.
The flavour of the quickstart is generally fabulous but I'm particularly weak for Asian settings. In terms of mechanics, the utang system along with the implementation of blood magic (my words, not his) are the most interesting things here. It seems to be an OSR game with a lot of similarities to The Black Hack. It has three stats, a simple skill system and three classes.
The first two classes are standard fare - Warrior and Specialist. But the third, the Medium is extremely interesting because it doesn't use Vancian magic like D&D. Instead, the Medium gains cantrips and sorceries. Cantrips are standard fare but the sorceries aren't formalized in any sense. The player and the GM decide invent a cool name and then wing it on a case-by-case from there. To cast a sorcery, the player must pay a HP cost which is set by the GM depending on the situation and can range from 1-30 HP. I love that idea. In terms of flavour and gameplay, the idea of sacrificing HP based on the magic and the situation sounds much more fantastical than the formalized D&D systems. They offer a window into the soft magic systems of books like the Malazan or LOTR. Of course, freeform magic is often criticized as slowing the game down but anyone who has played DnD 5e knows that games can be extremely slow even with highly-formalized magic systems.
One thought here: since the first two classes are so standard, why not get ride of them altogether? Why not go classless a la Knave and let characters be defined by whether they choose to use weapons or to learn sorceries or a bit of both?
The utang na loob system is built around using utang dice. These dice work a bit like resource die from the Black Hack. When players want to use wealth or barter, when they're engaged socially with NPCs, or when they're trying to wrangle favours from the diwatas (which are gods or spirits in the game), they'll have to roll a d20 and their utang dice. Whether their utang dice is a d12 or nothing, depends on their character and how they've played the game. Your starting dice is based on character creation for which there's a simple system to decide. You can be upgraded to a higher die or be kicked down to a lower die based on your actions. It's very interesting and you should definitely read the entire text but here are my two gripes:
The first is that since this is a modifier on a d20 roll, it actually doesn't play as large as an effect as it might. If the dice go your way, you could pull of things when you're on 0, that somebody else could not pull off on a d10. If utang na loob is something a bit like reputation (but with the universe), it should ideally not look so much like luck dice. This might be slightly unfair but its still nagging me a bit.
The second thing is that there is actually no framework for deciding if a player goes up on utang dice. It's clear when they go down on the scale but when they go up is mostly left to the GM. This probably means that it's going to be treated like reputation and nothing else. A bit more infrastructure on what kinds of behaviours mean you get a higher die or a lower die would be ideal in helping GMs make this actually feel like something more than a honor system.
Bottomline: Seems like a great game! I'm really excited about the Phillipines-inspired setting and hope some of the mechanics get a bit tighter.