What is TriStat?

The TriStat RPG (role-playing game) system is a product of [Guardians of Order], Incorporated. Its premise is that all characters are based on three primary statistics: Body, Mind, Soul; along with a number of abilities, defects, and skills. This is in keeping with more Eastern traditions, and stands apart from the Western tautology of dividing an object or person into many different primary qualities (strength, quickness of hand, looks, sociability, sagacity, whatever).

There are various TriStat games, differentiated primarily in what size die is used when rolling tests (as in combat). All are point-based systems, meaning one spends points to buy abilities; this is considered by proponents to be a more inherently "fair" system than the level-based designs of D&D or RIFTS (among others), in part because it allows for a relatively clear means of knowing just how powerful a character is.

"As opposed to dividing characters or creatures in to 'levels' or 'hit dice' which are pre-assembled in to professionally balanced combinations of abilities, which is surely a recipe for disaster! Yes I'm being sarcastic." - Frostbyte"

Considering that you can *have* a two or three hit-die creature (an orc chieftan, say) wielding an item which gives it an extra two hit dice worth of attack abilities (an evil-aligned sword with one or two special attacks), I'd say this makes sense. In BESM, I'd make you buy the weapon as an Item of Power if you wanted to introduce it with a given character or use it beyond the play session in which it appears. Not to mention that RIFTS is acknowledged even by its own players as a twinkfest and munchkins' delight for all the abilities that get stuffed into even the weakest of Racial and Occupational OCCs and items/armors/vehicles. Level-based systems get messy, even when well balanced. - Echo

Frostbyte's player appears to favor a d12 or d20 based version of TriStat (twelve or twenty-sided dice). Most likely, this is the d20 version currently sold as an alternative to Hasbro/WotC/TSR's branded D20 system. That person may wish to alter this paragraph.

"In fact, I use the d12 version of TriStat used in The Authority Role Playing Game, based off of the popular Warren Ellis superheroes comic book."

Echo's player favors the d6 version of TriStat known as Big Eyes Small Mouth, or BESM. This version focuses on anime themes, though as Echo has found, any role-playing game may be used to support any theme or genre; the simpler the game, the easier it is to use for a non-obvious theme.

Character sheets

These characters have been "written up" for TriStat rules. The die size and rulebook are noted in parentheses for convenience.

• Ataxia? (d12, The Authority)
• shinsei and ojou
• System (d12, The Authority)
• Frostbyte (d12, The Authority)
• Induction-Coil (d12, The Authority)
• Xa (d6, BESM 2nd Edition)
• Delta (d0, PBX TriStat)

Also note the Puzzlebox skillset, written with BESM in mind.

Addendum: Think of this more as fans statting up characters from something they like than actually something that'll be used. Think doing stats just because it's fun to figure them out. ;) There're plenty of instances of this out on the Web, Techni-Muyo GURPS stats and whatever.