For those of you unfamiliar with the Tri-Stat system, here is a brief history:

Canadian-based game company, Guardians of Order (GoO) introduced the system in 1997 as part of their universal anime-style RPG, Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM.) The dice-light system was well-recieved for its ability to convey the frenetic action and story-telling style that anime is often associated, without being bogged down in pages of rules and charts.

As the company grew, so did the Tri-Stat system, becoming the standard for the company's various licenced and original products. New products were released and with them came new innovations, each tweaking and changing the Tri-Stat system in various ways.

e.g.:

- Big Robots, Cool Starships, Hot Rods and Gunbunnies, and Dominion: Tank Police RPG and Resource Book redefined the mecha, weapon, and vehichle construction system and also added a separate skills system to produce more rounded and three-dimensional characters.

- Demon City Shinjuku RPG, Tenchi Muyo! RPG, and El-Hazard RPG added new attributes and skills to the mix.

- Ghost Dog RPG and Honk Kong Action Theatre 2nd ed. added new variations to the combat system and dice resolution.

- BESM 2nd Edition (and it's subsequent revisions) took all of these new changes and tweaks and incoporated it into the standard Tri-Stat system of the flagship product.

- Silver Age Sentinals changed the system again by making it scalable, that is, using the same rules but with d10's instead of the traditional d6's that the system always employed, reflecting the increase of power involved in the new genre covered by SAS.

Now, while GoO has put a lot of their focus on their various current projects that use the "D20 System" in recent history, that does not mean that they have abandoned their baby, the Tri-Stat System, on some orphanage doorstep.

Instead GoO has introduced Tri-Stat dX. What is Tri-Stat dX? This 96-page softcover covers all the core rules of the Tri-stat system as it has currently evolved, but presents it without restricting it to a single type of genre or storytelling style (i.e. Superheroes or anime.) Also, the dX refers to a complete scaling of the system by making it playable with any dice, using small numbered for dice for games that involve traditionally weaker characters or where storytelling is the most important part as opposed to combat and rolling against stat numbers, and using higher sided dice for games that involve characters well above the normal humans and that depend on dice a lot more for resolutions.

In essence, GoO is trying to create a universal system that can appease any type of gamer and that can be used for any type of story (e.g. Soap Opera, Slapstick Cartoon, Gen-X superhumans, Vampires and Demons, High-fantasy, Historical warfare, etc.)

Now the big question is just how well does Tri-Stat dX accomplish this? Let's break it down, shall we?

As you may or may not have guessed, the Tri-Stat system revolves around three primary stats to resolve things:

Mind All things mental, e.g. memory, intuition, capacity to learn, etc.

Body All things physical, e.g. strength, speed, agility, endurance, etc.

Soul A grab bag of the intangibles such as willpower, luck, charisma, etc.

Players assign numbers to these three stats ranging between 0 and 2dX (The highest number number a stat can reach is dependant on what type dice you are using, e.g. if a game is using d6, then the highest number a stat can reach is 12.)

From those three stats, all other derived values are calculated (Attack power, Defense, Energy, HP, etc.) Also, almost all dice resolutions are rolled against one or more of these numbers (plus various modifiers, etc.)

Players then begin to round out their characters by using the remaining pool of points (which is depandant on the GM's style and what kind of game he or she wishes to run) to create and tweak various attributes (i.e. powers, abilities, etc.), Skills (learned knowledge), burdens (a.k.a. defects, disabilities, etc.) and whatnot.

The level of depth and detail in this phase is once again dependant on what type of GM is running the game and what kind of game he or she wants to run. The system leans in both directions with very general overviews of the various sub-catagories to very detailed breakdowns of how attributes work including assigning numbers to such things as range, targeting, sphere of influence, etc. (a.k.a Power Modifier Values [PMV])

I, personally, like this type of leeway. I know that, as a GM who likes to experiment with new and different genres, not all of them need the same level of detail and number crunching. A romantic-comedy style RPG doesn't need the same level of detail as a high-fantasy game with a complex and detailed spell casting system (that unless you personally prefer to have both as detailed and as complicated.)

The one thing that stands out about the Tri-Stat system is that it is VERY character centered. Character creation rules take up more than half of the 96-page book, while various resolution rules (i.e. stat checks, skill checks, combat) take up only 15 pages. The remaining bulk of the book covers various equipment building concepts and GM philosophies.

In my own opinion, I like it this way. I have always been one to prefer putting the focus on characters and actual role-playing as opposed to charts and how to resolve every single possible outcome (i.e. combat in a swamp as opposed to a dark alley.) However, this will usually be a big sticking point to power-gamers and rules-lawyers and they will probably be frustrated by not being able to attach a tangiable number to every single possibility whether or not they ever need it or not. Those players will most likely avoid this game.

Now that I've given an overview of the actual system the book covers, how well does the book explain the system itself?

The book is very bare bones with a simple black cover and black and white text. There is no artwork in the book so all 96 pages are dedicated to nothing by information about the Tri-Stat system, though it does seem a bit bland as compared to other GoO products.

In terms of organization, the book is organized well-enough, though sometimes the way the book was organized didn't make sense to me (i.e. equipment rules after resolution rules, Defects after Skills, etc.) but, then again, it may make perfect sense to another gamer.

One thing I would've prefered is a separate appendix of all the various charts and tables as a quick reference for GM's already familiar with the nuts and bolts of various attributes, skills, etc.

Also lacking was the use of examples. Giving actual examples how a character may have constructed particular attributes and how they can change dependant on various PMV would've been nice and very useful to GM's not already familiar with the system.

Finally, to get to the most nit-picky details, a couple of things that may or may not irk gamers.

More attention to the mecha construction system. I'm very on the fence on how the system changed (Taking mecha contruction points from your character pool vs. getting a mecha construction pool of points when you take the attribute as in the BESM use of the system) and I could make arguments for both ways. However, I do feel that the attribute was very OVER-Generalized and only seems to cover giant robots and while there is more vehicle construction toward the back of the book, it doesn't even touch on starship construction or non-traditional mecha (which were all covered by the Own a Mecha attribute in the BESM use of the Tri-Stat system. If GoO is trying to make Tri-Stat truly universal, then I feel that they dropped the ball on this point.

Second, the use of Magic and Psionics. I KNOW that you can create the effects of any possible magic spell or mind effect by contructing, combining, and modifying various atributes and then adding various restrictions to reflect that it is a spell/effect rather than a physical power. I know this because I have over half a dozen GoO books on my shelf.

However, this particular book DOESN'T make that point clear and obvious to people who are unfamliar with the system. The fact thaat the terms "Magic" or "Spells" don't even appear in the index make it even less obvious of what the creators intended you to do to create spells and various mind effects. A few paragraphs with a large header Magic and Psionics explaining how you construct your spells and such would've cleared up the issue.

And this IS an important point because while this is intended to be a "Universal" system, gamers cannot deny that magic and spells have been a very large part of gaming over the last 30 years and to not even make a more concerted effort to put some focus on it in a system meant to work for all genres and such is a major editing error in my opinion.

Overall, I still like the Tri-Stat system. In fact, with all these new ideas and avenues in the system now opened up, I like it even more.

However, as a core product, I feel it suffers from ambiguity. For GM's and gamers who are familiar with the workings of the Tri-Stat system, I highly recommend this book because it will really help you open it up and let you do things you may have not thought possible in a dice-light system.

For gamers who are unfamiliar with the system and are interested in a dice-light system, I actually recommend BESM 2nd edition as an introduction to the Tri-Stat system. That book is full of useful examples and seems a bit better organized. From that point, gamers wishing to do more with the system will have an easier time picking up the nuances of this book after they have been introduced to the system with the more user-friendly BESM books.

Finally, for gamers who already disliked the Tri-Stat system, some may enjoy the scalability on both power and detail that this version has to offer, but for the most part they will probably not find enough here to change their overall opinion of the system as a whole.

It should be noted that GoO is offering this $10 book for free as a PDF download. Those who are truly on the fence about giving this system a chance may choose this outlet to see if Tri-Stat may or may not be for them. Information about that may be found at The Guardions of Order homepage.

If, in a subsequent edition, the editors clean up this book's organization and make some very needed genre specific notes and examples, then this very well may become "the ideal companion if you're going to be stuck on a desert island and can only bring one role-playing game book with you."

In closing, I give this book a hearty thumbs up. It is easy to make running a Tri-Stat game as easy OR as hard as you want. I don't expect this system to become the staple of the gaming convention tournement circuit, but for your casual saturday night pen, paper, pizza, and beer-style gaming sessions, this might just be the thing. It probably won't replace the d20 system as the industry standard, but it certainly is a nice alternative.

- Jason Bertovich

In 4 reviews, average style rating is 2.50 and average substance rating is 4.00.