Trip report: Tristat DX.

[Anastasia]

I recently ran a short game with Tristat DX, so I'd like to spend a little bit outlining my impressions from this game. This is from the GM's point of view, and I'll spoil one of my thoughts ahead of time and say that I think this system works differently for the PCs. Take this with a grain of salt as far as that goes.

Anyways, Tristat DX attempts to be a catchall system. It can run with anything from d4s to d20s and everything in between. The claim is that it can aptly run everything from subhuman power levels to borderline gods. I fundamentally agree with this assessement, the system can. Therein lies it's source of strength and also it's crucial design flaws. Tristat DX achieves it's goals, all while making great, yawning cracks within it's own framework.

Tristat DX has variety out the yin-yang. There are traits to do anything, from ESP to giant mechas. If you've seen it in a movie, anime or TV show, odds are that you can do a good mockup with the default traits. There are several dice ranges to choose from* as well, so you can't deny that there's a lot of rope to hang yourself with. This should be a good thing, but it isn't. Why?

First and foremost, simplicity. Tristat and it's forebearers/offspring tend towards being light, swift systems that require only a small backbone to run. With the focus of the system on being able to cater to any power rangeand any genre, this brings a bevy of traits and skills to keep track of. This alone adds another layer of bookkeeping and complication, but it gets worse. Many skills require PMVs(Power Modifier Value), which are used to define other aspects of skills. This includes range, area of effect and other such things. This gives a great deal of flexibility, but sacrifices even more freedom for rigidness. However, this shouldn't be a big deal - if it's designed for this sort of play there should be clear segregation of abilities and suggested power levels, right?

Nope.

In what I feel is a horrible design choice, all the general attributes are bunched together. I believe the philosophy runs that 'Most skills can be fitting into most games; it's merely a range of the level allowed'. The problem is that the GM really doesn't have a direct barometer to gauge what level for each skill is too much or too little. This ties into point distribution, each chosen power range as a suggested point value range. So okay, if the system is decently balanced it should work out that way, right? It's sad to say that this isn't true. Many skills are considerably unbalanced and it's extremely easy for someone familiar with the system to build a very strong character around one or two gimmicks. Even with common sense and rule changes to adapt as need be, a GM learning the system is almost certainly going to get burned. This goes double if he has PCs that cotton to or are already versed in the system. That's problem one.

The second issue is character generation. As I alluded to before, it's complicated as hell. You buy your stats. This part is straightforward and not too difficult. Attributes are harder. Several are complicated, requiring subtraits, PMVs and other such attachments to be functional. After that, you have to tack on skills. These can modify the character build even more, adding yet another considerable step to generation. That's a good heap of work already, but I'm of two minds here. For PCs it's manageable - you only have to do it once and it lets you really nail things down just so. You should come out of chargen with almost exactly what you want barring GM rulings. So what if it takes 2-4 hours? For the GM, who has to do this a lot more than once? The term 'Unholy timesink' is the only phrase that comes even close.

The final main flaw is that the system is so easy to break, it discourages new GMs. As I said above, good sense will help a GM here, and being proactive will help more. But even then, it's hard to appreciate how offensive and controlling you need to be here. One of my PCs had a comment that the GM should probably always give the bare minimum on points for the category, and I agree wholeheartedly. A system so punishing to new GMs...ugh.

To contrast this, I'm going to recap my own experiences running this system.

Chargen was complicated. It took me about an hour to get a decent grasp of what I was doing so I could follow my PCs. From there I watched my PCs work, chip, shift and labor away. They averaged -tons- of time setting up, even the new ones. Hal, who understands the system and likes it, still had a few revisions and a lot of time invested. Ebiris, who has a shine to it, went through more revisions than I could count.

In action, I found the system to be...mmm. Lik eany new system you tend to need to make good GM notes and check the book a lot. That's fine, comes with the territory. I think there was more than usual due to the complications of the system, and I sorely regretted losing that free wheeling aspect of BESM. There were too many long pauses of 'Okay, gotta look in a book/think'. Not a good sign, especially with villians I did prep for. Speaking of!

GM chargen is a horrific joke. No really, this was horrible. To make a single relevant baddie I averaged around 4 hours of solid work. This turned chargen from a creative exercise to breathe into the world into a miserable slog that walled my creativity. Soon I didn't want to add to the world, it was too cumbersome to get to your ideas through the layers of dreck. I began to hate simply designing parts of the world. I don't need to say how terrible a thing this is for a game, do I?

I felt lost, overwhelmed, unhappy and generally out of control of the game. This system is like a giant, overcomplicated ball ofa million doodads, all of which have to be known to tame the beast. I started chargen several times for important things, only to close notepad in disgust soon after. It wasn't a creation of fun, it was chains of fucking hate.

In light of these experiences and thoughts, I have to say that my letdown over DX was bitter. I had hoped for a strong improvement to the Tristat formula, instead I got a rambling opus of a system that failed at it's strong points and felt like nothing more than a bad aping of a more complex system.

As far as I can say, Tristat DX failed entirely. That said, I think I could live with being a PC into it. It's more manageable when you have your own PC and one island, but for GMs it's like a constant kick to the sack.

---

* 2d4, 2d6, 2d8, 2d10 and 2d20. It's basically an isometric expansion of normal Tristat's 2d6 focus.

[Asrana]

Well, as a player in said game, and one being viciously gnawed upon by Dune, I guess I'll add my own (comparatively minimal) thoughts. Made all the more minimal by basically agreeing with Dune's assessment of the system wholeheartedly.

Yes, it's a completely universal system, covering every spectrum of power level and genre, but yes, this is its gaping bleeding wound: so many abilities, so many variations upon thos abilities, so many potential flaws to be placed upon those abilities, so many variables. And a few of these variables can make or break an ability, as demonstrated by the rather interesting drowning death of a man encased in a nigh impenetrable psychic forcefield...that wasn't airtight. (Kudos to Karu-chan for taking that shot, though.)

Once more as well, it seemed a lot like the system had -no clue- what it wanted to be from one moment to the next. It's built on an amazingly simple spine...and bloats out into a massive rule heavy system that lacks even the comparative efforts of d20 to standardize and compartmentalize the system.

It's built on that three dimensional mini-spine: Body, Mind, Soul. Now, the SMers all know how an extremely high Soul can dominate a senshi crew like R. Lee Ermey dominates draftees (with a spiked greatclub, and I used it like that). This is multiplied by two in DX and extended to all three stats by the aforementioned skill and attribute system. Combo all three and you're staring massive target numbers. The cited counter-tactic, that of a GM applying mods to just about any roll of any significance, is frankly a headache for the GM, Silhouette was like this some times, and it's just annoying.

Now, how do these both affect gameplay for the PC? My understanding of basic BESM both from Sailor Moon and from the few face to face games of it I've played, was that it's a style system; by that meaning that it's oriented to having fun not just in the normal sense, but the casual sense - goofing off, imitating your favorite scenes, jokes, etc. It's built to allow a great deal of basic freedom to both the GM and player for a stylistic approach to the game, and in my experience accomplished that. DX seems to sucker you into that feeling with its Tristat title, then sucker punches you with the multi-layered and highly involved give and take of points involved in defining your abilities precisely and down to the finest detail. To me it took away from what I expected of the game, and from the enjoyment of it as a straight forward game. Not to say that I didn't enjoy it, but it fell short, and by no fault of the other PCs or GM in my opinion.

Maybe I went in with expectations, but I really find the clash of the tristat simple foundation with its engorged additions aimed at impersonating an IRS accountant trying to make sure you don't get an extra kelvin out of that pyrokinesis to be a game breaking one, in the sense of enjoyment, and game balance. The bigger the brittler, true of empires, and true here.

That was rambling, and far less minimal than I'd intended, I apologize for probably at least three tangents, but I blame Dune for slobbering on me until I agreed.

[Dracos]

Interesting read, Dune and Hotaru.  Admittingly, listening about it, I'd much sooner grab Hero either way, where they've got their heads on straight.

Dracos

[Anastasia]

Interesting read, Dune and Hotaru.  Admittingly, listening about it, I'd much sooner grab Hero either way, where they've got their heads on straight.

Dracos

I get the vibe that HERO is in the same vein as Tristat DX. At least from what I've gathered from comments, can anyone confirm or deny that?

[Dracos]

From what I get from your reading?  Yup!  It is.  But it's also very good as far as I've seen in making it clear how powerful things are and whatnot and getting everything on a consistent and reliable cost system.  You know you're running a high powered game because it costs 'x' points.  Not because 'we allow skills y and z, but not a'.  It also has a pretty linear time to build, but brian would be best to speak from the GM side.  Or Bjorn.

[Bjorn]

HERO is, as Drac says, a system designed to be able to cover all possible genres and power ranges.  But it's actually a very clear, consistent, and sensible system.  It takes a little bit of thought readjustment -- the Powers aren't actually powers, they're supposed to reflect effects of powers. That level of abstraction clears out a lot of the semi-insane cruft that other mega-systems tend to build up.

But it does suffer from the "hell of making NPCs" aspect.  Though, in my experience, a lot of the time you can just not sweat it; make up the base combat stats and fly from there.  I like to justify that as being story-centric, but yeah -- while I can rattle off a character pretty quickly now, if I had to make up full stats for every NPC in the game, I'd go crazy.

[Brian]

HERO is much more complicated than BESM was, though I'm unsure how it would actually compare to DX.  It sounds like DX is cludgy and poorly balanced, but I expect this is because of how they approached their system.  In DX it seems like they were going for cinematic, 'neat' powers, and tried to make a ruleset that would allow you to emulate any given power from your favorite anime.  HERO may have the advantage only because they've been working at it for a very long time.

OTOH, BESM always played like "HERO Lite (tm)", to me, so ... dunno.  Maybe if I could take a look at a DX book...?

[Anastasia]

HERO is, as Drac says, a system designed to be able to cover all possible genres and power ranges.  But it's actually a very clear, consistent, and sensible system.  It takes a little bit of thought readjustment -- the Powers aren't actually powers, they're supposed to reflect effects of powers. That level of abstraction clears out a lot of the semi-insane cruft that other mega-systems tend to build up.

But it does suffer from the "hell of making NPCs" aspect.  Though, in my experience, a lot of the time you can just not sweat it; make up the base combat stats and fly from there.  I like to justify that as being story-centric, but yeah -- while I can rattle off a character pretty quickly now, if I had to make up full stats for every NPC in the game, I'd go crazy.

On thought, I'm starting to have a lot of reservations about the 'one size fits all' motif for gaming systems. But I admit that system above looks slightly more workable once you grasp it.

As for the second part? Gads, yes. This was also compounded by the fact that making basic combat capacities for most NPCs required a fair bit of work still. The system punishes expansion of characters/NPCs like that, which I feel is a deep flaw on the GMing side of things. Being so complex that it -encourages- GM shortcutting isn't a good thing.

[Anastasia]

HERO is much more complicated than BESM was, though I'm unsure how it would actually compare to DX.  It sounds like DX is cludgy and poorly balanced, but I expect this is because of how they approached their system.  In DX it seems like they were going for cinematic, 'neat' powers, and tried to make a ruleset that would allow you to emulate any given power from your favorite anime.  HERO may have the advantage only because they've been working at it for a very long time.

OTOH, BESM always played like "HERO Lite (tm)", to me, so ... dunno.  Maybe if I could take a look at a DX book...?

http://70.112.24.169/~halbarad/Tristat-DX.pdf

Thanks to Hal for this.

[Dracos]

Not being an experience based system also helps a lot.  Without having to CR everything out, you can just add powers as you think should be there and then just get a quick glance at what point value it estimates for the character to guess at power level.

Dracos