Glossary

This page is a quick “secret decoder ring” for terms, acronyms, and shorthand. Throughout the rules, words that begin with a capital letter signify important terms that are defined here.

1. Actor — Anything that can take actions (PCs, NPCs, monsters, robots, cities, mountains, environments, etc.).
2. Trine Aspect (TA) — Mind / Body / Spirit. You play one each Hand.
3. Trine Dominance (TD) — The TA counter loop (Mind ▶ Body ▶ Spirit ▶ Mind).
4. Action Card — In Core Rules, one of 9 Attribute cards with broad tags; it sets what Attribute you must bid.
5. Attribute (AT) — Refers to one of the 9 Attribute names itself.
6. Attribute Value (AV) — Your current “stat” for an Attribute; it caps what you can bid with that Attribute and gets reduced by damage.
7. Chips — Physical tokens that are used to represent current AVs when playing around the table.
8. Attribute Dominance (AD) — The Attribute counter system (within and across Aspects) that determines win/tie/loss.
9. Trine Score (TS) — The “beer-proof average” of the 3 AV slots in a TA (missing “—” counts as 0).
10. Hand — Playing one round of cards representing the Actions of Actors in Conflict.
11. Conflict — A series of Hands played until someone wins, is eliminated, retreats, or the scene resolves.
12. Wildcards (WR) — A heroic resource token that can become any Attribute token when played.

• GM — Game Master.
• PC / NPC — Player / Non-player Actor.
• Actor — Anything that can take actions in the game (PCs, NPCs, monsters, robots, cities, mountains, environments, etc.).
• Actor Sheet — just like a Character Sheet from other games.
• Concept— a generalized term for what kind of thing is the Actor? It could be a sentient race, like a Dwarf, but could also be something more abstract, like a Spaceship.
• Type— a specialized category of the Actor Concept. For example, if the Actor Concept is Human, their Type may be Male or Female.

All Actors at a most basic level are described by 3 Aspects.

• The Trine — The three Aspects that make up an Actor: Mind / Body / Spirit.
• TA : Trine Aspect — one of Mind / Body / Spirit.

Each Trine Aspect (TA) is further broken down into 3 Attributes that together from the nine core traits that quantify an Actor.

• Reason / REA / R
• Knowledge / KNO / K
• Quickness / QUI / Q

• Strength / STR / S
• Fitness / FIT / F
• Agility / AGI / A

• Willpower / WIL / W
• Presence / PRE / P
• Intuition / INT / I

• TD : Trine Dominance — the Mind/Body/Spirit dominance loop.
• AD : Attribute Dominance — dominance between Attributes (intra-Aspect loops + cross-Aspect matchups).

• Attribute Value (AV) — current strength/capacity of an Attribute; also caps how much can be bid with that Attribute.
• Trine Score (TS) — derived rating of a TA, calculated from its three AV slots (missing “—” counts as 0).
• Total Trine Score (TTS) — TS(Mind) + TS(Body) + TS(Spirit). Useful encounter-power shorthand.
• Build Budget (BB) — sum of all 9 AVs + Build Points spent on Abilities/Extensions.
• Build Points (BP) — currency for buying Abilities/Extensions instead of (or in addition to) raising AVs.
• Rank (R) — a derived “power tier” from BB.
• Wildcard Rank (WR) — number of Wildcards (heroic resource) an Actor has (PCs by default; NPCs only if granted by Extension).
• Stakes — Scale Ante and Bids in Conflicts based on the Build Budgets of involved Actors.
• Stat Block — a condensed way of writing any Actor's Stats.

Because the game design draws heavily from Poker, those terms are often used.

• Bid — the number of Chips (Attribute Tokens) an Actor commits during a Hand.
• Edge — an Actor's advantage over another Actor
• Showdown — when cards and chips are flipped face up during a Hand.
• Stakes — how risky a Conflict is. Sets ante amount, and dominance bonus.
• Sweep— like a Critical in other game systems, when a player wins both TD and AD.
• Degree of Success (DoS) — numeric success quality for non-damage outcomes (model still in progress).
• Pot Bonus — Tokens awarded from the ante pot after TD resolution (may be added to bids and don’t count against AV cap).
• Jackpot — Pot tokens that carry over to the next Hand if not fully paid out.

• Scene — GM-defined narrative time unit (may represent seconds, minutes, days, etc.).
• Conflict — An opposed sequence made of one or more Hands (ends by victory, elimination, retreat, or narrative resolution).
• Hand — One full cycle: ante → TD/pot → bidding → AD → outcome.

• UTG : “Under the Gun” — the Lead/initiator who must commit first in the Hand. This is always the Player or GM who's Actor took the action that led to the Hand (e.g. “I attack!”)

• '@' — AV = 100 in Actor serials (rare, extremely powerful Actors)
• '- ' — Absent Attribute slot in Actor serials (not applicable).