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Glossary

This page is a quick “secret decoder ring” for terms, acronyms, and shorthand.

Top 10 Terms You Actually Need to Play

  1. Actor — Anything that can take actions (PCs, NPCs, monsters, robots, cities, mountains, environments, etc.).
  2. TA (Trine Aspect) — Mind / Body / Spirit. You play one each Hand.
  3. TD (Trine Dominance) — 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. AV (Attribute Value) — Your current “stat” for an Attribute; it caps what you can bid with that Attribute and gets reduced by damage.
  6. AD (Attribute Dominance) — The Attribute counter system (within and across Aspects) that determines win/tie/loss.
  7. TS (Trine Score) — The “beer-proof average” of the 3 AV slots in a TA (missing “—” counts as 0).
  8. Hand — One full cycle: ante → TD/pot → bidding → AD → outcome/damage.
  9. Conflict — A series of Hands until someone wins, is eliminated, retreats, or the scene resolves.
  10. Wildcards (WR) — A heroic “zip-gun” resource: spend at most 1 per Hand; refresh once per Conflict (PCs by default).

People / Roles

  • 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.).

Trine Aspects (TA)

  • TA : Trine Aspect — one of Mind / Body / Spirit.
  • Trine — The set of all three Aspects.

Attributes (Grouped by Aspect)

Mind

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

Body

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

Spirit

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

Core Concepts

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

Stats

  • AV : Attribute Value — current strength/capacity of an Attribute; also caps how much can be bid with that Attribute.
  • TS : Trine Score — derived rating of a TA, calculated from its three AV slots (missing “—” counts as 0).
  • TTS : Total Trine Score — TS(Mind) + TS(Body) + TS(Spirit). Useful encounter-power shorthand.
  • BB : Build Budget — sum of all 9 AVs + Build Points spent on Abilities/Extensions.
  • BP : Build Points — currency for buying Abilities/Extensions instead of (or in addition to) raising AVs.
  • R : Rank — a derived “power tier” from BB.
  • WR : Wildcard Rank — number of Wildcards (heroic resource) an Actor has (PCs by default; NPCs only if granted by Extension).
  • ES : Edge Step — proposed scaling tier (not fully locked yet).

Resolution / Outcomes

  • DoS : Degree of Success — 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.

Time Units

  • 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.

Table Position

  • 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!”)

Shorthand Conventions

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