A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook is a role playing game supplement published by Onyx Path Publishing. This is the main rulebook for the different Trinity Continuum settings and is needed to play them, and uses the Storypath system.

The supplement is available as a PDF from DriveThruRPG for $14.99, as a standard colour hardcover for $29.99, as a premium colour hardcover for $52.99, as the standard colour and PDF for $34.99 or as the premium colour and PDF for $57.99. It is also available in printed form from sites such as Amazon. The PDF is the version reviewed, although it was purchased at a reduced price thanks to a special offer. It has 233 pages with two being the front and rear covers, two the front matter, three the Table of Contents and eight the Index. There are three supplemental PDFs, each a two-page character sheet, one colour, one greyscale and one colour and interactive.

The Dutton Prototype is a piece of fiction set in the Trinity Continuum universe.

Introduction explains that the Trinity Continuum contains multiple timelines, time periods and different genres of play. The core book is a modern-day setting, but with something called flux, which is the energy caused when two parallel dimensions come close to each other; it’s possible to cross from one dimension to another. This is followed by the general principles of Trinity Continuum, which is overall a positive setting. Next is an introduction to the Storypath system, giving some basics that will be familiar to exiting players, and explains the skill-based system of the game. Dice are only rolled for high-stakes outcome, and the most appropriate Skill is picked, a number of d10s equal to that skill are chosen, along with more determined by the best Attribute to use. These are rolled to determine successes, then additional successes from equipment or abilities are added. The challenge’s Difficulty number needs bearing and Complications may need resolving; lacking enough successes to overcome Complications means success is achieved, but with a setback.

Next, how to use the book is covered; it can be used on its own but is also necessary for Æon, Aberrant and Adventure!, as well as other settings in the continuum. It gives an overview of the different chapters, followed by movies, television shows, games and books that are inspirational. Finally, the Lexicon explains some of the terms used.

Chapter One: Incidentals is essentially a collection of reports, emails and news articles.

Chapter Two: Character Creation is a six-step process, and examples are given at each step. The first step is the character concept, which is the type of character the player wants to play, along with Aspirations, one short term and one long. Aspirations are the player’s goals for the character, which may not be the character’s own goals. Examples of Aspirations are given. The second step is choosing Paths, which come in three types; Origin, Role and Society. The Origin Path is the character’s background, where they got started. The Role Path is their occupation or area of expertise. The Society Path is their connection to a larger organisation. Each is given examples, and each Path consists of a short description of the path, four associated Skills, community, contact and access connections and Edges associated with the Path. Path creation is gone into more detail later in the chapter.

The third step is Skills, Skill Tricks and Specialities. There are 16 Skills, described later, and each has a rating from 0 to 5. Most Skills come from Paths, but characters gain six additional dots to distribute to any of the Skills. A Skill Trick may be gained if a character has three dots in a Skill, and an additional one for every dot over three. Characters start with one Skill Trick. Skills that are at or above three dots gain a speciality.

Step Four is Attributes. Characters have nine Attributes, three each in Physical, Mental and Social, known as Arenas. Attributed are rated from 1 to 6, though only Talents and special characters can gain the sixth dot, which is done by purchasing an Edge. No Attribute can have more than five dots at character creation. The three Arenas are arranged from top to bottom, with six dots to distribute amongst the Attributes in the top, four in the middle and two in the bottom. There are also three approaches, which are how a character applies the Arena, and a Favoured Approach, with each Attribute in the Favoured Approach gaining another dot.

Step Five is Apply Template. Characters in Trinity Continuum games are rarely ordinary humans. The lowest level of above-average character is the Talent, which is covered later in this supplement. Other game lines have more, and sometimes more powerful, templates to apply. Step Six is the last step and involves distributing additional experience and calculating Health and Defence.

Character Advancement looks at this. Characters advance by gaining Experience, which is common in many systems. Experience isn’t earned in large amounts; 3 is the highest given on an example table. Experience can be earned individually or as a group. Characters may spend this Experience to improve Attributes, Edges, Enhanced Edges, Skills, Paths, add Skill Tricks, add a Skill Speciality or alter a Favoured Approach. Characters can also be tweaked each session; tweaks are small changes that don’t cost anything that customise the character to fit the story.

Path Creation explains that Paths are an essential component of the game, as they help define a character and affect their various abilities and advancement. Paths have a concept, which is what it represents for the character, connections, which are the people and resources that can be accessed through the Path, though overusing connections can result in Path suspension, and related Skills and Edges. Paths can be advanced along and there are various Paths described. These are divided into three categories; Origin Paths are how the character grew up and where they came from, Role Paths are what the character does now and Society Paths are their ties to an organisation.

Skills are, naturally, the skills characters have, and are often a result of a character’s Path. Skills, as well as their broad ability, have Specialities, where a character can gain a focused expertise within that Skill. Once a character reaches level 3 in a Skill, they can also purchase a Skill Trick. Examples are given, but advice is also given on creating new Skill Tricks. Sixteen skills are then described, with examples of use and Skill Tricks.

Attributes are the character’s raw abilities. Characters also have a favoured Approach out of three to how they solve things; Force, Finesse and Resilience. Attributes are divided into three Arenas, Physical, Mental and Social, each of which has three Attributes, and each of these Attributes favours one of the Approaches.

Edges are who a character is and sometimes what unusual training they may have received, often as part of a Path. Edges are divided into different categories, Metal, Physical and Social match the Attributes. Style Edges are special training, Advanced Combat Manoeuvres are Edges that add combat advantages, Powered Edges are those that can only be taken by such as talents, psions, psiads and novas, and Enhanced Edges provide larger than life versions of other Edges.

Chapter Three: The Storypath System looks at the system that runs the game, and others. It starts by explaining that it’s intended to enable adventure-heavy, story-centred games, with action-adventure, procedural and intrigue working together, and that it is based on the Storyteller and Storytelling systems.

The Core Mechanic explains this. Storypath uses a dice pool of d10s based on the Skill and Attribute the player is using to solve the situation. Every dice that hits the target number is a success; with at least one success, bonus successes can be added from relevant Enhancements. Through the successes, the player meets the challenge’s Difficulty and overcomes complications. Failure to generate enough successes to overcome the Difficulty results in failure. Botches, earned by no successes and at least one 1 showing, earn Momentum.

The next section goes into the core mechanic in more detail, starting by explaining that dice should only be rolled when there are real consequences for failure. The player forms a dice pool from the relevant Skills and Attributes. On occasion, the character will need to do two actions at once, called a mixed action. The dice pool for each action is calculated in such a situation, and the smaller of the two is used to overcome the Difficulty and Complications of both actions. Once the dice pool has been calculated, the dice are rolled and the successes are counted. The target number for a success is normally 8, though in some other Trinity Continuum games it may be reduced.

Scale looks at situations where the difference between two entities is so large it shouldn’t be tracked by a dice roll success. Narrative and dramatic scale are two different ways; the first can often be handwaved, whilst the second is more important. There are six levels of dramatic scale. Characters of higher Tiers also have the ability to gain higher Scale.

There are six units of time used in Trinity Continuum. The turn is the amount of time needed to take an action. The round is the amount of time needed for all characters to act on the initiative roster before it rests. Scene is the time taken for a group of related actions. Session is all the scenes players play at a single time; it’s therefore a flexible definition. Chronicle is sessions that make a coherent story. Campaign is a set of chronicles.

The different types of actions are looked at next. Some actions are immediate and happen in quick succession; these are the sort of things that might be used in combat and other fast-moving situations. Complex actions take longer, such as when building or researching something. The different types of actions for each category are then detailed.

Action itself is divided into three broad areas; action-adventure, procedural and intrigue. Each of these areas is given a broad overview, then covered in more detail as to what might be done in them.

The final part of this chapter covers super-science; a sidebar explains that the Trinity Continuum spans multiple centuries and what might be super-science in one setting may be obsolescent in another. Super-science comes in three categories. Advanced Science is mundane technology, but a decade in the future. Inspired Science items can only be built by Inspired minds; the physics of how these items work is often beyond mundane understanding. Powered Science items can only be created by psiads, psions and novas. There are details on how to make super-science items, how to reverse engineer them and how to reforge them, along with super-science special actions, flaws for such items and crafting Stunts.

Chapter Four: Combat and Equipment looks at combat in Storypath. It starts with the action phase, which begins initiative, which determines which character has Focus during a round, and the character with focus can act. Whichever team has the first slot on the initiative roster chooses a member of that character to have Focus; this then goes down the initiative ladder, determining the order of action. A single action roll determines the outcome for all actions, and this applies to the combat roll as well. The dice pool for the combat roll is determined, which may come from multiple abilities. Mixed actions are possible in combat.

Combat itself is then covered, looking at attacking, defending and the different actions for each, as well as how damage is handled. Characters take damage Conditions of increasing severity, which cause Injury Complications. The different levels are looked at, together with examples, and Status Conditions, which are not Injuries but Complications from other sources. First aid is also looked at, followed by other forms of damage caused by things other than violent attacks, such as fire, poison and radiation. There are different types of indirect damage, different environments, such as different gravities, and examples of different kinds of damage. It then briefly looks at combat and scale, which is between combatants who are not equally matched. The next part is scene combat, which is used to narrate lower-scale conflicts that just wouldn’t be interesting to play. Following this is an example of combat.

Vehicle combat is then looked at; this takes a looser, more narrative approach to keep things moving. It considers treating vehicles like characters, as for one thing having a unique customised vehicle makes it easier to have it do unusual moves. It looks at how to keep all the characters engaged in vehicular combat, putting it in exciting environments, larger vehicles and running combats with lots of vehicles in them.

Creating weapons and armour is looked at. Weapons have three types of damage, ballistic, edged and blunt, and there are a variety of tags that confer different abilities, some only suitable for specific types of weapons. A handful of example weapons are given, and ammunition and reloading are covered. Armour is then treated the same way, with weapon tags, example weapons and resistance to the three types of weapons. Finally, vehicles are treated in a similar way, with tags and example vehicles.

Chapter Five: The Storyguide starts by looking at what the Storyguide is, which is basically the GameMaster. It looks at what the Storyguide’s responsibilities are, which is at its core to provide adventures, control pacing and referee the rules, and how these responsibilities can be shared, primarily when it comes to providing space to play and snacks, as the Storyguide really shouldn’t be the host as well.

Creating a Campaign starts with some guidelines to consider before a Storyteller pitches a campaign or players consider options for where they’d like a campaign to head. This can be important, as it also means that people are on the same page when it comes to the campaign. It then considers the different elements that go into making a campaign, including scope, period, power level, length, continuity, genre and danger. It then looks at each of the time periods from Chapter Three, and what is done in each of these.

Preparation and Improvisation looks at how Storyguides might prepare for a campaign; some are better with lots of preparation, others at improvising on the fly and a mixture of both tends to be best. It briefly looks at the differences between the methods and what they entail. It then looks at how to challenge both the players and the characters. Ruling on success and failure, which includes when to roll, such as when failure would slow the game down, and not allowing a few bad rolls to unceremoniously kill characters off, though Dramatic Editing can undo such anyway. The Storyguide controls many other characters, commonly called NPCs. Antagonists are foes to the characters, and can range from major to minor ones dealt with in a scene; several example NPC antagonists are given.

The Storyguide and players work together tom build the setting, and some additional elements of importance are looked at. Also, genre is important. Trinity Continuum embraces a wide range of genres, with the default being high tech, but science fiction, weird science and branching out into other genres is looked at.

Chapter Six: Talents starts by looking at Talents and who they are. They are people who are more attuned to flux, the energy that exists in the space between worlds. There are multiple universes and people who are attuned to flux and Inspiration can use this energy to transform the world around them to suit their needs. Inspiration is a new advantage, and is described; it gives characters an Inspiration pool equal to their rating. Inspiration has three facets; Destructive, Intuitive and Reflective. How Inspiration is spent and regained is covered, along with how it can be used for Dramatic Editing, which allows the player to change things, within reason; there are some things that cannot be done.

Paths grant Skills and Edges, and a Talent also derives their initial Gifts from their Path. A table lists each Path, along with its attribute keyword and skill keyword. Following this are details on how to create a Talent. The first step in doing such is to create a mundane character, as detailed in Chapter Two, up to Step Five. At this point, the Talent template is then applied. Talents should choose their Society Path from the Allegiances listed later in this chapter. The player should determine how the Talent became Inspired, and there are several different options with associated Attributes, or groups of Attributes. Following this, the advantages that Talents have are added. There are four Gifts, as covered in Chapter Seven, three of which come from Paths, and points to distribute amongst the Facets of their Inspiration. Finally, Health, Defence and additional Traits are added. Talents, as well as improving Skills, Attributes, Edges and Paths, may also improve Facets and Gifts. This is followed by an example of character creation.

Allegiances are the organisations that actively investigate the strange and unexplained, though they may have different motives for doing so. Six major Allegiances are covered, giving their history. how they recruit members, organisation and structure, goals and methods, advantages for joining the Allegiance, why a character might wish to do so, and the Path concepts. Seven lesser Allegiances are described the same way, though in less detail; they are just as active as the major ones, but smaller.

Chapter Seven: Gifts starts by looking at what Gifts are. They are abilities that are related to a character’s Skills and Attributes but which are usually not driven by them. There are two rough categories of Gifts; Constant Gifts are always active and Momentary ones only trigger when the situation calls for them to. There are details on narrating gifts, which aren’t superpowers but they are abilities people expect heroes to display. Details are given on how to create new Gifts, which is then followed by a list of Gifts. These are divided into Luck Gifts and 25 categories of Attribute Gifts. Each Gift is named, given keywords and a description and the mechanics for using it. Some Gifts are usable with different Attributes; in these cases, they are only described on the first mention, with later ones just naming and giving the page number of the original description.

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with major and minor sections linked. The Table of Contents is to a similar level of depth and is hyperlinked. The Index is thorough, but lacks hyperlinks. Navigation is decent. The text mostly maintains a two-column format, but on some pages is single column due to illustrations, and appeared to be free of errors. There are a lot of custom colour illustrations, up to full page in size. Presentation is good.

This is the core rulebook for the entire system, though it doesn’t really go into details as to a setting. There are elements of setting in the supplement, such as the Allegiances in Chapter Six, but no real setting as such. This book is more of a toolkit, but if a specific setting is wanted, one of the additional books, which have settings as well as new rules, will be needed. This book can easily be used on its own, of course, as there’s everything needed to run a game; it will just be necessary to create your own setting for use with it. A variant on the real world would be the easiest.

The system itself isn’t too complex to understand, and anyone who has played different Storypath games, or the Storyteller system of Chronicles/World of Darkness, will likely find it easy enough to understand. Many of the fundamentals are similar, especially when other Storypath systems are looked at. Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook is a decent fundamental book for the system and it can be found by clicking here.