Hooookay I am behind in this. Lesse, where to start...
For starters, when it comes to Tri-stat- I'm afraid I am not familiar with it at all, so I can't give much input. What I can say is that it doesn't necessarily sound that much easier to work with, just different? Though like I said, no familiarity with the system whatsoever. XD
Then, lesse, you had a couple questions I never actually answered.
1) WoD stats. So, you had asked some about those, particularly how they relate to the social attributes. So with the power/finesse/defense we have presence/manipulation/composure. Presence would be the attribute to use if you're just straight up trying to browbeat someone- the whole "do what I say because I said so and I'm higher than you on the food chain" kind of idea. Manipulation is the more diplomatic means- joking around with the security officer to put him off guard and stop questioning why you're lurking about where you shouldn't be. Composure is basically just your ability to stay calm in threatening social situations- so when they pull a gun and tell you that you have ten seconds to give the correct password you don't devolve into a stuttering mess.
That being said, and part of the reason I wasn't in favor of the 9-stat thing is that WoD is intended to have a largely social aspect. At least, the intention is for it to have the social aspect be at least as prominent as the fightey-fight aspect. This is pretty unlike D&D, which is primarily designed as dungeon-crawl murderbot sim with some freedom to interact with NPCs. To that extent, LoZ as a whole seems like it also isn't so much about complex social interactions and is more of a puzzle-solving/hack-and-slash game.
2) Hero points- So, when I say "retool", I don't necessarily have a solid answer for you as to what that means beyond "discuss that shit s'more". Basically, it came up as a train of thought where I noted that the system as designed involves a very low number of hero points (1 to begin with, 1 per level, super subjective means beyond that to gain more). Part of that scarcity is probably tied to the sheer amount of stuff you can do with them, thus making them super versatile and exponentially more valuable as a resource. That being the case, having them as a regular derived stat out of the "Courage" triangle means they might need to be edited to stay in line with other resources.
So, things to pay attention to- how are they regained? Do you get them back at a fixed rate (say, one per day?), or perhaps they completely refresh at certain intervals or after certain milestones or other roleplaying considerations (not a huge fan of those due to the subjectivity involved). Also, how are they regained compared to how other resources are regained? For instance, are they just as scarce of a resource as magic? For that matter, is health a more scarce resource than in D&D where it is often the case that getting stabbed a dozen times with a dagger is no big deal provided you can just go take a nap afterwards. Then, the other thing to consider is what they do exactly? I know I questioned their power level, though if it is a stat that ends up on a level comparable to magic powers, then how does it hold up against whatever magic system you have in place? I mean, are we expecting magic to play a prominent role like it does in D&D or are we looking to scale it back to a more LoZ role where it is definitively present, yet not as much of a mainstay when it comes to violent problem solving.
Ultimately, the thing to take away from this is that I think "hero points" as a whole is a major conversation unto itself, which should probably be had alongside magic.
That being said, and backing waaaaay up to the beginning to your opposition of the: "Psychic has no place" argument. I'm gunna have to go ahead and agree with that argument you don't like. To clarify, I wouldn't argue that psychic powers aren't a thing in Zelda so much as I would argue that they have no mechanical place in a LoZ tabletop system and really belong in the context of flavor text. Basically, stepping away from a more D&D mentality which likes to have psychic magic and arcane magic as distinct systems, psychic powers are really just more magic. I feel like setting the D&D mindset about psychic powers aside, it should make it easier to flesh out a magic system without having to worry about how to fit multiple systems of powers into the framework you already have and trying to bend that framework around them.
Skills is the next thing I'd like to touch on. I think some things had been mentioned briefly though nothing super concrete. I think I had just suggested removing them to do a more LoZ-ish focus on items rather than additional stats. That being said, if you do still want to include some sort of skill-like system I do have some thoughts.
So, for starters, I do think D&D has been moving in the right direction as far as skills go with the simplifications they have done between 3.5->4.0->5e (blah blah blah everyone hates 4.0 wah wah whatever). I mean, let's face it, skills in 3.5 were a mess. The munchkin in me loved them because of it, but every other part of me was glad when they just axed skill synergies, removed a lot of superfluous ones and/or merged them into new ones (climb/jump/swim into athletics, spot/listen into perception). My thoughts on skills, if included, would prefer to see a few key skills that would cover categories more broadly (much more along the 5e line than 3.5). I might even suggest grouping them into triforce categories, in keeping with the theme. So, have skills grouped under Courage, Wisdom and Power and try to keep an even number of skills relating to each attribute as possible for the category.
Alternatively, instead of having a skills section, you could have characters start off with a profession (think like knight or blacksmith). I feel like this might be somewhat similar to what
@Jerkchicken mentioned with backgrounds, each having perhaps a certain value (1-5 or whatever) and adding to appropriate rolls. That being said, I would worry that this might get too close to the subjective realm if you don't structure more specifically which rolls could benefit from each profession. Once in the subjective realm, you likely will have someone trying to argue how they should be able to add a profession bonus to every roll they make ever, which really just derails gameplay.
So, I know I've mentioned professions. Before It potentially turns to this direction, I want to also add that I don't think leveling up in the more traditional DnD way would be appropriate for a LoZ tabletop. Nor do different classes seem to be the way to go. Rather, I might suggest that you gain exp at a slower rate than those seen in D&D. Essentially, I would go with different things costing different amounts of experience to upgrade rather than characters exploding suddenly into a dramatically more powerful version of themselves. So, this is the sort of system you see in games like GURPS, WoD or Shadowrun. Usually, the costs would look something like this: "Attributes: new point x3", in other words to go from STR4 to STR5 it would take 15 exp if using the prior-mentioned rate.
I do believe a system like that would work out much better with the feel of LoZ, where you usually rely on incremental gains after each dungeon to slowly get more powerful rather than other more traditional RPGs where you just grind trash monsters to explode your stats up now and again. With the release of BotW they even give us a super flavorful method to tie this in, where instead of earning exp, you would be earning "spirit orbs", which you spend to incrementally upgrade yourself.
Hokay, as far as rolling goes, I'm not sure I am 100% sold on the 2d10 thing. It feels like you're either trying to pointedly distance yourself from D&D or else trying to cut out some of the randomness inherent to a d20 and average out those rolls. If it is the first one, then that's not really working. It still has the feel of just rolling a d20 and pretending you aren't (even if the munchkin in all of us will always prefer to roll 2d6 instead of 1d12 because of math- really, it's just a d20 with a minor QoL houserule). If it is the second option, where you're trying to make your results more consistent, then I'd definitely suggest going with the dice pool sorta system rather than trying to re-brand a d20 system.
So, dice pool is a pretty basic concept. You normally would take your attribute, potential skill (if you use them), equipment modifiers and whatever other conditional modifiers you feel are appropriate (like a penalty for firing a bow at a distant target in the middle of a thunderstorm). Add 'em all up, then roll that many dice and count up your successes. For some tasks, like picking a lock, you would usually have a set number that you're seeking to hit to succeed (maybe three?). For a lot of tasks, mostly those involving other people, you're usually looking at opposed rolls. So, your dice pool rolled against theirs, whoever gets more successes winning, then the effect of the outcome of the action often depends on how many net successes. In both methods, usually 5+ net hits is considered something along the lines of an "Exceptional success". The two main systems I know of a dice pool system are WoD, which uses d10s and Shadowrun, which uses d6s.
I'm kinda pushing for the idea of dice pool for several reasons-
First off, when it comes to combat, dice pool systems tend to operate on a much lower number of HP/Life/Hearts/etc, which ties into the LoZ feel with the traditional starting three hearts which often cap at about 20. In D&D, especially more recent editions, you tend to start with a pile of HP and rapidly go up from there (in another RP I just kinda threw together a lvl3 character and he started at over 30HP). So, you land a good solid hit on someone, you're maybe doing like five damage (as a point of for reference, OoT Ganon does about five-ish hearts of damage per hit). To me, it just sorta keeps to the LoZ feel more than D&D does.
Secondly, I've played a lot of tabletop and most of my games have been with people completely new to tabletop games. In general, people have seemed to largely prefer playing dice pool games over D&D. That being said, my primary period of reference was before 5e came out, so they were stuck with having to play with the ridiculously bloated system that 3.5 became and not the streamlined system of 5e. Basically, character creation went a lot quicker and characters were better fleshed out. Then, with the incremental gain/exp spending, there was no groaning about having to level up and figure a bunch of stuff out all at once (picking more spells oh noes). There's also something about picking up and rolling an entire fistful of dice that seems to appeal to players (especially new players) a lot more than trying to keep track of seven different dice. I'm pretty sure it also helps smooth over probability when you start to get into larger dice pools.
Finally, from a purely aesthetic standpoint, I absolutely love
these. I can very easily see making a system built around rolling triforces. In most systems I've seen, they set the base probability of success per die rolled is often around 1/3 (5/6 for Shadowrun, 8-10 for WoD with 10-again). While it is slightly less than the typical probability, I would suggest rolling d4s, with 4 being a success.
As for crafting... I'll have to get back to you on that after I've had a chance to mull it over. XD
