Malbolge (and Dis) are the classic ternary esolangs. I fiddled around with that in a long lost esolang back in the day. Keep in mind that Malbolge is meant to

Malbolge (and Dis) are the classic ternary esolangs. I fiddled around with that in a long lost esolang back in the day. Keep in mind that Malbolge is meant to be awkward, so while (-1, 0, 1) might be more useful, (0, 1, 2) suit Malbolge's perverseness much better, though I doubt that was a conscious decision.