In this paper, diversity-multiplexing tradeoff (DMT) of three-user wireless multiple-antenna cooperative systems is investigated in general fading channels when half-duplex and decode-and-forward relay is employed. Three protocols, i.e., adaptive protocol, receive diversity protocol, and dual-hop relaying protocol, are considered. The general fading channels may include transmit and/or receive correlation and nonzero channel means, and are extensions of independent and identically distributed Rayleigh or Rician fading channels. Firstly, simple DMT expressions are derived for general fading channels with zero channel means and no correlation when users employ arbitrary number of antennas. Explicit DMT expressions are also obtained when all users employ the same number of antennas and the channels between any two users are of the same fading statistics. Finally, the impact of nonzero channel means and/or correlation on DMT is evaluated. It is revealed theoretically that the DMTs depend on the number of antennas at each user, channel means (except for Rayleigh and Rician fading statistics), transmit and/or receive correlation, and the polynomial behavior near zero of the channel gain probability density function. Examples are also provided to illustrate the analysis and results.