In the games I play I prefer a system that allows a chance of doing something no matter how difficult, but in the core rules if your dice pool goes to 0 or less you have no chance unless you spend Edge. Also I believe the probability of glitching is way to high when you roll a dice pool of 1 or 2.

After reading through Serbitar's house rules, specifically rule 3.4 pool reduction, I was inspired and came up with the idea of a minimum dice pool. This allows the improbable to happen and also reduces the chance of glitching with dice pools of 1 or 2.


Minimum Dice Pool

The dice pool has a minimum of 3 dice. If it drops below 3 then roll 3 dice, this is designated the Minimum roll. Count any hits and work out if a glitch may of occurred.

If hits are scored in the Minimum roll, then roll another dice pool. This dice pool will be designated the Negative dice pool. This dice pool is equal to the difference between 3 and the original dice pool (3 – original dice pool). If any hits occur in this Negative roll then subtract these from the hits from the Minimum roll.

Examples:

Original dice pool is 1, so a Minimum pool of 3 is rolled resulting in 2 hits. The Negative pool of 2 is rolled (3-1), resulting in 1 hit. The final result is 1 hit (2-1).

Original dice pool is -4, so a Minimum pool of 3 is rolled resulting in 2 hits. The Negative pool of 7 is rolled (3--4), resulting in 3 hit. The final result is 0 hits (2-3).

It seems like too much work for too little benefit. Most of the time your average result will be the same as having had no dice pool. Putting the minimum dice pool at one could do the same general thing but save a bit of rolling.

It would also encourage munchkin-ism. What is the point in spending skill points over a large range of skills when you can just spend all those points on your "major" skills and ignore all the others.

Sometimes you just can't do something coming at it from a given direction. So either you use Edge, or you find another way around.

I'm actually pretty good with that. That makes it a game about humans, with a touch of Edge, and not fantastical superhumans. YMMV of course.

I've found different ways to compensate. For example if a target has 50% cover I simply divide the number of dice by 2 (round up) rather than subtract a set ammount. I figure 50% cover should never provide 100% protection from getting shot. I also don't allow wound modifiers to lower a character's dice below their willpower. ( Wound modifiers subtracted first though so other modifiers like the 50% cover may still lower it farther ) I've got a few more but it is still quite possible to be reduced to 0 dice. It just happens a lot less.



I've also been testing a system where if the number of dice a player rolls is less than 6 they pick up some dice of a different color to raise the number to six.

These additional dice ( which I call "glitch dice") have no bearing on the success or failure of the roll, but instead are used to determine if a glitch occurred or not because at low die levels glitches are just way to easy to get.