The two aims of Zilching is to reduce the chance of glitches when the dice pool consists of 1 or 2 dice and to allow for dice pools of less than 1. I have been using this house rule for a bit now so I thought I would share.

Why reduce the chance of a glitch when the dice pool has 2 or less dice? Well with a dice pool of 2 dice, there is a 30% chance of a glitch occuring. For more details checkout glitch probabilities. I found that way too high in my games as I tend to play lower powered ones. Hence the need for being able to roll negative dice pools.

am i the only one to whom this somehow looks slightly stupid/wrong? O.o
basically, the worse you are off to do something, the more dice you get to do that thing?
And isn't this what Edge is there for? at least, supposedly?
Long-Shot Rules or buy one Success of even a Critical Success?
Or use Rule of 6?

So you're telling me that I can get 3 hits on a test when I have an attribute of 1 and a skill of 0?
And this is for the sole purpose of making glitches less likely?

I don't know, somehow it seems wrong for a mean, smelly, uncouth troll with a CHA of 1 to default on a Con test (zero actual dice) and have even a semi-moderate chance of out-rolling the elf with CHA 4 / Con 4 (8 dice, 2.66 successes avg). You SHOULD glitch a lot if you're incompetent and untalented at the thing you're trying to do.

It actually looks like quite a good mechanic in my opinion.

Noone rolls less than 3 dice, but a second, potentially larger dicepool can contribute -ve hits that removes real hits.

An unskilled character could defeat a hyperspecialist, but the odds are incredibly long, and I'm not sure how it works with edge. An uncouth troll could not even test since he's uncouth. Take away that quality, and he has a 1 in 54 chance of beating your skilled but relatively plain elf, assuming my math isn't too rusty. I wouldn't consider that semi moderate.

I think I'm inclined to stick with RAW, since it is an extra mechanic to remember, and I can reasonably reliably critically glitch on 10 or more dice anyway. My players think it's hilarious.

I quite like the high risk of glitching on stuff you're not very good at. It encourages interdependence within the team and makes people stay in their box.

And the box is something that many of us are trying to get out of. I never liked a team of glass-cannon hyperspecialists where without another, you were screwed. Hell, I had been trying to escape ''the box'' since OD&D. If I wanted a box I'd make rigid character classes. I don't mind having to rely on each other(every team has some specialists and the like) but still have a chance if someone is off doing something. I like backup skills that are useful.

That being said, it's a decent system; but I dunno if I like the super-low skilled folks potentially outstripping the others. Right now, regular glitches aren't too terrible; the thing still works, it's just a bit buggy. That kinda makes sense. Of course, it can be fixed later on.

Having backup skills is always sensible (I always encourage PCs in my game to take at least Perception, Dodge, Infiltration, Etiquette, Computer, Data Search and some sort of close combat skill at 2) but with Attributes and gear that should get you to at least 5 or 6 dice in most situations. If you really hate glitching, remember Edge -- either for more dice or to avert the glitch.

Oh, I think I might have simply misread ''the box'' comment. I was thinking of old-school ''no Wizard, no armor or weapons for you!'' kind of box.

As for glitching itself? I don't mind it too much. Regular glitches are not disasterous, just either a pain in the ass or sometimes even humorous, but they aren't deadly. That's what critical glitches are for, and yeah, it's common we pop that Edge point to take care of that and turn it from ''the engine blows up in your face, sending shards of steel into your eyes and throat'' to ''it fizzles, leaks a bunch of oil out and makes a funny sputtering sound. Pay 200 nuyen to that dwarf mechanic standing there laughing at your incompetence and you can get it fixed.''

But these rules could be useful to folks who aren't into that weird ''half-success'' that a success/glitch entails.

I suggest just houseruling critical glitches into nonexistance. If you are GM and don't want them to happen, they don't happen. Period. You don't need to mess with more dice and numbers just to say "nope, you don't die trying to open your soup today."

You could pretty much end the thread with this comment. The house rule is elegant. The nay sayers are bad at math. It's doubt full many people will find it worth the over head to implement it at there table.

Had CGL published it though, it would have been one of the cool features of SR4.

Zilching isn't just there to reduce glitches, it also there for low dice pools. Take a character with an Agility of 3 and a Pistols skill of 2. He starts of with a dice pool of 5.

• He is firing from cover, -1.
• He is shooting at a target at extreme range, -3.
• The target is in good cover, -4.

That comes to a dice pool of -3. So by RAW he would automatically miss or would need to take a Long Shot.

Personally I don't like the idea that you need to spend Edge just to have a go at something. And if the combat involved many combatants and went for many combat rounds Edge would eventually run out and then all you can say is 'you miss'.

In the above example with Zilching, he would roll 3 positive dice, say they come up with [1,5,5] and 6 negative dice, say [1,2,2,3,4,5]. In this case he manages to get 2 positive hits and 1 negative hit, coming out to an end result of 1 hit.

With Zilching there is always a chance, sometimes remote, of succeeding at what you attempt to do. As a gamemaster I like to say 'go for it' instead of saying 'no chance' as I find some of my most memorable times in roleplaying are when the dice roll lucky and the impossible happens.

I really like the probability curve of the house rule, but it's way more complicated than the basic rules. Sure, that isn't too important on a single dice roll every RPG-evening, but more complex rules like this one add up quickly, which is why I'm reluctant to implement them.

From a maths standpoint only though, kudos. Elegant solution.

My group is all about getting out of penalties. All the PCs have access to most of the vision modes, stims on bio monitors, sealed suits, and oneof the main PCs is a shield initiate. Penalties are actually pretty rare for the PCs. Adversaries with DPs and equipment such that they have negative DPs are so much weaker they aren't even really worth statting.

What I am envisioning though is using this rule during the obligatory SERE scene. I really like the idea of the party getting smashed in the barrens and the facing having to try to negotiate for clean(ish) water with -2 dice. Be a great way to keep tension up while exploring how people live day to day and what they care about. Ziltching would give resolution to that small a scale, and help frame the session as a departure from the norm.

all in all i like it. brings back the good old days of having the true to luck rolls saving you ass. in 3rd sure target numbers could reach pretty high but ive had people with low skills 3-5 that would on occaision get 1 succes on a tn of 18-20.