With the edge use active on a roll with an 18 die pool on Average you will get 6 Success and 6 Glitches, the odds of the Glitch option being the higher number is very good, and the higher your die pool the higher the chance that one of those two values will be higher then other only increases. In short when that edge option is used the higher the pool the higher the chance of Glitching.
It's weird for me to say this, but in this case the math doesn't really matter.
The salient point is that this specific mechanic is an infamously, and hilariously terrible "Frag You" kind of mechanic that should have been left back in the '90s.
I beg to differ on that as well. First: The math is wrong, as Marcus seems to be under the impression that a glitch is constituted by rolling more ones than hits. That is not the case, you (still) glitch when more than half of the dice rolled turn up as a one. The bigger the dice pool, the more ones are needed, and the lower the chance to glitch, generally speaking*. Getting hit with that Edge Action doesnīt change that.
Second: I seriously donīt get whatīs so icky about this. Making others more prone to glitch is an interesting option for mischievous players (or GMs), especially from a narrative perspective. As a little quasi-houserule, Iīd probably require the players to give a little description on how they plan to make their opposition slip up: "I try to subversively weave in some keywords about the murder case in my fast talk, and hope that the suspect accidentaly blurbs out something that only the real killer would know." Hell, if I really like the explanation, I might even lower the cost. With that price tag, you wonīt see this Edge use very often anyways. Itīs rather overpriced and risky, considering that it has to be declared before the roll.
Besides being overpriced: Itīs a fun idea, honestly. As a reminder, glitches usually arenīt catastrophic, TPK failures. I can also see some qualities and perks that interact with this specific Egde use alone. F.i. the SR6 version of the trickster Mentor spirit
might offer a discount on this Edge use... (itīs likely just the old bonus to con tests. But hey, maybe my houseruled version will work differently
)
*Side note: Itīs true though that an
even dice pool has a slightly higher chance to produce a glitch than an
uneven one with one die less. Itīs a tiny little flaw in the way Glitches work that mostly affects small dice pools. Fun fact: An observant player once pointed this out at my table, so I offered him the option to voluntarily reduce his
even dice pool by one, if heīs really
so anxious about glitching. He declined. And glitched