[Kerebrus]

SR4a, page 61 - Long Shots:
In some circumstances, modifiers may reduce a character's dice pool to 0 or below.  in this case, the character fails automatically unless she spends a point of Edge.

Is this "automatic failure" a Critical Glitch?  Regular Glitch?

Case in point - a heavily cybered character with a 3 Charisma, the Cyberpsychosis negative quality, and no ranks in Negotiation.  barring other modifiers working out in his favor, the character is going to have no dice pool when an NPC tries to negotiate with him.
Cyberpsychosis triggers on a glitch to turn into a violent overreaction.

If it is not a clitch, then a cyberpsychosis character just operates without social skills, much like Uncouth, and safely avoids going on a killing spree.
If it is a glitch, then a cyberpsychosis character needs to put ranks into social skills just to keep from turning every Negotiation, Con, Ettiquette, Intimidation, or Leadership test into a bloodbath.

[FastJack]

Zero DPs are not glitches/critical glitches. It's the same type of failure as if, for example, you rolled 10 dice and got 3 ones, 3 twos, 2 threes and 2 fours. It's a failure since you didn't get any hits, but since the number of ones is less than half the dice, it's not a glitch either. Remember, you can glitch and still succeed on the test. If you have a 6 dice pool and need 2 successes and roll 1,1,1,1,6,6; you succeed, but glitch at the same time.

[Kerebrus]

I understand, so it just seems like going in totally untrained is a sidestepping of the murderous downside of Cyberpsychosis.

Worse, a glitch / critical glitch only becomes possible when enough POSITIVE modifiers are on a situation.  a Cyberpsycho is more likely to go off and destroy his friendly neighborhood street doc than a local ganger trying to shake him down for protection money.

House rules, I think giving the psycho one dice to see what happens would be about right.

[Chaemera]

I understand, so it just seems like going in totally untrained is a sidestepping of the murderous downside of Cyberpsychosis.

Except for all the ways in which failing a social test really, really is a bad thing in Shadowrun. These are the tests you do not want to fail. Also, a devious GM will make sure you've got a positive DP modifier from time to time, since you really don't have a choice in social rolls, you can't not respond to a threat, you can't not try not to detect a lie, you can't not give off body language that can be read by others.

Worse, a glitch / critical glitch only becomes possible when enough POSITIVE modifiers are on a situation.  a Cyberpsycho is more likely to go off and destroy his friendly neighborhood street doc than a local ganger trying to shake him down for protection money.

Why won't you have positive modifiers with a ganger? To whit:
known street rep (+ Street Rep)
your objectives are advantageous to him (you're trying to let him off the hook, maybe?) (+1)
lying and you have plausible evidence (+1 or +2)
You're a street sam with cyberpsychosis, go to the head of the class on intimidation (+3)
You're intimidating him, and maybe broke his arm (+2)
You're being intimidated by a ganger, you don't think he'd be so stupid as to actually attack you (+2)
You've got blackmail material on the piker (+2)

And that's before the GM decides there are other situations not called out in the book...

House rules, I think giving the psycho one dice to see what happens would be about right.

That would just horribly ruin the whole slant of things... Characters have plenty of reasons to not fail social rolls that they can't just "let the face handle it" that a player with this trait will be looking for ways to have a DP without ensuring that he kills everyone he says hello to (Neutral, with no value to the NPC: no positive DP mods). You force him to always throw at least one die and 1 out of 6 Johnsons, Fixers, Stuffer Shack attendants, Street Docs is dead.

[Ryo]

You force him to always throw at least one die and 1 out of 6 Johnsons, Fixers, Stuffer Shack attendants, Street Docs is dead.

Worse, actually. Cyberpsychosis results in a violent overreaction for normal glitches, and on a critical glitch, you go insane and become an NPC. with 1d6, the only glitch you can roll is a critical glitch. With that rule, your neighbor asking to borrow your lawnmower has a one in six chance of you snapping and losing control of your character until you have psychiatric treatment.

[joe15552]

I agree that negative qualities should have negative side-effects. I do not agree that a negative side-effect is an open door for a GM to find a way to screw that character over. I am sure that when a player designs a character, their intent is to play that character, and have fun, even if they take the cranial bomb negative quality. I think the GM needs to figure out how to make a negative quality fun for role-play, or a tribute to the story line, rather than, "Hah hah, bet you won't take that negative quality again! Time to re-roll."

My advice, is for the GM to decide if a critical glitch would be fun for the players to play, try to recover from, or adds to the story. If the GM rules something like, "Your cyberpsychotic teammate screws everything up for everyone, and you all die," then something has gone terribly wrong with that game...

On the other hand, it is also terribly wrong for a cyberpsychotic character not to act cyberpsychotic. If that's happening, the GM and player need to have an out of character discussion about the RP of that character.

[Ultra Violet]

One thing to the zero dice pool:

Long Shots
In some circumstances, modifiers may reduce a character’s dice pool to 0 or below. In this case, the character automatically fails the test unless she spends a point of Edge (see Edge, p. 74). Spending a point of Edge this way is called making a Long Shot Test. The character rolls only her Edge dice to make the test; this represents depending on blind luck rather than any innate ability or skill.

[Chaemera]

I agree that negative qualities should have negative side-effects. I do not agree that a negative side-effect is an open door for a GM to find a way to screw that character over. I am sure that when a player designs a character, their intent is to play that character, and have fun, even if they take the cranial bomb negative quality. I think the GM needs to figure out how to make a negative quality fun for role-play, or a tribute to the story line, rather than, "Hah hah, bet you won't take that negative quality again! Time to re-roll."

Ever hear of the "borrowed time" negative quality? If that isn't GM license to screw a character over, I've never seen one. 

My advice, is for the GM to decide if a critical glitch would be fun for the players to play, try to recover from, or adds to the story. If the GM rules something like, "Your cyberpsychotic teammate screws everything up for everyone, and you all die," then something has gone terribly wrong with that game...

The quality does kind of say "you crit glitch, you're an NPC"... Should be a warning to save some Edge to negate that beast. Also, it doesn't say that the party automatically dies. Goes into combat with the now-NPC cyber sammie? Probably, if they're in the room with him.

On the other hand, it is also terribly wrong for a cyberpsychotic character not to act cyberpsychotic. If that's happening, the GM and player need to have an out of character discussion about the RP of that character.

Yup, that's when it's time to point out that negative qualities can be bought off with Karma if the character is a perfectly balanced saint in RP. Mind you, not necessarily force him to buy it off, but to remind him of the alternative to actually playing the character he built.