[RPG] Does having a bigger die pool mean you botch more often

world-of-darkness

Wherever the odds of rolling a botch in (original) World of Darkness are discussed, there is a widely accepted stereotype that with a bigger dice pool comes a bigger chance to botch a roll. People even call it "a fistful of botches".

e.g. See this Reddit thread for an example of the stereotype.

Does the probability of a botch change with larger dice pools?

Best Answer

That's a quirk of 1E mechanics regarding botches. In earlier versions, a botch was defined as "more 1s rolled than successes." The current rule, "no successes and at least one 1," makes the problem go away. (Also, don't use difficulty 10; it puts the problem back into play. Modern WoD games use "diff 9 and an additional required success" instead.) The misperception of "botching more" comes from seeing that a larger die pool offers the possibility of rolling more 1s, and therefore seeing that as an increased chance of failure.