Quote from: Spinachcat;653531For me, the definition of dice pools is "roll a handful, count successes" instead of the WEG / Hero of "roll a handful, count the pips".

But isn't it basically the same, mathematically?

After finding out that many gamers couldn't add, WEG put out a D6 variant (D6 Legends) for their Hercules/Xena game that used picture dice and you just counted successes.

I think the first time i heard of "dice pool" was in a variant of Warhammer Fantasy Battle.
Unless i rewmember incorrect, it was that each time it was your Turn, you got an amount of dice equal to your mage's Mastery.
That was your dice pool.
This held two tactical considerations:
To cast a Spell, you could use any amount of dice you had in your dice pool, the fewer dice you used, the more spells you would be able to cast that Turn, but if you used too few, you'd risk not getting enough on the dice, and thus failing to cast the Spell.
Also, any remaining dice became counterspell dice in the opponents turn, so use all your Magic Dice Pool to cast Spells, and you might have few or no dice to dispel the opponent's Spells.

This is the original use of "pool" in Dice Pool, but it may by today easily be confused by any kind of roll of several dice together.

This confusion may actually have originated with Vampire, which might have been the first time (do correct me if i'm wrong, i know i might be wrong here), the Storytelling system also used the practice of letting successful to-hit dice (minus the ones removed by Fumbles) getting added to the Damage Dice.
This turned the Attack Dice and the Damage Dice into Pools, but it is very possible that it was there that "Dice Pool" started to mean "large amounts of dice rolled together" instead.

Quote from: JeremyR;653718But isn't it basically the same, mathematically?

No.
In "Count the pips" ALL pips are counted, and a 6 or even a 5 may weight up a 2 or a 1, but the 1 & 2 is still added to the total rolled.
But, in "Count successes" the 1 & 2 is usually not counted at all, and the 5 & 6 is just counted as successes.

As I've always seen it used (and used it myself), "dice pool" refers to the mechanics of BOTH games that add dice values (like D6 or Over the Edge) and those that count successes (like Shadowrun or the WoD system).

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