Here's a video of the Red Faction glass system working in slow motion. RF's glass was very, VERY good for the time that it was released, and is still pretty good by today's standards
use a face brush, apply the detail setting in the properties and then set the life value to what ever you like.
If your wondering where to find the Face Brush here it is. You know how you can make a Box, Cylinder, Sphere, etc. The face brush in that little selection box too.
Go to vertex mode, select all the vertices on the face brush, hit ctrl+g to grid align them, then move/stretch the face around. RED makes faces that aren't aligned to grid by default for some dumb reason. And no, you can't make a pyramid of breakable glass - in order for it to break properly they must be faces, and they can't be touching other faces. It's possible to simulate the effect, but its really convoluted and complex.