Which game has the most elegant and effective animal riding rules? Which one has the clunkiest and most off-putting?

Hmm, 53 views and no responses...

So I guess the real question is -

Why does no one include animal riding scenes in their games?

It was a big part of pre-modern life and there are many exciting scenes based around it in movies and books, so what gives?

I've ridden quite a bit (off the trail wilderness riding in northern Alberta) and I tend to see things as a combination of horse temperament, training quality and the rider avoiding making mistakes in certain situations (and there are many, many different situations with different mistakes).

I don't actually think I've seen any RPG system that makes me think the writer has ever been on a horse.

Then there's the question of whether or not one wants to represent what its like to be on a horse or what makes for interesting riding based action in the game.

I pretty much hate how horse chases work out when initiative is I go / you go, and all the movement happens on your turn. First noticed it with 3E D&D, but its pretty standard.

James bond Chase rules work fine with horses.

If you wanted to do it really well you would add I think 3 stats for the horse
Temprement, Stamina and Speed

Use the Speed as you do in James Bond standard ie if your Canter (cruising) speed exceeds the Gallop (top speed) then you simply escape/capture.
Stamina means if you gallop for Stamina turns your top speed reduces each round by x.
Otherwise usethe James bond system and just add Temprement as a special effect under some circumstances

Willful - if you fail a DC check the next DC check is at +5 DC
Fearful - If you try to make a stunt +5 DC
Docile - In the first round of a chase automatically reduce "success" by 1 class
Etc
Etc

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;848057Which game has the most elegant and effective animal riding rules? Which one has the clunkiest and most off-putting?

I can't think of any Rpgs that hit either extreme. Most have resided in the middle-ground, using simple Riding checks and range bands.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;848222Why does no one include animal riding scenes in their games?

It was a big part of pre-modern life and there are many exciting scenes based around it in movies and books, so what gives?

Because rules for car/carriage chases are more interesting?  Who knows. Maybe that's a rules vacuum waiting to be filled.

CoC7e and Cthulhu by Gaslight (multiple editions) have included some extensive rules for carriage chases. I don't recall them in detail but they cover a page or two of rules. More than I've typically seen for a Riding/Driving skill in any other game.

Favorite is BX D&D. None. You got on a horse and said either you rode it, or you fell off. IE: Whatever you felt fit the character and RPed it. About as elegant as it gets.

A lot of RPGs suffer from this issue, not horses per se but the idea that teh only excitement you can get is from Combat.

If you watch an action movie a lot more excitement comes from chases and other physical challenges outside of combat but most RPGs fail to have any rules for these or just relegate them to a "Climb Check", "Ride Check"

A you decide if you can ride or fall off approach would be mocked if applied to combat. You decide if you win or not.

I always hark back to JB in these kind of discussions becuase it introduced mechnaisms for getting excitement from this other than combat through the actual rules. So you have rules for covering games of chance or skill to simulate Bond playing Bacarat or Backgammon and they have rules for chases.

A lot more games need to think about this. Can you imagine Raiders without the traps, or running away from a boulder, or fleeing from angry Hovitos, or chasing a Nazi truck etc etc .

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;848057Which game has the most elegant and effective animal riding rules? Which one has the clunkiest and most off-putting?

Traveller, in general, just treats it as a skill will physical attribute modifiers added. No fuss, no muss.

Quote from: Shipyard Locked;848222Hmm, 53 views and no responses...

So I guess the real question is -

Why does no one include animal riding scenes in their games?

It was a big part of pre-modern life and there are many exciting scenes based around it in movies and books, so what gives?

Because most crap players only do what they read in the rules that their class character can do. Replace the "check for traps" rule with an "animal riding" rule. You'll have players up and riding in no time in games.

RuneQuest/BRP/Legend/D100 games have a Ride/Riding skill. RuneQuest also has rules on breaking animals and training them.

Presumably, difficult jumps, forcing them through fire and so on just imposes a penalty to the roll, as would having a nervous or cantankerous beast.

It all works well, but i am not sure it represents the "best" rules.

My Little Pony The Game should have good riding rules ...

I have never considered riding rules as anything particularly noteworthy. They are like walking rules or other forms of movement. Mounted combat, yes, that requires some mechanical soluions that is more complex  than "If you sit on the back of a beast, make a Riding or Dexterity test to not have bad things happen to you or the animal whenyou ride very fast or your beast is startled" (which is all the specific riding rules I ever need).  
Sure, Jibba has a point when he talks about the excitement of chases and other non-combat scenes, but this kind of excitement is hard to translate into game mechanics. Either the specific rules for anything suffers from a significant amount of bloating, or you trust the gamemaster to handle such an occurence with a relatively small set of prefabricated tools and a contextualized application of this rather simple set of rules.
So, if you have building blocks like a Riding skill of the horseman, a handful of traits for the horse and a vague idea how complex or difficult some actions on horseback are, you are pretty much set.

Quote from: soltakss;848274My Little Pony The Game should have good riding rules ...

Are there any non-equine entities of any relevance in the My Little Pony Universe? Do ponies usually ride on others in that setting?

Quote from: Beagle;848280Are there any non-equine entities of any relevance in the My Little Pony Universe? Do ponies usually ride on others in that setting?

There were humans in the first show (80s), but they've been pretty much erased since then. The only consistent 'rider' in the current show is a baby dragon, anything else is rare.

Now let's get back to the main topic and not ask how I know these things.

I'll weigh in on GURPS. It has what I consider fairly good riding rules, but if you use all the rules, they become even more complex than GURPS combat, which I like, but many don't. There is also a good published article with even more detail on creating each horse as a character.

Elements of the main rules include stats for the horse (strength, health, DX, speed...), riding skill, horse equipment, effects of encumbrance on movement, momentum and turning radius, limits on acceleration and deceleration, effects of injuries to different body parts, effects of the height advantage of the rider relative to people on the ground, effects of relative position of figures facing different directions next to the horse, horse attacks, spooking, maintaining control, use of lances and other weapons from horseback, interaction of riding skill with other skills while mounted, veterinary skill, and probably other stuff.

So yeah, like the full GURPS Advanced tactical rules, it's a complete simulationist wargame, and does a pretty good job if that's what you want. Total overkill if you're someone who never really liked detailed combat rules.

As for chases, it has the problems of I-go, you-go movement on maps. A clever GM with some understanding of physics though can figure out that in a chase what matters is the difference in velocity, and have the map move under all the figures by the shared component (though each mover still needs a specific path if there's stationary stuff to hit/avoid).

Am I the only one who has written a game - actually two games - *around* animal riding?

Quote from: Skarg;848350I'll weigh in on GURPS. It has what I consider fairly good riding rules, but if you use all the rules, they become even more complex than GURPS combat, which I like, but many don't. There is also a good published article with even more detail on creating each horse as a character.

Elements of the main rules include stats for the horse (strength, health, DX, speed...), riding skill, horse equipment, effects of encumbrance on movement, momentum and turning radius, limits on acceleration and deceleration, effects of injuries to different body parts, effects of the height advantage of the rider relative to people on the ground, effects of relative position of figures facing different directions next to the horse, horse attacks, spooking, maintaining control, use of lances and other weapons from horseback, interaction of riding skill with other skills while mounted, veterinary skill, and probably other stuff.

So yeah, like the full GURPS Advanced tactical rules, it's a complete simulationist wargame, and does a pretty good job if that's what you want. Total overkill if you're someone who never really liked detailed combat rules.

As for chases, it has the problems of I-go, you-go movement on maps. A clever GM with some understanding of physics though can figure out that in a chase what matters is the difference in velocity, and have the map move under all the figures by the shared component (though each mover still needs a specific path if there's stationary stuff to hit/avoid).

As I noted James Bond Chase system covers this with minimum overhead, no maps and it abstracts it down to a point that remains exciting and engaging.