Riding unfamiliar animals

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From: Andrew Bell (bell@cs.unc.edu)
Date: Mon 14 Jan 1991 - 09:56:33 EET


I began writing this before my workload got heavy, and now I don't have the time to finish it. Thus I'm presenting it here not as a complete product, but as a possible basis for discussion.

In RuneQuest, riding is treated as a separate skill for each type of animal. However, there is certainly similarity between riding a horse and riding a zebra, or sable, or even a rhinoceros, bolo lizard, or griffin. In "Elder Secrets", Chaosium gives their first hint of what this similarity should be when it says that hippogriff riding skill is half of one's ride horse skill. The following uses that as a guideline in establishing similarity factors for various riding skills.

There are five factors that characterize a riding animal for the purposes of the ride skill:

Temperament: A temperamental mount is more likely to throw its rider, although it can be trained to be a better combatant. Note that there really is a continuum between passive and combative, but I break it down like this for simplicity.

  Passive (example, a mare or a gelding)   Aggressive (a stallion horse/bison/sable, perhaps a female rhino)   Combative (a griffin or hippogriff, a bull rhino or elephant)

Riding skill modifier:

   Passive: 0
   Agressive: -10
   Combative: -20

Body Shape: Riding a biped is substantially different from riding a quadruped.

Riding skill modifier:

Skill in biped, riding quadruped: -10 Skill in quadruped, riding biped: -10

Normal vs. Wide: The normal/wide breakdown is whether a normal saddle can be placed on the animal. It's easier to hold on when your legs can clamp around the sides of the creature. Note that giants might find elephants to be "normal", while pixies might find ponies to be "wide."

Difficulty modifier for "wide" creature: -10

Movement Type: The technique by which the creature moves.

  "walking" (horse, elephant, rhino)
  slithering (snake)
  swimming (dolphin)
  flying (griffin)
  special (earth elemental, kangaroo, tree sloth)* 

	Skill inpp
R	 Wa	 Sl	 Sw	 Fl
i  Wa	  0	-10	-20	-30
d  Sl		  0	-20	-30
i  Sw			  0
n  Fl				  0

g

Sapience: An intelligent mount can help keep a rider on if it wants to, or make riding difficult if it does not want to be ridden.   fixed int (horse, griffin, elephant)   sapient (unicorn, crimson bat, centaur)

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