Riding Hares

[BrockNicholson]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

You're a metagame entity, so my character cannot hear your descriptions. All my character can notice is that which is observable within the reality of the game world. If my character cannot notice that rabbit mounts perform differently from equine mounts, in any situations at all, then there are no differnces between rabbit mounts and equine mounts.

So if a dude rode up to you on a giant rabbit in real life this would only be interesting to you if the rabbit performed significantly different than a horse? Because your character can see the description. The GM's words are the things your character experiences. Beyond that, if the Player finds giant rabbits interesting, then the game is fulfilling its purpose which is to entertain the Player. After all the character doesn't exist.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

You're a metagame entity, so my character cannot hear your descriptions. All my character can notice is that which is observable within the reality of the game world. If my character cannot notice that rabbit mounts perform differently from equine mounts, in any situations at all, then there are no differnces between rabbit mounts and equine mounts.

But there are. I said start with the Templates for horses and modify them.

[Dunadin777]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

You're a metagame entity, so my character cannot hear your descriptions. All my character can notice is that which is observable within the reality of the game world. If my character cannot notice that rabbit mounts perform differently from equine mounts, in any situations at all, then there are no differnces between rabbit mounts and equine mounts.

So your characters are color blind, then? Or do you give NPCs lots of Feature(blonde hair) stats? Or Feature (is wearing red right now)?

There's reason to make riding hares different than riding horses, but it's certainly not that characters can't react to non-mechanical constructs. Usually, the description of any RPG character, object, or environment is specifically to illustrate what any given character could readily observe or know through common hearsay--it's not necessarily letting players peek at the monster entry. In fact, for good role-playing the players should be more aware of the description than the mechanics because the description is in-character and in-setting knowledge. The mechanics are just there to approximate the RPG's created reality.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

But there are. I said start with the Templates for horses and modify them.

Cool!

Also I've taken one interpretation of the OP, which is that he wants rabbit mounts to be functionally different from normal mounts, i.e. equines. I could be wrong about that. Maybe for him it is just the visuals. The description, as pure flavour.

[Dunadin777]

I'd suggest trying to really differentiate giant hare mounts as being scary, because rabbits are really mean critters for their size. If I was going to introduce them to my campaign, I'd be sure to describe how territorial and rough they were even when "playing" or otherwise "enjoying each other's company". I'd have no experienced riders without huge scars, and maybe even make the hares vastly superior mounts to horses in other ways to compensate for the fact that most would-be hare riders die or get maimed in training.

Plus, it'd just be fun to have the giant-bunnies be the preferred mounts of BA terror troops.

[Danukian]

Originally Posted by Dunadin777

Plus, it'd just be fun to have the giant-bunnies be the preferred mounts of BA terror troops.

Which would lead to anti-cavalry shock troops belting out "Kill da Wabbit" as they marched into battle...

[aesir23]

Since this is obviously a fantasy scenario and not a thought experiment in 600 pound rabbits would actually like*, I'd make them functionally like real rabbits, only larger.

This means they're going to be faster and more agile than horses, vicious and dangerous when cornered but easily spooked, capable of crazy wuxia-worthy jumps, and insanely difficult for all but the most skilled of riders.

Riding (Giant Leporids) should be DX Hard and default to DX-6. If moving at greater than 3/4 move and not using a special saddle that straps you in, you must make a strength based riding skill every turn to stay on.

Furthermore, the dramatic up-down movement makes combat much more difficult. Therefore, Combat Riding defaults to Riding (Giant Lepi) at -1, and Mounted Shooting defaults at -5.

Nevertheless, many brave warriors consider the extra training to be well worth it to ride a mount with much greater maneuverability capable of great leaps of 15 meters or more.


*Hint: probably not very rabbity.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by BrockNicholson

So if a dude rode up to you on a giant rabbit in real life this would only be interesting to you if the rabbit performed significantly different than a horse? Because your character can see the description. The GM's words are the things your character experiences. Beyond that, if the Player finds giant rabbits interesting, then the game is fulfilling its purpose which is to entertain the Player. After all the character doesn't exist.

Well said. Visuals are a large part of what matters to real-world people . . . That's one of the bases of marketing. It's why cars and computers with good industrial design outsell ugly ones. It's also why people who prefer tall redheads flirt with tall redheads, not with medium-height blondes or whatever. And it's why those who breed flowers for sale create fancy hybrids. The relative performance of things in each category – in terms of intelligence, speed, vitality, etc. – is almost irrelevant, and may never matter if the visuals aren't there to hold interest.

All of which ought to apply to believable characters played by good roleplayers. My reaction to a player telling me, "The stats aren't any different, so I don't care," would be to give the PC a twisted, freakish version of the thing in question and then have all the NPCs cock eyes at him and made snide remarks. "It's a giant freakin' bunny. Who cares what its stats are?" is actually the most appropriate reaction; it shows engagement with the story, not obsession with the rules.

[ULFGARD]

Okay, so long ago I had a rather silly character who had a riding rabbit. The thing had blunt claws and good night vision, and required the skill Riding (Riding Rabbit) as well as a special harness. It was a slightly better jumper and not as good for endurance, as I recall. It was 3d edition, though, and I have no stats for it any longer. It did once get in a fight with a warhorse, and having claws, it was rather nasty. However, scaling issues caused us to not including super jump.

The largest effect it had? EVERYONE noticed it. Worse: many wanted to STEAL it. So the fluff parts had some important in-game consequences, just as showing up in a perfectly "legal" speedo to work would cause some interesting "at work" consequences (blindness for coworkers, probably some sort of sexual harassment training for me).

[vierasmarius]

If I was building it I'd probably include Super Jump, like the Kangaroo. However, a lot of people seem adverse to that, wanting their 600-pound bunny mount to be realistic (hehe), so what other options can we use to improve jumping ability? Leg ST or ST (Jumping Only) could work, since you can use the better of Basic Move or ST/4 in the jumping equation. Also, perhaps a half-level of Super Jump could multiply final jumping distance by x1.5, the same way that a half-level of Enhanced Move gives +50% top speed. We could give these rabbits a high inherent Jumping skill, but that feels a bit wrong. Rabbits can jump relatively far, but control should still come with experience - the Jumping skill affects both distance and control. Any other ways to represent a jumping advantage?