Or Horses and Hand Grenades
Too Long, Not Gonna Read Version: So, I just spent the last 20 minutes of my life trying to convince people that you can teach a horse to do things and then make them do those things quickly. They still do not believe me despite having trained horses for several years of my life, and being friends with a professional horse trainer and rider.
The Long, But Still Gonna Read Version
Once upon a time someone submitted a houserule to the internet for a Mounted Combat Module that would allow you to use your Ride skill to help your mount defend itself in combat. I will save the specifics (setting, system, specific conditions, etc.) somewhere else for the moment, because they aren't important. What's important was the following argument.
Them: How could a rider make a horse do something the rider can't do?
Me: How riders make horses do everything...
Before we get into the meat of this, some background.
I grew up on a ranch. Technically, it wasn't even a ranch. It was a large patch of land my family happened to own where we kept our horses, and our cows, and our dogs, and our cats, and my younger brother. We had a corral and saddles and reins and salt licks and not one or two, but four horses of varying ages and breeds we would ride. I lived in an area surrounded by ranchers, farmers, and everything inbetween. Rodeos are a staple passtime of the state I live in, and across the way I befriended a dressage rider/trainer/breeder who lives in another state. One might say that I'm acquainted with equines.
One might say.
As you might imagine, this conversation started off innocently enough. We were arguing about the mechanics of the system and how it wasn't fair that an unchecked skill like Ride could be used instead of the more-limited defenses, but then it got down to the brass tax of things. Someone made the claim that you couldn't possibly direct a horse to defend itself better than you could defend yourself.
Now, I'm not entirely unreasonable person. I like to think that reason and logic will win out if you present the evidence and the other people can understand the language and words you're using. On the internet this is less-than-assured, but I've talked to these folks before and they've always seemed pretty reasonable. So, you know, I figured I'd be safe if I explained to them a few things.
I was wrong.
So I started off with a comparison. A soldier can be directed in how to win a battle that he couldn't have won by himself. Likewise, a strategist can see the larger battlefield and give commands to a soldier that she herself couldn't complete. One can physically do something that only the other can mentally understand even when the other is physically incapable of doing so. Not the greatest analogy in the world, but I figured they would understand.
They did not.
They said that it didn't compare because grand strategies aren't concocted in less than three seconds (the length of a round), and that the soldier's abilities weren't being taken into consideration.
Anyways, as you can imagine this took many, many turns in many many directions, with no less than three different people arguing that riders couldn't possibly have that much influence over a mount, while I alone (the only one with actual horse training and riding experience) argued they could. So I'm not going through every single point, but I'd like to present their side, with brief rebuttals in italics.
-Combat is too hectic.
So is horse racing...
-Races aren't combat scenarios where decisions made in under three seconds might affect the outcome.
Have you ever been in a race? And jockeys have to make those decisions if a horse falls in front of them or they feel the horse sliding.
-Third parties are involved in combat.
Third parties are half of what you have to deal with in horse training. Dogs, cats, snakes, vicious dogs, other people...
-The other racers aren't trying to kill you.
Fair, but Fight or Flight isn't somehow limited to intention to kill.
-You (as in me, the person) haven't ridden a real horse in this system's combat system. Therefore, your experience doesn't count.
I've done everything except for swing the sword at the horse, and somehow that doesn't count?
-If the horses can already dodge, why does the rider's skill matter?
Because horses can't see/think as well as we can? They might miss something in combat? Their natural reaction isn't necessarily what you've trained them to do.
-You can do this with any mount.
That's why there are conditional modifiers. So you can make penalties or bonuses based on things like terrain, and how trained the mount is, and size, and all of that.
-Even an untrained mount.
Was no one listening when I mentioned conditional modifiers?
-In mecha anime (I know) a trained pilot can make a crappy mobile suit dance, but a bad pilot can't make a good suit do the same thing.
Duh? Skill of the rider matters. Of course the guy with 200 Ride does better than the guy with 40 Ride. And, again, the crappy mech would be a CONDITIONAL MODIFIER so you could penalize one/give bonuses to the other if you want.
-But you're still not taking into account the skill of the animal.
Because the animal's skill is a conditional modifier. Seriously. Conditional modifiers exist.
-If you need a bunch of conditional modifiers to make it work, then that's just proof it's dumb and won't work.
No. It's proof that THE SUBJECT IS COMPLICATED. You might as well say that Medicine is dumb and doesn't work because it requires things like bandages and scalpels to work right.
-But Dodging requires you know how to dodge the incoming blow.
Yeah. And you can know that without being physically capable. You can ride a horse while wheelchair bound, but that doesn't mean you can dodge it yourself.
-Combat dodging is more complicated than that. That's a penalty to your skill. It shouldn't affect how well the horse can dodge.
But the horse can physically do something you can't! And you know how to direct it!
-You can't direct a horse that fast.
Yes you can. I've done it.
-No, you can't.
You can do it with a car. Or with video games. Little movements, sounds, something small enough to do in the span of a fraction of a second, you can train a horse to respond to it and do what you;'ve trained it to do.
-The rules don't say you need a trained mount.
THE RULES DON'T GO OVER EVERY LITTLE TINY SCENARIO. THEY NEVER DO. IT'S ALSO A HOMEBREW SO WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU EXPECTING?!
-And horses wouldn't respond like a video game. You can't make them respond to an unknown situation that fast.
You certainly can. It happens all the time.
-And besides, trained soldiers aren't just random dogs.
Of course. But that just means the SOLDIERS can react better. Have better tactics. Have a higher attack score. It doesn't mean a rider can't do it, just that it's harder for them to do so. You might even call it a CONDITIONAL MODIFIER.
-So you're saying I could just command a soldier and they'd use my attack ability?
And... there were a few more points, but I think I've made mine. A few folks who've never ridden horses before, and only one of them whose ever trained an animal before. Admittedly, because I am not faultless, there were moments I could've handled the situation a little better. I did get emotional, and I did insult their intelligence close to the 17 minute mark (because, you know, I'm not perfect). But the fact remains that after 20 minutes of talking about something they only theoretically know about in an abstract way with someone who has actually been there and done that, they still don't believe that a rider can have an effect on a horse's actions enough to make a difference.
And I just wanna bash my skull against a wall until the wall starts bleeding, because now two of them have decided it's better to just ignore me, and the other has dropped it. Supposedly. But none of them seem to understand that you can train something to do something and then signal it to do that thing.
Just... fugging... fruiting... fricking... FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-