So dwarves won't ride horses ... all very well from a thematic point of view, but it really puts a spanner in the works of my players getting around! Anyone else dealing with the dwarves and horses dilemma?

Dwarves can ride in carts, so get a draught horse, a horse cart and put the dwarf on the cart. It also gives the players more "encumberance" (or space) for loot and other stuff. Teach the dwarf the Ride skill so he can handle the cart as well so you don't need a coachman.

Dwarves and horses - never thought about it. Wish I'd thought about it, I'd have made my dwarf players ride side saddle. Now that would really have pee'd him off!

UniversalHead said:

I'd just ignore it. It's a poorly thought out idea/explanation, and its exclusion won't affect anything.

Dwarf stubborn-ness and traditionalism isn't ideal certainly. But it doesn't have to be a game breaker. I do concede the inevitable truth that sometimes it is just not going to be in the neighborhood of fun thematic rp-fodder. But to reject it out of hand all the time is a tad limiting too. Imagine the party tension when the cart is destroyed and the players have to vacate the premises on horses and they are forced to tie the kicking and screaming dwarf to the saddle horn like a roped up calf?

Invest in a cart as k7e9 mentioned. Most adventurers don't adequately care for horses well enough to actually keep them alive (upon close GM-arse-hat scrutiny anyway) and it's far too tempting as a GM to murder the heck out of mounts (PETA should boycott me for the amount of imaginary horses that I have brutalized).

The Empire is covered with roads that a cart can use, and carts make some great defensible cover compared to a horse that is going to get shot and fall on you (seriously I may have a slight problem with the senseless slaughter of rp-horsies). Most people can't afford a horse anyway. At least not a decent inter-province trotting peice of horseflesh. And there is no insurance agency to cover snapped forelegs and goblin attacks (though you could rationalise the creation of one for laughs). So a group of nere-do-wells could pitch in to get a decent cart, a couple of horses/donkeys/ponies/oxen and trot off to adventure at about 2.5 miles per hour (still beats walking!).

Imperial armies don't saddle up the thronging masses of conscript soldiers do they? Those poor guys have to hoof it from their homes hundreds of leagues to get eaten by Khorne dogs! Also, hiking can take you through some routes that a horse could never get to so if people are worried about overland travel over large distances....hop a river boat, a stage coach or take the most direct route to the end destination that involves some minor mountain climbing and yodeling (our dwarfs always seem to develop skill in yodeling no matter what game we're playing but...there are some strange dudes at my table).

It's not always about the speed you get to a destination. I think our modern society is a bit spoiled by air-travel (go airplanes!) so we are having a harder and harder time imagining how anyone could stomach moving at less than 15mph (on a horse that I'm going to kill). ALSO...None of this was intended to be soap-box grognardery. But I say keep those dwarfs off horses unless they are at risk of more serious embarassment or their friends are in dire peril.

Great stuff!