D&D ranger = Texas Ranger?

[Quasqueton]

Rather than add another tangent to the clerics in LotR thread, I'll make this a seperate post for discussion.

Related to the LotR - D&D "connection": Some people claim that D&D rangers were/are based on Aragorn of the LotR.

When I first started D&D (circa 1980), I thought rangers were based on the Texas Rangers (of the Old/Wild West). It was said, in the day, that the Rangers "rode like a Mexican, tracked like an Indian, shot like a Tennessean, and fought like the very Devil." They were the "good guys" of the Old West, worked either alone or in small groups (for short periods of time). This fit the pattern of the AD&D1 ranger class.

Even the current stereotype of the dual-wielding ranger has a parallel with the two-pistol or pistol-and-knife image of the Texas Ranger.

Do I have a case? Or is "D&D ranger = LotR Aragorn" a hard-wired belief?

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

Do I have a case?

sure. i would say the ranger as it appeared in The Strategic Review and as then added to the 1edADnD PHB (1978) was a lot more than just the Strider of LotR. but at the same time obviously did contain LotR elements.

no more than .... in a given area.


for the Boot Hill conversion he played out even more suited.

 

[Hand of Evil]

But the D&D Ranger does not have those ninja "marshall" arts.

Yes, to do. See my thread on Wild West or Medieval Europe, http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=129290, I think a lot of gamers model their games to the wild west.

 

[Gentlegamer]

As diaglo posted, the original Ranger as presented in SR and the original Players' Handbook was very much inspired by LOTR (the class was not originally written by Gygax, who dislikes Tolkien, but one of his players, Joe Fischer). The spell-casting and scrying abilities of the original D&D and AD&D rangers show its strong Strider inspiration.

 

[Desdichado]

I think the parallels you draw to the Texas Rangers could also be drawn with Strider. Those aren't unique to Texas Rangers, and I don't think you have much of a case. Sorry!

 

[Klaus]

The original ranger had bonuses to fight "giant-class" creatures, right? Seems like a Jack, The Giant-Slayer inspiration to me. Like many things in D&D, the ranger seems like an amalgam of several sources.

 

[Gentlegamer]

The original ranger had bonuses to fight "giant-class" creatures, right? Seems like a Jack, The Giant-Slayer inspiration to me. Like many things in D&D, the ranger seems like an amalgam of several sources.

Yes, that is quite true!

 

[ephemeron]

It makes sense. I had this sudden revelation while running Keep on the Borderlands as part of a nostalgia campaign last summer (a module that starts with a band of greenhorns arriving at a frontier settlement, looking to make names for themselves...) that Western tropes work really well in D&D. A lot of parties have a lot in common with the Magnificent Seven. The Man With No Name is a ranger, the sheriff in High Noon is a paladin, Indians can be orcs or elves as the situation demands...

 

[punkorange]

So when your in texas look behind you, cause that's where the rangers gonna be.

Sorry I just couldn't resist. Seriously though, I agree that although the texas rangers possibly had influences on the class, they weren't based solely on them.

 

[Quasqueton]

I think the parallels you draw to the Texas Rangers could also be drawn with Strider.

Could Strider have been based on (or the concept influenced by) the Texas Rangers? After all, the Texas Rangers were around and legendary for over a century before Strider hit a page.

Quasqueton