D&D General Ranger, Why Do You Guard the Frontier?

Rangers are warriors who roam the wilds defending civilization against monsters. Determining why your ranger lives such a rough life may open up new roleplaying opportunities for you to explore and offer new ideas for your GM to incorporate into her world.

Image courtesy of Deviant Art Creative Commons​

Rangers hail from a variety of backgrounds. They share in a common a willingness to both survive in the wilds away from civilization and to fight the enemies that prowl the frontier. Here are d12 reasons your ranger might prowl the wilderness.

1. Angry all the time. You have a temper. And you are skilled in killing people. It hasn’t been a safe combination in crowded settlements. So you roam the wilds and kill the enemies who threaten the settlements and the people you’ve chosen to avoid.
2. Falsely accused. They say you killed a man in cold blood. You were going to hang, no question. So you fled into the wilds. Whether you dream of trying to clear your name or not, you help greenhorns who stumble into your home and need help while you avoid the noose.
3. Forgotten nobility. You believe you are descended from an ancient line of nobility whose realm has fallen and whose people have been scattered. You guard the kingdoms of other people since yours has fallen.
4. Good at killing. You have a knack for killing people. You may not like it or you might actually enjoy it. Either way, you’ve decided working in the wilds makes it easier to find enemies that need to be killed and in larger numbers. You’ve never been happier.
5. Just a job. Guarding the frontier means you are in charge most of the time. Your success and survival are tied to just you and your decisions and that suits you just fine. Anything to avoid haughty nobles, corrupt watch, and drunken louts.
6. Loner. You don’t like many people or you don’t like crowds of people. There are less people in the wilds and your enemies are usually easier to spot and kill. You avoid going into settlements whenever possible.
7. Lost it all. Whatever you once had is now gone. Plague may have taken your family, a fire your home, or war your homeland. When in settlements you tend to get angry while off in the wilds you are simply quiet and melancholy so you try to avoid civilization.
8. Loves the wilds. You love the sound of the wind through trees, the crashing noise of waterfalls, the moon and stars on a dark night, and fresh air to breathe. You’re willing to fight for your small piece of the wilderness.
9. Running from the past. Something haunts you. Maybe you left behind your family, deserted from an army, refused a noble’s order, or risked a forbidden romance. Now you run and you cannot go back. If the bounty hunters close in it is time to move on.
10. Thrill of adventure. You love canoeing through rapids, scaling cliffs, traversing overgrown forests, swimming in oceans, exploring underground caves, and treading where no civilized person has walked before. You likely enjoy a good scrap too.
11. Trying to forget. Maybe you fought in wars and have memories you want to forget. You might have been an assassin for the realm and you tired of killing. You might have served on the watch and burned out while carting off knifed drunks from taverns and slain prostitutes killed by violent men. The wilderness is much quieter and the monsters here make more sense to you and are easier to deal with.
12. Wanderlust. You must see what is over the next hill, around the next river bend, and over the next mountain. If you stay in one place too long you become agitated and unsettled until you set out for somewhere new.

Some of these ideas will work better if you work with your GM to incorporate them into adventures. Your ranger will need at times to accompany his adventuring companions into settlements, but he will always be eager to leave civilization behind and return to the wilderness he calls home.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

53. You are a survivalist with a knack for natural philosophy.
54. You are a natural philosopher with a knack for survivalism.

 

[bedir than]

55. You wanted to see what was over the fence, and there was a hedge. You wanted to see what was beyond the hedge, and there was a copse. You wanted to see beyond the copse and there was a river. Across the river was a forest. Beyond that forest were hills. In those hills was a cave. Through the caves you entered a desert. Through the desert you found mountains. From those mountains you saw an ocean. Sailing the ocean you found an island. And still after you had seen so many things, you have yet to see the world.

 

[Derren]

Most of the backstories from the OP are the ones which make me roll my eyes when they come up at the table.
Whats the problem with having a normal backstory like you being paid to guard the wild, taking over your fathers post or simply being better at it than farming, maybe having upgraded from being a normal hunter?

 

[Marandahir]

Most of the backstories from the OP are the ones which make me roll my eyes when they come up at the table.
Whats the problem with having a normal backstory like you being paid to guard the wild, taking over your fathers post or simply being better at it than farming, maybe having upgraded from being a normal hunter?

Those are good options too! But there's nothing wrong with a good cliche or something snagged from popular fiction as long as you don't plan to publish the adventure some day as your own writing.

55. You wanted to see what was over the fence, and there was a hedge. You wanted to see what was beyond the hedge, and there was a copse. You wanted to see beyond the copse and there was a river. Across the river was a forest. Beyond that forest were hills. In those hills was a cave. Through the caves you entered a desert. Through the desert you found mountains. From those mountains you saw an ocean. Sailing the ocean you found an island. And still after you had seen so many things, you have yet to see the world.

I love this.

 

[Tonguez]

Why would someone who is really social become a ranger? you have to be anti-social a little bit to become one. And if you are looking for reasons why someone became anti-social, those reasons tend to be negative.

I think that (and the original list) is a very Urban view of the Ranger. There are communities who live in rural areas for whom the guy going bush for a week or two, living off the land, exploring their relationship with nature and enjoying survival is very much a ‘norm’.

 

[Tonguez]

55. You wanted to see what was over the fence, and there was a hedge. You wanted to see what was beyond the hedge, and there was a copse. You wanted to see beyond the copse and there was a river. Across the river was a forest. Beyond that forest were hills. In those hills was a cave. Through the caves you entered a desert. Through the desert you found mountains. From those mountains you saw an ocean. Sailing the ocean you found an island. And still after you had seen so many things, you have yet to see the world.

The legend of the man who travelled so far away that he came back home again

 

[WayOfTheFourElements]

56. You're a big game hunter. Now that you've mastered shooting deer, it's time to look for something more impressive. A pair of minotaur horns or set of dragon's teeth will look great mounted above the fireplace. Next time Isabella Montgomery comes over, you'll have something brag about. She might even agree of marry you this time. Who doesn't love a man with a taxidermy displacer beast on display?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you could have 2 lists, one of things you ARE, and another of stories about how you got that way.

 

[Horwath]

Or not just for being anti-social, ranger might just want to have a nice and clean place to live/work.

In medieval times(and unfortunately some places in modern time) cities were quite dirty, septic places.

Population was too dense for for utilities to wash away your "personal waste", and if you were poor in middle ages, you would probably have a cleaner place to live in a middle of a swamp.

And as we now have this COVID19 calamity, imagine how fast would that spread in overpopulated, poor medieval City with next to nothing in utilities.

Rangers, druids and even barbarians are the smart ones here.

Just go into a City to get a bounty and enjoy your clean air while you are on a job in wilderness.

 

[Tonguez]

And as we now have this COVID19 calamity, imagine how fast would that spread in overpopulated, poor medieval City with next to nothing in utilities.

don't need to imagine, there were something like 40 Plagues in London before the Great Plague of 1665.
The last major Plague hit San Francisco in 1900

My grandfather was born in Preston, UK in 1926, they still had an open trench sewer running along the back of the houses where they dropped their business.