The origin of Rangers with Two-Weapon-Fighting

[Shades of Green]

What was the fantasy inspiration behind the Two-Weapon-Fighting ability of Rangers (which, in previous editions, was the ability to use two weapons without a penalty IIRC)? I don't recall Aragorn - the main inspiration for D&D Rangers - using two weapons, so where did this originate from?

 

[Faraer]

You'll get quite a bit of speculation. If I were you, I'd find David "Zeb" Cook and ask him.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Drizzt -- who by 1E rules used TWF because he was a drow -- was probably the impetus to give Rangers TWF in 2E.

 

[Plane Sailing]

There have been numerous threads on this in the past, but are difficult to search for because 'two' is too short for the search filter!

Essentially, there was a progression that went something like this:


Drow used two weapon fighting

Salvatore created 'drizzt', a drow ranger (who had twf because he was a drow)

2e came out, and twf was conflated with rangerness.

Is there a causal relationship here? I don't really know, but it seems the likeliest option to me. The 1e ranger never had TWF, nor did the 'OD&D' ranger as introduced in Strategic Review (and where the Aragorn inspiration was mostly strongly seen).

Cheers

 

[Hypersmurf]

One common chain of speculation you'll find:
In 1E, rangers had no special ability with two weapons. Drow, on the other hand, introduced in Unearthed Arcana, did.

Then the first novel with Drizzt came out - a ranger who, as a drow, used two weapons.

Then 2E came out, and drow had no special ability with two weapons... so for Drizzt to make sense under 2E rules, rangers were given the ability.

As to the validity of said speculation, I couldn't say.

-Hyp.

 

[Huw]

This guy did it in real life. He was a samurai, but he wandered about a bit.

In D&D, it was probably Drizzt who cemented the relationship between rangers and two weapon fighting. However, there are much earlier representations of two-weapon fighting in fantasy art (and miniature) than Drizzt.

 

[Hussar]

But isn't the relationship between Drizzt and the ranger stretching the time issue a bit. IIRC, there's about 1 year between the release of the first Drizzt novel and 2e. That seems a bit tight to me, and the first Drizzt novel wasn't all that great of a seller anyway. Yes, it sold well, but not fantastically.

DId a bit of wiki. The Crystal Shard was released in 88. 2e in 89. That seems a bit short to be adding into the books that much.

 

[diaglo]

Is there a causal relationship here? I don't really know, but it seems the likeliest option to me. The 1e ranger never had TWF, nor did the 'OD&D' ranger as introduced in Strategic Review (and where the Aragorn inspiration was mostly strongly seen).

the casual relationship even in OD&D wasn't even close. as Dex wasn't a prereq for rangers. unlike all the other stat prereqs.

twf was possible in OD&D and even 1edADnD prior to the UA. it was Dex based. iirc, it was first in the Strategic Review or maybe it was The Dragon by then. a lot of twf was shield and sword/mace. shield bashing was common. but soon many switched to dagger and larger weapon. and finally short sword and long sword became the norm.

 

[JVisgaitis]

People will say it was Drizzt, I doubt that. TSR took a risk on Salvatore and they had no clue Drizzt would be a popular as he was. They only started tweaking the rules to create Drizzt in game when Skills & Powers came out. It has nothing to do with Drizzt, but not sure where it came from.

 

[Cam Banks]

It absolutely had everything to do with Drizzt. There's no other reason for them to have introduced it, as it didn't exist as a ranger feature pre-2e.

Cheers,
Cam