From: alvalent@husc9.harvard.edu (Alvin Valentine)
Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd
Subject: Re: Origin of the 2nd ed. Ranger
Date: 30 Aug 92 13:23:41 GMT
Organization: Harvard University Science Center


Folks.  Read the post.  Read the post.  I never said that Nasir was the only
source of Ranger abilities ever.  On aassassins:  I'm a Hispanic Studies amjor.  If I
invite the mayor of San Juan for dinner and poison  his Welch's grape soda, 
then I'm an assassin.  I agree with the 2nd ed. usage: ANYONE can be an 
assassin, some are just better than others.  Being good at killing people
doesn't preclude one from being good in the outdoors.

If Nasir can:
a) track
b) sneak around well--he's an assassin, right?
c) move around in the  outdoors well--note, not woods, Rangers can be from
	any type of environ.  Regardless of where he's from, he spends all his
	bloody time in the series proving that he's better in the woods than
	most of the Merry Men.  He is a dude
d) wears nice, black, studded leather
e) wears and wields a bow and at times (he kicks butt) and two swords the
	rest of the time, and no, Robin Hood didn't beat him.  In fact, he
	trashed Robin all to heck.
f) Sure, he was a Saracen out to kill Robin at one point:
	1.  The Robin Hood legend includes a Saracen often
	2.  ALL SARACENS were out to kill any Brit they could find during the
		Crusades.  That's who the Crusades were fought against.

Now, this guy may not be packing a grizzly bear over his right shoulder,
and I never said he did.  In fact, I claimed that the Ranger was inspired
from multiple tales, but take a look above, and take a look at your Ranger
class, forget where he's from and think only that he is a Merry (or not so
Merry) Man who wanders around Sherwood Forest with Robin Hood.  I think that
if Nasir wasn't viewed by the writer's of the second ed. in the creation of
the Ranger, then I posit that the legends that inspired Nasir inspired said
class, and that this may well be the origin for the 2 weapons + studded
leather routine.  A lot of AD&D rules are not meant so much to be saying that
X is impossible, but rather, it may be out of character.  Rarely does one
see a mage in full plate in a novel or movie (though there may be some).
I never see the Merry Men, frolicking through Sherwood in full plate
making noise like a herd of elephants.  This is why I brought the subject up,
as possible explanation to the origin of certain class abilities which
seem
mighty controversial right now.  

PS  Although I've not read the GURPS Robin Hood source book as many of you have,
I watched the series for the few years that it showed on
Show Time.  The reason I talk about what the guy wears and what he does is
not because I read a 2 paragraph synopsis of him, but because I watched him
for years on TV.  This does not say that using that book as a source for this
discussion is invalid, but rather if you have a point to make against what
I'm saying, and have NEVER watched the show....  Come on.  That's like a cop
showing up and arguing with the eyewitness to a crime about what really 
happened.  No flame.  I just took a lot of what I saw here with a grain of salt
after I found out one person posted a counter thought, but had never seen
the series.

Take care.  And if you have any other ideas from literature, etc. about the
origins of the Rangers stereotype as it exists in 2nd ed. AD&D (other than
the ones cited in the PHB which don't really seem to apply that well--Will
Scarlett with a pet bear, please), then post 'em.  I'd be interested in seeing
them.

 
Later,
 
Lee Valentine