[RPG] Why can’t a Cleric use a sling

My first encounter with a D&D sorcerer class was 3E. The 3E PHB says on p51:

Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice. They have no books, no mentors, no theories -- just raw power that they direct at will.

In religious studies, "charisma" sometimes refers to the inner personal power in an individual, divinely conferred. I had to read endless writings about it in college, especially Max Weber, who described it as:

Charisma is a certain quality of a individual by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These ... are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary, and on the basis of them the individual concerned is treated as a leader.

This is the aspect of Charisma often underplayed. (Also, I am not suggesting that anybody involved in writing D&D had to have read Weber, only that he's a good source for reading about this aspect of it.)

Charisma isn't just good looks or even greatness of personality. There is a sense of transcendent greatness about highly charismatic people.

You'll find more references to this sort of meaning of Charisma on the Wikipedia page for Charisma.

According to a regular in Gygax and Arneson's early Blackmoor and Greyhawk games, the cleric was largely draw from the priests in 70s vampire movies, with the prohibition against edged weapons inspired by legends and fantasy fiction:

Ahem. I was there.

In CHAINMAIL there were wizards that functioned as artillery.

Then there was Dave Arneson's first miniatures/roleplaying campaign. Some players were 'good guys' and some players were 'bad guys' and Dave was the referee.

One of the 'bad guys' wanted to play a Vampire. He was extremely smart and capable, and as he got more and more experience he got tougher and tougher.

This was the early 70s, so the model for 'vampire' was Christopher Lee in Hammer films. No deep folklore [stuff].

Well, after a time, nobody could touch Sir Fang. Yes, that was his name.

To fix the threatened end of the game they came up with a character that was, at first, a 'vampire hunter'. Peter Cushing in the same films.

As the rough specs were drawn up, comments about the need for healing and for curing disease came up.

Ta da, the "priest" was born. Changed later to 'cleric'.

The bit about edged weapons was from Gary's reading the old stories about Archbishop Turpin [ed: later clarified to be Bishop Odo], who wielded a mace because he didn't want to shed blood ("who lives by the sword dies by the sword").

In other words, it came about the same way that 90% of the D&D rules came about :

WE MADE UP SOME [STUFF] THAT WE THOUGHT WOULD BE FUN.

As he says, clerics were partly inspired by stories and misconceptions about historical warrior-priests, such as Turpin from the Song of Roland and Odo, a prominent figure in the Bayeux Tapestry. The idea of fighting clerics vowing to avoid spilling blood with their weapons is not at all historically accurate, but it's a popular image in some legends and Victorian pseudo-history, and featured in fantasy fiction of the 60s and 70s as well (e.g., according to Wikipedia, The Once and Future King).

As far as I can tell, there was no original rationale other than flavor. Maces are generally a bit weaker than swords in most editions of D&D, but OD&D used straight d6 for weapon damage rolls; I think at that stage the game had other "balancing" mechanisms so weapon damage wasn't a big one. I can't say whether Gygax actually believed the image of the cleric fighting with only blunt weapons was historical — remember, D&D's chief goal was always to emulate the creators' favorite fantasy fiction, not real history — but he clearly liked it enough to make it a part of the game.