The original official way to do it was that everyone was sitting around playing wargames, something much like Warhammer 40k:
https://www.games-workshop.com/Warhammer-40-000 (if you don't know what a wargame is).
Gygax was running mini wargaming-conventions and had a newsletter of new systems for people to try out, and new homerules options, etc. And then someone had the idea, "Hey, what if you were playing one person instead of a whole army?" And Arneson and Gygax got together and hammered out some rules and Gygax pushed it out with his newsletter and mini conventions and the rest is history.
So, basically, yeah -- the rules were for characters that may have started as footsoldiers but then eventually became the commanders of armies. This is why classes gave keeps (castles) as they leveled, etc.
And a lot of D&D is in-jokes from the original groups that Gygax ran as DM. For instance, the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_Eight Circle of Eight symbol, a black 8 on a white circle on a black background was taken from a pool 8-ball. That one cubical magical plane-travel device which multiple facets on each face that could all be moved, that represented potentially untold numbers of planar systems and which required a high intelligence check to solve, was a Rubik's Cube. The Wikipedia article mentions:
quote:
Rary, a low-level wizard originally created by Brian Blume for Gygax's home campaign. Blume had played Rary only until he reached 3rd-level, at which point Blume retired him, having reached his objective, which was to be able to introduce his character as "Medium Rary"
Gygax's original rules said:
quote:
3D6 are rolled 6 times (one for each of the requisites). The highest of strength, intelligence, or wisdom determines whether the new character will be a fighter, magic-user, or cleric, respectively.
Engine was quoting from the AD&D handbook which you can read at
https://idiscepolidellamantico...players-handbook.pdf
This message was last edited by the user at 21:48, Tue 29 May 2018.