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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9014238" data-attributes="member: 6799660">Errr. Okay, 'good things' is sufficiently vague as to be hard to answer. The whole expanse of multiple unformulaic systems was part of the charm of that era, and as such has its' own value. However, on a whole, there was also a lot of unnecessary complexity and doubling-up of costs or benefits, etc.Aging-as-a-cost/attack and level-drain were both these weird things that were one part super-scary (and thus useful) and hectic/low-key annoying*. One downside to aging as a cost was that it mattered if and only if** you cared about your character long-term or wanted to realistically RP someone making tough decisions between immediate success/survival and long term survival/lifespan. If it was a high-level one-shot, your wizard or cleric could haste and wish and resurrect  at will. Adding a 'you might die' component to it might have been a means of addressing that (or just filling in the logical places where a system shock roll might be necessary). Exactly why Haste picked up an aging hit between editions, I do not know.*the later particularly once it could be reversed--sometimes--meaning you had to keep track of multiple XP totals as well as time since the level drain and understanding the rules for what happened with the XP you've gained since the level drain if you managed to get it reversed**baring some crazy long campaign or insane starting and max age rolls or just tons of ghostsIn general, there were quite a few 'oh look, you're dead' or 'oh look, you're perma-dead' moments with only nominal correlation to any kind of incentivization structure. Actual death-traps are part of the primary-game-loop of caution/random-encounter-check tension the game was built upon. Cursed items taught you to definitely look gift horses in the mouth*. Going to all the trouble to retrieve a fallen comrades' body, negotiating with a local cleric to cast a raising spell (taking their own aging hit and system shock), and then at the last minute getting back the result of 'oops, that was all wasted, this character is not revivable' -- no, it is not clear what tension or lesson that provides (other than 'don't get killed,' which, yeah, that's one upon which no one was unclear). *also not to put on necklaces without another character having alter reality/limited wish/wish prepared or attempt to use a bowl of water elemental command without someone else having a growth potion or animal growth/enlarge/wish prepared -- y'know, reasonable precautions.Constitution was already so valuable to most characters (being so armored or quick with rocket-tag-rockets you just never needed to worry about your HP just wasn't a thing), so one more reason you wanted it as high as possible was definitely not necessary for any particular reason. At the same time, rewarding fortune with further fortune is completely on brand for the game (such as good stat rolls getting the basic effects of the stats, but also access to upscaled class options and level limits).In general, I think the game could have used some re-think on scores once 'arrange-to-taste' became an accepted attribute method, although I'm sure the great big optional flags alongside everything other than 3d6 down the line was all the cover anyone thought they needed. For that matter, having a Con stat in the first place after it became 'this is where you place your second-highest roll' is something of a marginal benefit to the game in total.I feel like most people who played in the TSR era had some house rules to keep the game on the rails. I'm sure now that I said this, people will pipe up saying they played A/D&D version ______ completely by-the-book, and more power to you if you did, but man does it seem impenetrable (or at least a massive case of throwing massive amounts of new characters at the RNG until one makes it to a plateau-point alive). At least unless they played using the style EGG and co apparently used (6-12 players, plus lots of retainers/henchmen/hirelings, playing different character from large arsenal of PCs so you could level up one while the other was healing, sticking to 10' wide dungeon corridors until well into your character career, etc.) that didn't quite get communicated in most of the versions of the print game. I say that because a lot of the math and mechanics never got updated from then.</blockquote>

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