TSR Why would anyone want to play 1e?

[Emerikol]

I think it's also (and I might have already mentioned this earlier in the thread) that there's a missing context for most of us who learned elsewhere than at Gary's or other original tables, that levels weren't that hard to earn in the first place. If magic items grant XP, and if a Wish-granting fountain or something enabling you to gain a level all at once is a not-uncommon dungeon feature, than the occasional energy drain isn't the heinous kick in the crotch that it is if you expect it to take months of work to recover from.

Easy come, easy go makes the losses easier to roll with.

Perhaps they were common in many games but most of us old school DMs didn't put them in every adventure. In fact I'd venture some campaigns never say them even once. So most of the time it was a long process to earn the levels back prior to being able to get a restoration.

 

[Emerikol]

By the time I started playing AD&D, Gary and TSR had gone their own separate, and amicable I'm sure, ways a few years previous. Other than a name in the credits, he was never an official part of AD&D since I've been playing. I honestly suspect it's more about nostalgia and the good feelings they associate with that edition. I have the warm & fuzzies from 1st edition AD&D, but I'd rather shave with a cheese grater than play it again. The same goes for 2nd edition as well. I appreciate both games for what they were, but I'm not the same fisherman I was in 1988 and the river isn't the same either. Casting my line in the hopes I'll catch that nostalgia fish is sheer folly.

I think it is playstyle more than rules. Gary's game was brutal and required player skill to survive. You actually got "good" at the game. D&D has been moving away from that idea ever since.

This is why I said I like the 3e rules framework but I want the Gary 1e playstyle.