Challenge Players & Endanger Their Characters

How (I think) Gary Gygax played the game. 
I have been reading DM David and thinking about how I prefer a style of play summed up as "challenging players and endangering their characters". Perhaps that would have been a good title for the original game designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson as it nicely sums up certain aspects of the early play style. Those of us who have played the game using the LBBs realize that starting characters in that system are in constant danger of being brought to zero hit points and therefore character death. Player skill involves avoiding this state of "death", often by coming up with creative solutions to challenges, avoiding direct conflict with monsters and tricking them out of their treasure. The original game is basically a dialogue between the referee and the players, sometimes with a designated "caller" or spokesperson for the player group who relays directly to the referee what the characters are going to attempt.
Team play is emphasized over individual character heroics in such game play. The Original White Box LBBs produce characters with no "skills", only ability scores, hit points and saving throws. The rest must come from imaginative play. Any adventurer may attempt to climb a wall, sneak up behind a monster and stab it in the back, disarm a trap or locate a hidden object. They are all "adventurers" and assumed to be skilled at their dungeon delving trade.
After the success of the original White Box, Mr. Gygax wrote the rules for an Advanced Game in three volumes. At the time of their publication, he noted that tournament play required standardized rules, hence the new system. The 3 hardcover volumes he authored represent a shift in Mr. Gygax's thinking from a DIY approach to a standardized one regarding rules. Tournaments were popular at the conventions of the day where gamers from many locations would gather to play their favorite game, frequently run by a referee, or "judge" who was often someone new to them. The publishing company, Tactical Studies Rules (TSR), which Gary Gygax had co-founded to publish the original game, ran almost all their convention games as tournaments - competitive play that emphasized player skill and the ability to avoid character death. The modules published by TSR were often adapted tournament adventures and thus the tournament style of play was further encouraged. B2 Keep on the Borderlands and T1 Village of Hommlet, both authored by Mr. Gygax, were notable exceptions and seem to be written more as examples of non-tournament, sand-box campaign style play where player agency is expressed in their choice of what lead to follow and what mischief to make in the setting. 
The tournament modules frequently begin with a short description of how you got to the front door and what your mission is. It is then assumed the players enter and attempt to accomplish the mission. The characters are built as a team, each reliant upon the others for survival and player skill and knowledge is expected to be used. Role-playing is what happens when players talk among themselves "in character", or when they engage an encountered creature in dialogue.
The Keep on the Borderlands and Village of Hommlet both start in a civilized and basically safe area where players may engage in role-play to learn about the surrounding area and about the opportunities there are for adventure. They may take as long as they like getting to know the locals (NPCs) and trading with them. If/when adventure is sought, the party of characters will leave the safe environs and enter the wilderness, either on their way to a known destination where conflict is likely to occur, or perhaps just to explore and see what they can discover on their own. The so-called sand-box can be expanded almost indefinitely as the players travel further and further afield.
The end-game of the early version of play, of which I am so fond, is for the character to acquire many levels of experience finally collecting enough wealth and power to establish a stronghold of one's own, castle, temple or tower, attracting followers and being awarded a territory over which to rule. This is "retirement" of the character and the successful completion of the "rags to riches" journey so much a part of the American tradition.
In this post I attempt to stay as true as I can to what I believe were the ideas of Gary Gygax when he was with TSR designing the World's Most Popular RPG. My thoughts are based on 45 years of playing his games and reading what he wrote and listening to what others who knew him have said about those days. In my folly I may have unconsciously portrayed Mr. Gygax as being more in agreement with my own preferred style of play than is fair, but it is my belief that in truth it is I who prefer his style of play. If in my ignorance, I unfairly misrepresent Mr. Gygax (and I leave that judgement to those who knew him), I sincerely apologize.