AD&D1e gives you choices

Musings with my players after the recent play session.

In the previous play session, a thief had died - slain by the poison on the coins he rummaged through. He ignored my description of them as "glistening and wet." But from that dungeon the players had got some gold, a magical sword and armour, and a Robe of Blending (which acts basically like the Predator's cloaking/chameleon ability). The fighter claimed the sword and armour, the Robe of Blending was unassigned. When the player rolled up another thief, they offered it to him.

The Robe of Blending is worth 3,500xp if you take it, or up to 35,000gp if you sell it. Being a 1st level thief with 1 hit point, he decided to take it - but not without some discussion first. This brought him to his xp cap of 1,250xp - but the party lacked the 1,500gp (or 3,000, if training alone) necessary for him to train to level up (likewise for the fighter with the magical sword and armour). So they continued adventurin, hoping to find enough treasure to pay for levelling.

Wandering the wilderness they were caught in a bad thunderstorm, and saw three hill giants fighting a score of bugbears. The hill giants were bloodied and hurt, but they slew several bugbears and chased the rest off. They picked up the slain bugbears and went back to their cave. The party followed unnoticed behind.

The party stayed outside in the rain, waiting for the hill giants to feast and sleep. They put a trip rope across the entrance to the cave, planning to entice them out and ambush them. To check if they were asleep, the thief donned his Robe of Blending and tried moving silently in. He was quiet, or quiet enough not to wake the hill giants who were sleeping off their big dinner around a fire with a thunderstorm raging outside.

Seeing this, the thief decided to empty two flasks of oil next to each hill giant, then go back to the entrance and hurl another oil flask into the middle of the fire. The fire flared up, lighting up the puddled oil next to each hill giant, and turning them into torches. One staggered up, surprised and screaming, but another flask of oil tossed in finished him off.

Since the others were not directly involved, the 5,400xp from slaying three hill giants would accrue to the thief - except that he was already at his cap, so the xp was lost. They did at least have some coin and gem treasure which was shared around the party, though still insufficient for them to level.

The thing is that the 1e playstyle gives you choices. Do I take the Robe of Blending, which will help me be a better thief long-term? Or do I sell it and get 35,000gp, which would be enough for the entire party to level up once they qualify, plus another couple of members levelling from 2 to 3rd later on?

Do I sneak in, and be quite sure of being able to slay the monsters alone, and let the xp be wasted - or take the party with me, so the xp can be spread around, but some of them may die in the combat?

There's no right or wrong answer there. It's a choice - an interesting choice.

By having buckets of loot and a wishlist of items and automatic levelling up, later editions removed that interesting choice. And for your character, there's always an optimal "build", and the DM will assign a Challenge Rating to encounters. So you never get the chance to kill 3 hill giants when you're a 1st level thief with 1 hit point.

AD&D1e has little choice in character generation, but infinite choices in play. Later editions have lots of choice in character generation, but fewer choices in play.