Engage the mechanics or engage the fiction? System mastery or player creativity? Mechanical skill, tactics, and verifiable fairness or total immersion?
Original D&D from 1974 was very much a toolkit, rather than a complete set of rules. The AD&D Player's Handbook released in 1978 was by far the slimmest of the 3 core volumes and Gygax explicitly states in the preface to the Dungeon Master's Guide:
"As this book is the exclusive precinct of the DM, you must view any non-DM player possessing it as something less than worthy of honorable death. Peeping players there will undoubtedly be, but they are simply lessening their own enjoyment of the game by taking away some of the sense of wonder that otherwise arises from a game which has rules hidden from participants."
This reveals a concept oft-overlooked to modern players of D&D - that many of the rules of D&D were intentionally obscured from the players to create a sense of wonder and mystery.
We should bring that back. Also, the "hidden" rules could be way simpler because they are obscured and can't be min-maxed.
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