It was part and parcel of early D&D. In the OD&D and 1E days, the tournaments and tournament modules were all about finding and testing the best players, not th

It was part and parcel of early D&D. In the OD&D and 1E days, the tournaments and tournament modules were all about finding and testing the best players, not the best player characters/builds. The tournament modules purported to do that in a systematic way, usually judging skill by how far you got in the scenario before dying. Gygax would often pontificate about player skill being the key to success in his tougher scenarios.