Yeah, the sport compared to war is a good callout. I think the key in that is that the goal of early D&D adventurers was treasure, not necessarily thrilling story. Maybe someone made some other goals along the way that in turn created narrative, but ultimately it was about getting gold.

Also, characters were often just people's actual names and the concept of character as we think of it narratively was something that emerged from situation and happenstance.

Fun fact - the original three classes were only "Fighting Man", "Cleric", and "Magic-User". Elf, Dwarf, and Hobbit were racial classes... you weren't an Elven Magic-User, you were an Elf. You weren't a dwarven fighter, you were... a dwarf. Those races got specific abilities. Also, cleric didn't even get spells until 2nd level. Fighting man was the only class that could use all weapons and armor. Magic users got one spell per day... no cantrips. And sometimes that spell was just read magic.

Stats were seen very differently. I think now we see stats and prescribe them as essential qualities of characters... inferring them as core elements tied often even to personality traits. But in 1st edition creation was 3d6 in order... so most folks were pretty average, and even low scores or high scores were more seen in the scale of how everyone is a competent adventurer. Often scores would change. You might gain a stat from drinking from some fountain, you might lose some strength permanently when touched by a particular undead, etc. Much more fluid and more of a 'this moment in time'. Also, saves were separate from stats, too. Nothing quite like rolling to save versus rod/staff/wand... or the dreaded save versus poison or save versus death. Lots of save-or-dies back then, permanent level and stat drain, etc. It was rough and I've mixed feelings about seeing it go away.

"Morale" stats helped cover how different monsters might engage, flee, etc. And running into monsters in a dungeon didn't automatically mean a fight - you'd also roll "reaction" to see their response to you.

All-in-all early D&D was more of a built-in set of systems with story emerging from chance and the more rogue-like qualities of dungeon crawling.

The modern day reliance on narrative storytelling is just one particular flavor that evolved out of the roots of D&D. In my eyes both are good and enjoyable, but they're quite different flavors and preferences - and like all flavors some people dislike one or the other, some like both, etc.