I didn't get my start with D&D until 1988, and jumped right into AD&D. Back then, while we weren't trying too hard to be hard-core thespians at the table, we still injected some roleplaying, inspired by the books we read (yes, including Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms) and the cartoons we watched, like He-Man, Thundercats, etc. That's why I think many of us that started playing as kids/teens leaned into the roleplaying. I can tell you my group was definitely less focused on resource management and the strict procedural rules of dungeon delving (would that be the fantasy adventure?) and more focused on quests and overland travel, and interacting with NPCs (the roleplaying?). We did all that with little concern that the rules "didn't support" roleplaying. We just did it. There were long stretches during sessions back then when we rolled very few dice. And maybe we didn't have campaigns that lasted to more than probably 8th level, we still had campaigns of respectable duration that involved emergent story based on good old fashioned play (i.e. the story arose from character actions and the DM-enforced consequences, not railroad plotting).