Roleplay & Adventure

Game Style
The white box has it's roots in wargaming and says so, Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns... So we can look at white box and the hobby it has inspired as a wargame...Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures and many of us continue to play it exactly that way. Some rule systems are more tied to the use of miniatures than others and some systems encourage "theater of the mind" play where all the action takes place in the imagination of the players. Regardless of whether miniature figures are used or not, players quickly start to identify with their game tokens, called player characters or PCs, and start adding elements of personality, either their own or that of a make-believe character like out of a book or play, etc. We now call this roleplaying.
Some rule systems and some play groups put more emphasis on roleplay than others. For some campaigns the roleplay is central and the PC is assigned, either by choice or random chance, various personality traits and personal history and the player roleplays the created PC as if he/she had an actual life complete with beliefs, values, goals, quirks, relationships...pretty much everything that makes up a person and a life. In such a campaign, what the PC does in between adventures is just as important as anything that happens in a dungeon (or anywhere else). The referee and players in such a game often use distinct voices for the PCs and NPCs and try to think like the character would think. Playing the game "in character" can be a major goal and much of the satisfaction of such games is in following a character's life story as it develops.
One of the appeals of the white box and systems that follow is flexibility. The game can be played in many different ways/styles, with emphasis sometimes placed on one aspect or another. For some campaigns the PC remains a game piece, a token or means for the player to participate in the action. Such games place adventure above roleplay and sometimes refer to the game as adventure gaming rather than roleplaying. The adventure game may be played more as a series of stand-alone game sessions where no one is really concerned with what the imaginary PCs do in between game sessions.  They have no "life" outside the dungeon. The white box emphasis on dungeon and wilderness encounters supports this manner of play and many campaigns have really been little more than a series of self-contained adventures making use of a common cast of PCs who level-up between adventures.
The adventure game style of play emphasizes aspects of the rule system with more focus on exploration of a prepared environment, dungeon, wilderness or urban setting, etc. Rules mastery and the use of tactics are valued player skills and characters are often designed with their tactical role in the party make-up in mind. Overcoming challenges and making discoveries provide the players with satisfaction as well as advancing their PC.
Rules realism is approached differently depending on whether the emphasis is on roleplay or adventure. The desire for verisimilitude seems to frequently lead players into a search for realism in the game. For the roleplayer this often takes the form of more detailed character generation rules and stricter rules on how the character is played and how character advancement is handled. For the adventurer realism is often reflected in detailed combat and magic rules that allow for the use of tactics and teamwork.
My early experience with white box began much like the adventure game extreme with each player controlling a number of PCs, several usually "dying" during the game session. As the years roll by the groups I game with have become more interested in the PCs as "people" and have started to do more and more roleplaying. The adventure part remains very important in that we like challenges and exploration and appreciate good game play. Attendance at conventions has allowed me to play a number of systems with various referees and players and both roleplay and adventure style games seem popular and easily found. Among the groups that I regularly game with our sessions are a mixture of the two, adventure games with roleplaying. Some players emphasize one style over the other, but the referee and game mechanics generally support both.