It was Never a Kid's Game to Me

An Adult's Perspective
It was as a college freshman just turning 19 that I came to discover White Box D&D. Sometimes I wonder how this makes my perspective on the game different from the numbers of people who have started playing as children. I think in some ways this difference is as important to my understanding and attitudes regarding the game as which edition of system I started with. Starting play as an adult, I have never seen the game through a kid's eyes...it has always been an adult game with all the limitations and advantages that may imply.
Kids accept a lot of things as they come "just because". They are used to going along with things without necessarily understanding them. As a young adult my college friends and I were questioning everything at the time, so almost from the beginning I was discussing what abstract game concepts like "hit points", "levels" "alignment" and "saving throws" are really about. "What was the thinking behind such concepts?", we asked ourselves. We sought to understand the game on a level that went beyond just having fun playing make-believe.
OK, I over analysed the thing. That's probably a good starting point. It is what I did with religion, relationships, politics, everything in those heady days of academia. I recall asking myself why Magic Users are limited to use only daggers as weapons? And yet why do they have as good a chance to hit an opponent as fighting men - at least starting out? Asking myself why all weapons do 1d6 damage? What do hit points represent? What really happens when PCs and monsters take damage? And later, why my favorite version of the game gave all classes d6 hit point dice when other versions, starting with Greyhawk gave some classes a bigger die. I was once full of questions about why the game did certain things the way it did and why some things seem to matter so much and yet other things were left out entirely.
For example: Why the middle ages? Inferring rather quickly that co-author Gary Gygax liked castles and crusaders, was that the whole reason for the medieval in the subtitle? MR. Gygax obviously also relied heavily on mythology with its classical Greco-Roman tropes in designing the game as evidenced by the number of classical creatures included. The sword & sorcery stories from which he admittedly drew inspiration seem more classical in their institutions and religion, although medieval/renaissance trappings in the form of arms and armor are common. I thought about imposing a strict feudal social system, complete with a heavy handed church institution, and it seems at odds both with the spirit of the inspirational material (sword & sorcery stories) and with modern (1970s) sensibilities, which players inevitably bring to the table despite their best efforts to roleplay their character. The medieval world was very different from our own in the way people thought about religion, the environment, their relationship to other human beings.
Inevitably other adults at the time would have some of the same questions I had when they started playing the new game designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Many game designers would attempt to expand the game in areas they thought important to do so. Chivalry & Sorcery (C&S) was one such response to the questions - a game written to set things aright in the minds of its designers Edward Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus.

C&S takes a serious look at the middle ages and the authors try to include additional rules to make the game seem more real in terms of its medieval setting. Rules regarding social standing, for instance. Players begin as the offspring of someone holding a certain position in society. Some are free, some noble, many are beholden to others. The PC shares this social standing with their parent and social mobility is practically non-existent. Your deeds are separate from who you are which is determined by birth. You may make discoveries, have adventures, accumulate wealth, but you are still limited by the conditions of your birth and parentage. Unlike a typical sword & sorcery story, there are no simple barbarians who become king during the middle ages...that fantasy belongs to the classical world in terms of history.
As an adult gamer, this appeal to something more real, gave me answers to a lot of my questions. I instantly fell for the promise of my make-believe all making sense and becoming believable. Just add the right rules to make it all just so...this seemed an easy promise, once upon a time. I have grown up some since then and now understand the wisdom of accepting things as they are "just because".