Sorry if I insulted you. It was certainly a provocative comment, but the point was to provoke consideration. Like, what is it about 5e, specifically, that you like? Because flighty fighters, wizards with limited spells, d20s, saving throws, armour class, etc. are just tropes. These elements signify the brand of D&D, but the way the game is designed from edition to edition has changed drastically. When I say D&D the brand has overtaken D&D the game, that's what I mean.
You can have a conversation without telling people what they think or feel. It crosses a line and is something the moderators don't look kindly on if I cared enough to report it. Which to be clear isn't a threat, if I was offended enough to report it I would have. Just letting you know what the policy is. [EDIT: too late.]
If you didn't use reaction tables, encounter distance tables, morale rules, predeclared actions in combat rounds, or random encounters in the editions that had them, which game were you actually playing? If you did, what game are you playing now? 1e and 5e are simply not the same game, not even close. This is what I mean by the power of nostalgia and branding: WotC are in the business of making us feel like it's all the same thing.
D&D has always been customized by groups that play. I think that's part of the reason it's been so successful. I've been playing D&D since OD&D and I never used random encounters. How the **** does that mean I wasn't playing D&D? Who elected you the arbiter of what qualifies? I don't care about the specific rules implementation, I care that I can use the rules to implement a similar character concept while still resolving things using a similar process. D&D 1E and 5E share the same DNA and most classes feel quite similar when it comes time to roll the dice.
Again, you don't get to tell me what I think or feel.
Whenever someone criticises the idea that popular = good, accusations of elitism follow. I don't buy it. Firstly, because marketing works. No-one wants to admit that they can be manipulated, everyone imagines themselves a cool cynic, but the reality is that we are all deeply fallible, and truly enormous sums of money are spent every year to exploit that.
Popular just means that the game is enjoyable enough that a lot of people spend their time and money on the game. Unlike cable companies (until recently anyway when I could switch to wireless internet) D&D does not have monopoly power. The game is good enough for people. On the other hand D&D's popularity is not a reflection of it's quality related to other games, it does certainly have a lot of built in advantages. But quality is a nebulous made-up thing anyway while also not being a reflection on other games. D&D has
qualities I enjoy and shares
qualities millions of other people also value. But "quality"? It's pretty meaningless. White bread was considered higher quality than whole wheat for a long time. Many "quality" restaurants soak their products in butter, use heavy cream, serve very high fat cuts of meat, provide a meal that is incredibly high in calories and quite unhealthy. Yet it tastes good so it's considered "quality" if you can afford it. I haven't eaten at McDonald in forever, but you used to be able to get a decent salad there, from a health eating perspective those salads were higher quality than most 4 star restaurants.
Back to D&D. I don't remember the last time I saw an advertisement for D&D. I've had plenty of opportunities to discuss, read up on and play one shots of other games. They simply don't offer anything that appeals to me enough to switch.
Secondly, because 'lowest common denominator' isn't a criticism of the people being denominated. If person A likes spicy food, and person B does not, the dish I make to please them both will have a slight enough dusting of spice that both with find it tolerable. I end up cooking a mediocre dish in order to pander to the greatest number of people.
You seem to assume that people care all that much about rule details. Which is a refrain I hear, that game X has more "elegant" rules system. Thing is that the vast majority of players are quite casual about it, what's important to them is the connection to their character and the fantasy it evokes along with a connection with other people around the table. The rules? The rules just have to provide a solid foundation for the game. D&D 5E does that for me, it provides me structure support for sharing stories with my group in a structured way without, for lack of a better term, getting in the way of that shared story telling. Something I couldn't say about 4E which doubled down and then some on 3E's one way to play and was too tightly structured for me. On the other hand, I looked into PbtA games and those are too free form, too demanding of players improv abilities. It was too "loose". D&D hits that sweet spot of not too crunchy, not to reliant on extemporization.
As for self-reference of the class design: people who are comfortable with the tropes don't have a problem with it. They're also the target audience for nostalgia bait. Without that 50-year context (and even with it, frankly), the ranger and druid are bizarre and idiosyncratic.
I don't see having a core set of concepts being a bad thing. The implementation of those concepts absolutely matter. Not to pick on 4E but one of the issues some people (myself included, eventually) had was that the different tropes lost their identity. Fighters were suddenly doing things that could only be attributed to the supernatural not just extreme skill, even if that skill goes. By the way "nostalgia bait" is pretty insulting as well. There's nothing wrong with enjoying something that has been around for a few decades and sometimes the old tropes are tropes because they cover the distinct areas that are relevant.
