What is the assassin now? If you hit via attack X do Y dice of damage. The End. Basically, the entire class has been thrown out replaced by "how can I roll more dice? I know, I will choose assassin"
It's pretty clear that people who like the mechanical aspect are not the people WOTC is interested in marketing to
I don't think both these claims can be true.
To me, 5e does seem rather mechanically focused - especially on combat mechanics. This is manifested in a whole lot of ways, including the many departures from traditional spell dice expressions to ensure mechanical balance in damage inflicted across classes.
It's "narrativeness" seems to consist in the relative lack of non-combat mechanics.
regardless of whether or not the rules support a narrative, (as 3e or 4e would) it's still up to the DM to allow the rules to exist as written or be interpreted the way the player intends.
The only difference in the game system is options. If that's what you want, that's great but I'd not hide behind the "DM has too much power" argument because he or she has always had it. If you're having fun it's because the DM and the entire group is enabling you to some extent. You're not doing it because of the rules or on your own.
This isn't true. I won't comment on 3E, but 5e doesn't differ from 4e simply in terms of options.
5e differs in terms of action resolution mechanics, especially non-combat mechanics. And the differences in PC build are also significant to resolution - 4e PCs have powers that can be used as "descriptors" that are spent to enhance a range of actions that are thematically apt, which allows 4e to play more like a free descriptor game. (Eg in a skill challenge with the goal of entering a guarded temple, the player of a wizard spend his daily power Charm of the Dark Dream - a domination power whereby the wizard turns into a mist and enters the body of the dominated target - to enable an Arcana check to try and read the password from the mind of a guard.)
5e has a very different approach to PC build, which is focused much more on capabilities expressed in mechanical terms that are interpreted as literal ("naturalistic", "simulationist") within the gameworld. There is no uniform suite of abilities with clear keywords that provide a player resource economy adaptable to a range of contexts outside of combat as well as in it.
D&D can be descriptor based on the roleplaying side. The champion fighter can describe themselves as a knight, archer, swashbuckler, and the like. All with largely the same mechanics. And the bold, arrogant Robin Hood archer is a very different charcater from the cautious, sniper archer.
The mechanics of D&D don’t remove the descriptive choice based aspects of characters. They don’t remove that. It adds overtop.
The heart of the resolution rule in a descriptor-based game is: if your desctiptor bears on your declared action, that factors into the mechanical resolution. For instance, in the game I referenced - Cthulhu Dark - if the declared action falls within the scope of expertise of the PC's occupation (in my example, being a reporter, a secretary in a law firm, or a longshoreman) then a die is added to the pool.
In 5e, a player might describe his/her character as a knight but, as you say, that won't change the mechanics (unless it is done via background choice - but background in 5e seems to be rather light touch in comparison to the overall play of the game).
And yet, without getting to various normative views about editions*, 4e was (from a sales perspective) a disappointment
My own view is that there are two reasons for this.
(1) "The market" - however exactly we want to think of that - is not super-keen on a game that is mechanically very intensive on the PC build side, and in combat resolution.
(2) "The market" prefers GM-driven story - where the main contribution to story and narrative is description that is largely indepedent of and floats above the details of mechanical resolution, and is provided mostly by the GM but is supplemented by players' characterisation of their PCs - to more "indie"-style story which is determined by the outcomes of tight conflict-resolution mechanics.
2nd ed AD&D (pre-Players' Options) satisfied (1) and (2). So does 5e, and it really is like a super-tightened-up version of 2nd ed AD&D: the bulk of the mechanics deal with combat, but with attention to balance between PC builds that draws on all that was learned in 3E and especially 4e design; the out-of-combat resolution is a form of ability checks whose concrete signficance to the unfolding of the shared fiction is filtered almost entirely through GM decision-making.
