doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
The brilliance of 5e is that the system is not the game: the DM is.
Thought experiment: try putting 5e on autopilot, resolve to run a quick session with no rulings, just rules. Here's how it goes:
The players build some characters, the DM describes the situation, a player declares an action - and the game stops, because there is no resolution without a DM ruling.
And that's just effing brilliant, because, while 1e conditioned players to depend on the DM more or less by accident, 5e set out to do it, on purpose, admitted they were doing it, and totally got away with it.
It's why I'm up to run 5e, but wouldn't run 3.5 again unless there was some real money in it.
Eh, I think you're exaggerating the case, as the very, very, least.
The player declares an action, and the system describes various methods of resolution, depending on the sort of action being declared. If it's an attack, you roll initiative and go from there. If it's an attempt to find your way past a guard, the system tells the DM to pick the most appropriate Ability Score based on the broad methodology of the attempt, and the PHB has examples of the types of activities that fall under each one. If the character has a relevant proficiency, they add that to the roll. either way, they then roll a d20, add ability score and potentially proficiency bonus, and compare it to either a DC set based on the guidelines on Easy, Hard, etc DCs, or against a passive score of the NPC, or an ability contest, depending on how directly your attempt to get past the guard interacts with said guard.
It's fairly inaccurate to claim that all of that is just the DM as the game. There's rather a lot of system, in that.