Honestly, I think a lot of people play 5e not because it's their game of choice, but because it's the one most people are playing right now. The hype train is very real, and each new book seems splashier and more amazing than the last- the proven WotC strategy! The slower production cycle probably has an effect.
Again though, my point of contention is not whether 5e is good or bad. It does some things I like, it does some things I don't like. It comes down to whether it's good because it's popular, or if it's popular because it's good- that's a subjective opinion.
I mean, the fourth most popular pizza topping in the world is onions.
But that's not really a metric that says "onions are great!/onions are a plague upon pizza!"
I'm not too keen on #1 either, pepperoni, because my local pizza place uses thin slices that end up crispy and not very tasty, but I've had good pepperoni on pizza, so it's more debatable. Again, and that I need to keep saying this is bothersome, it's not about whether D&D 5e is good or bad.And then, once more, to get a unicorn (and 5e certainly is in the TTRPG business), you need a product that customers find good, some luck, and not make business mistakes. ALL of them. If your product is not good to your customers, it won't work.
Nope, especially in this day and age, things which are not good don't become and even less stay popular for long. I know some people won't allow themselves to say that something popular is good, but honestly...
And yet, you had to go down to the fourth one to get that result. But does it mean that pizza is bad ?
And does it mean that D&D is bad because there are some sub-rules about healer that don't please you ?
Would-be healers are clearly a plague upon 5e, the pizza of TTRPGs.
I'm not too keen on #1 either, pepperoni, because my local pizza place uses thin slices that end up crispy and not very tasty, but I've had good pepperoni on pizza, so it's more debatable. Again, and that I need to keep saying this is bothersome, it's not about whether D&D 5e is good or bad.
That's subjective. Everyone has something they like about it, and everyone has something they don't like about it. Well ok, I'm sure there are some people who claim to hate everything about 5e, and others that claim to love absolutely every bit of it, but I'm dubious if such people actually exist instead of just claiming that is how they feel.
But the "well it must be good because it sells good" comment feels dismissive to me. I keep being told that Fighter is the most popular class. Does that mean the Fighter is good and the Cleric is bad?
Because you're not always the one who can change things. Sometimes you're the guy playing a Cleric and sighing that you can't have the nice things you want, because you're being presented with nice things you didn't ask for.And why haven't any of you people who don't like the healing rules in 5E just changed them for your table? The game has been out for 8 years. Have you all just been suffering in silence this entire time? That seems to have been... unnecessary.
And also... so the game doesn't allow you to play every single concept you can think of in an optimal way. Some ways cannot be optimized without adjusting rules. Some ways can't really be done at all without new concepts or re-writes. This should not be a shock to anyone, and is the entire reason games like Champions / Hero System were created... in order to give players the ability to build almost any single concept they could think of in an RPG and have it be pretty balanced across the entire spectrum of the gameplay.
D&D ain't Hero System and it would take a lot of work to turn it into something approaching it. Just ask Steve Kenson.
You've had eight years to find a DM that would change things for you if you were unhappy. If you've not done so for whatever your reasons were... sorry to hear that. But WotC isn't going to change their entire philosophy of 5E game design just because you're stuck in a game relationship you don't enjoy. At some point you're going to have to be the point person of your own happiness, because if you are waiting on WotC you're pretty much going to be eternally unhappy throughout the entirety of the game's existence.Because you're not always the one who can change things. Sometimes you're the guy playing a Cleric and sighing that you can't have the nice things you want, because you're being presented with nice things you didn't ask for.
And as far as the game not supporting every concept, this isn't some alien thing like wanting to play a guy who dual wields whips or a monk that uses pistols (oh wait, I guess that might be viable). I'm talking about CASTING A GOOD HEALING SPELL. If that's a foreign concept to D&D, sign me up for being a point defense laser turret, I guess.
The thread is an interesting design question (D&D design in particular).
However, I'm curious why you come to the conclusion above given 4e's paradigm; pretty much ubiquitous innate and massive out-of-combat healing which leads to full HP at the start of each scene (assuming available HSes...which is a safe assumption) while simultaneously featuring the most prolific and most consequential in-combat healing in the history of D&D.
How it needs to change depends on why you don't like iit. the way death saves nullify damage beyond zero plus small heals along with out of combat healing really complicates the act of changing it as something other than change for the sake of change.And why haven't any of you people who don't like the healing rules in 5E just changed them for your table? The game has been out for 8 years. Have you all just been suffering in silence this entire time? That seems to have been... unnecessary.
And also... so the game doesn't allow you to play every single concept you can think of in an optimal way. Some ways cannot be optimized without adjusting rules. Some ways can't really be done at all without new concepts or re-writes. This should not be a shock to anyone, and is the entire reason games like Champions / Hero System were created... in order to give players the ability to build almost any single concept they could think of in an RPG and have it be pretty balanced across the entire spectrum of the gameplay.
D&D ain't Hero System and it would take a lot of work to turn it into something approaching it. Just ask Steve Kenson.