D&D exists for about 45 years so yes, it's a bible and it looks like the 5th edition is really appreciated by role playing players. I trust them and I'd lobe this game to become a true BG and D&D experience.
I didn't realize all of those players were still playing the unaltered first edition, I guess it really is hard to improve perfection though.
If you think you can design a better rules system for an RPG go right on ahead. But there's a reason 5e has absolutely dwarfed every other RPG in the market.
It's not very helpful to make blanket statements like this or to be fundamentalist about a particular set of rules. Honestly, how many other rulesets have you ever played? 5e isn't considered the best ruleset any more than Coke is considered the best drink in the world. I've played about fifteen game systems over about thirty-five years of gaming. I'd choose almost any other system than 5e for my campaigns. It has the primary merit of being widely known, allowing Larian to reach a wider audience.
Yeah, that's the point. 5e is in a great sweet spot of accessibility without unnecessary complexity. It's a fantastic game system that is shallow in one end of the pool to help people get introduced, then gradually gets as deep as a player wants, to a point. Beyond that point, we enter the realm of splat books bullshit and such.
I don't know, a dozen or so? Nothing even holds a candle to 5e in terms of simplicity creating synergy and balance. 5e isn't even remooootely perfect. The rules for Stealth are a travesty. RAW Summons still make DMing a nightmare. But looking at 5e and trying to deny it's a better system than what's out there is like trying to say the horse and buggy is better than the car because they have lower emissions. There's a reason it became so wildly known and more popular than any other ruleset, ever.
So start with 5e. Tweak it as needed to work in a computer game. Rebalance the parts that have been identified as not working well (Ranger class, Stealth rules, etc). Don't start from DoS.
