The spirit of the rules must be honored. If you wanted to play spreadsheets with story, play Pathfinder. If you want an inclusive story-driven board game where everyone can win, play 5E. IF you wanted to roleplay, than maybe something like FATE. If you wanted creativity, try Cypher (random tangent: Cypher is on sale on Humble Bundle now)

But if you're a roleplayer and join a Pathfinder game, you shouldn't just go around accusing everyone having fun of being munchkins.

If you join a company that's using AI to filter resumes, you shouldn't be surprised when they're using AI to determine promotions. And any attempt to change that system would be pushed back on, because you're playing against the spirit of the rules.

I find 5th edition players tend to tunnel vision on min/maxing and resource management, 5th short rest today? The power curve is also really steep.

IMO 2nd edition is generally the better choice if you want less crunch. It’s more random, but IMO memorable deaths are better than forgettable gameplay.

White wolf lets you play something meaningfully non human which can be fun. Play a short or long lived race in D&D and surprisingly few things change. Play a Mummy, changeling, werewolf, or even vampire and you’ll notice. A Vampire player quickly starts looking at baseline humans as food, it’s appropriate and kind of wild.