D&D Has Lost Credibility and thus, Legitimacy

This is my gut problem with D&D today. The game feels like it has lost all credibility and, thus, its legitimacy. Say what you want to about the individual parts of the system, the too-long combats, the wonky character build, the lack of death mechanics, and a whole host of complaints.

If the game has zero credibility as a dungeon-adventure game, it's nothing to me.

This goes for 2014, 2024, ToV, and A5E. They are all flavors of the same problem. Some fix the issue better than the others, but they are still the same genre that feels derivative to me.

I keep returning to previous editions to find that credibility. 3.5E has more than 5E, but as long as we are going backwards, I will go straight to the source and play First Edition, eliminate all wonky, derivative, non-canon ideas from the game, and find the truest implementation right at the source.

If you go backwards to find credibility, go all the way.

And here is another thing about D&D: all the art looks like every other game. What is it with this generation of artists? I can't tell the difference between D&D 2024, Nimble, Draw Steel, Daggerheart, or any of these other games anymore. All the art is this "AI modern" looking slop, that looks like those happy-faced, party-loyal, rah-rah Great Leader political posters you find in dystopian regimes. Those cheerful faces hide pain and a deep sense of "please like me" and "please don't go away" insecurity.

At least Dungeon Crawl Classics art is wonderfully strange and off the wall. Part of the reason I keep supporting them is the classic art.

D&D, and the 5E clones, losing all credibility is the root of my problems with the game. Beyond the minor complaints, this big one can't be solved easily.