I'm someone who likes a certain amount of crunchiness, I prefer Pathfinder 1e over any D&D version, and both Pathfinder CRPGs over any D&D one (2nd place goes to the CRPG-only NWN2 system D&D 3.75). BG3 is fun enough, but I far prefer the UX of the owlcat games, and the changes larian made to the 5e rules dumb down an already simplified rule system even more.
Now sure, some changes are nice (frenzy barb becoming decent), but mostly I find it to make things more boring. But luckily for larian, I'm very much not your average gamer.
I've played some TTRPGs that have a d6-based system that I really like. The basic idea: you build your dice-pool out of only d6, roll it, and take the best single value that you rolled. Most player rolls use 2-3 dice, and the pool caps out at 5 dice.
If your best value is 6, the result is "success with nothing bad". If it's 4-5, the result is "success with a consequence". If it's 3 or lower, the result is "failed with a consequence".
Special-cases: a 0d6 dice-pool is rolled by rolling 2d6 and picking the worst value. And if two (or more) of your dice come up as 6, it's "success with an extra benefit".
Have you checked out the Dominions series? It uses D6s and an "exploding dice" style where you reroll and sum every time you get a 6 resulting in a really interesting long-tailed distribution.
Remind me, was it in 1e->2e or 2e->3e that they fixed the whole "Street sams get to empty their magazines before mages even get to act" in the initiative system? SR 3e is one of my top systems, fwiw but I only played like 2 sessions in 2e.
My group is currently playing Fantasy Craft, which has a bit too much crunch for us. For the past 2 months I've had an idea for overhauling the battle system mulling around in my head.
My introduction to TTRPGs was actually hackmaster which is a crazy game that licensed adnd1 and just made it insane, D10000 for a crit, chance of dying during character creation, and many other things. Loved it ;)
Their license expired, so you need to check out the old version, I think it was 4th edition (they started with that), it based on the very long running comic Knights of the Dinner table, which is also amazing
FIRST HITS ALWAYS FREE. That's how they sold it to me as an undergrad many moons ago.
Actually all the hits are free now, because Hero Designer and all the books are incidental to find on the interwebs, because who gives a shit? The hell is Hero System? Just think of the nerd cred you get when you reveal you not only play TTRPGs on the weekend, but you play a dead and forgotten one.
(To continue the sweaty nerd trend of this thread:) No, not even close. 5e is somehow both bloated and complex while being simultaneously being too constrained in what actions you can take for anyone not familiar with it, and mostly gets by via name recognition and becoming synonymous with "TTRPG" these days.
There's tons of PBTA games and similar that are much simpler for people to pick up in a single night of gaming, ones where all of your character's creation and rules fit on a total of maybe 4 pages. My current favorite is Monster of the Week, but there are lots of other good ones out there.
I really enjoyed running a one shot of Thirsty Sword Lesbians.
I guess maybe when I said it was the best introductory, I also included (in my head) the massive online following for 5e, making the meta of gaming a little easier for people with no experience with table tops.
Just wondering, have you played Pathfinder kingmaker or Wrath of the Righteous? I have over 1500 hours in each and they are my all time favorite games by a huge margin.
Now sure, some changes are nice (frenzy barb becoming decent), but mostly I find it to make things more boring. But luckily for larian, I'm very much not your average gamer.