Help with clarification on how to read the rulebook: What has priority?

[KorvinStarmast]

For "reference", you can check page 7 of the PHB, under the header "Specific Beats General"

+1

This is 100% correct.

And if there are more than two rules interacting, then it's the most specific one that primes, followed by the second-most-specific one, etc until arriving to the most general one.

+2

I can only speculate but considering the way MTG is designed, from it's rules code seeming like legalese to it's creator being a mathematician, I would believe this. I think it fits for WotC's streamlining efforts with 3/3.5 and the D20 system bringing a sort of Object-Oriented vibe to DnD to also bring the phrase "Specific beats Generic" along with it.

Did you mean Specific beats General? MTG is a card game designed to separate whales from money. It is not a TTRPG.

2. The general conceit from early in 5e was "Rulings over Rules". Or as I would prefer to say it, "Rules as Guidelines" (RAG). The "Rules as Written" (RAW), have places they are unclear, in conflict, and can result in illogical outcomes. So they are better treated as a set of guidelines to be changed/modified/overruled when they stop working correctly.

Yes. What's in the book is where you start, not where you necessarily end up.

And it's understandable that D&D's roots go at least somewhat close to this model given that it too was, in the past, a tournament-style game - but 5e very much is not that, anymore.

Maybe it's WotC roots try to do that, but the AD&D attempt to make for better tournament/con/RPGA play was only partly realized, at best.

I think that a number of issues with 5e stem from the fact that the designers were trying to bring the game back to its roots... but the designers didn't all agree on just what roots those were.

We have a winner.