Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
I think, like with programming, if the complexity of the process exceeds the required complexity to generate the solution, then you have objectively bad code. Or, at least, objectively suboptimal code - which, for both programs and games, I suspect is synonymous with bad.
If everything suboptimal is bad, then everything's bad. Because everything is suboptimal.

Especially since "required" is a subjective parameter here. Some people enjoy super-crunchy, super-detailed mechanics. Hit charts, tables for different armor vs weapon types, etc. Whereas I think that even 3e's BAB-per-class + several different AC's was surplus to requirements. Of course there's a U-shaped curve here, where at one end just about everyone agrees that you could really do with a bit more complexity ("Roll 1d20, if it's over 10 you win the game") and at the other just about everyone agrees that maybe you don't quite need all that crunch. But those points are really really far out and in the middle there's a wide variation in what "fits requirements".