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Message: <blockquote data-quote="1Mac" data-source="post: 5494566" data-attributes="member: 48998">Siloing! Siloing is when a game designer restricts access to powers so that you can only acquire certain powers alongside other powers. It's like sorting powers into bins (or silos) and restricting players to selecting only a smaller number of bins, if not just one. Classes are a classic way of doing this, as are power trees and the like.Take 4e. As 4e classes are largely just an amalgamation of powers built on a common structure, it would be superficially easy to allow anyone to take any power. The problem is that you can't easily predict how any one power will interact with another. Maybe some warlock power combined with some barbarian power will foster some unholy, imbalanced combo that breaks the game. By siloing powers into classes (and making occasional access to other class powers come with a price), 4e better manages (in theory) to keep powers balanced.For me, most of the restrictiveness in class design comes from flavor that is too thematically narrow. But that's a challenge to develop broader class themes, not an obligation to do without classes entirely. Besides, some people like specific class themes and would find broader classes thematically bland!</blockquote>