So you know everything your campaign will incorporate from the beginning? No new feats, options, etc. allowed once play begins? If not then "play the game" can and already does mean different things to different people as far as D&D is concerned.
1) Why do you need to?
2) Basic play premise should be discussed by the DM and players before any campaign. If one side wants a hack and slash game and the other wants a no-combat investigative mystery game, then that should be figured out ahead of time.
3) Retraining and character growth in general are useful things
Wrong, both statements are true... but apply to toally different parts of the game.
Not if done well, it doesn't...
Nothing in your example directly affects my characters combat silo..
while in my example I can grab 10 of my soldiers and take them into battle with me, thus affecting the combat silo.
Except for the part where the invading army added two squads to the combat themselves? Which again is beside the point because the character's combat potential doesn't include any allies you can or can't bring, whether from domain management or just going 'Okay, you 100 commoners, 2 gold each to charge that way, go!'
Your actual combat abilities are unaffected by it. If the DM wants to include the ability for players to have or not have armies, they're already going to have to alter the combat rules appropriately, but either way the other player has no abilities that let them control minions in combat nor anything that gives them minions that can appreciably change their own combats.
Much like how saying you have red hair or wear gnoll-hides might affect any given social outcome, but it has no mechanical bearing. It's just a variance on how things get roleplayed.
Why? Since we are getting into definite statements about what there should or shouldn't be a reward for, please expound on why, if I want my character to be the greatest musician ever, why can't I (just like in real life) choose to focus on becoming that to the detriment of other areas?
Because it makes the game play worse. Pure and simple. Realism vs fun. It's a game, fun wins. Done. Not that it's particularly realistic when people make characters where every single ability centers around combat anyways.
Brew beer and make a chair? Are we really to the ppoint where we bring out the most absurd examples to debate with...
I was responding to a point about a 'Crafting' silo. Those are valid uses of crafting and profession, which is a perfectly good silo which can have zero bearing on the rest of the game. I actually think it's a far better example than 'domain management' which someone else brought up but has tricky interactions with the plot, campaign resources, etc. Basically, many games without silo-ing will require you to invest resources in being good at brewing or carpentry, at the detriment of, say, your combat skills, social skills, investigative skills, etc - ie, your ability to actually overcome and resolve conflicts in the game, save your character's life, etc. As a result, many characters ignore those aspects of what many characters should be able to do, because it's mathematically impractical. Or have worse stats compared to other people at the table. This is an area where siloing _shines_ by removing that impact.
why not stay with the domain silo example instead of going the route of the ridiculous.
Because the domain silo is a far more complex silo than the important ones, like 'Combat' and various 'Non-Combat' options. Given that you're up in arms over it, and think that somehow reflects on siloing in general, why not go for actual core silo examples?
Also, why do we talk about these instances like the DM is a robot. If I see one of my players has sacrificed combat ability to brew beer or for woodworking (and I'm going to assume that I was just to busy or something to tell him what type of game I'm running), you better believe I'm going to add elements of those skills into many of my adventures.
And those instances won't necessarily serve to balance against the possible death of his character or team from loss of combat ability, of the 98% of scenes in which those skills don't matter, or if a greater amount of scenes then things will start to look ludicrous, etc.
There's also the fact that me not being a robot I can and will extrapolate from those skills so that they apply in a wider range of situations. Perhaps through wood working the PC can identify diffewrent types of wood, knows their locations, what races or tribes frequently use what wood, and so on. But then again I ascribe to the mentality that a DM being able to adapt and individualize encounters for his group is one of his greatest advantages.
Of course it is. It's also nice when the system does most of the work for you. Or when the players feel the freedom to work within it.
For example, 3e's skill system strongly discourages fighters from taking crafting and profession skills of any kind. 4e's utility system discourages taking purely non-combat powers. These are places where silo-ing would help. In HERO it's possible to have one character who has no ability to do combat at all while another is immune to any damage less than the amount needed to outright kill the first guy. Clearly, some silo-ing could help here.
DM skill and player skill can overcome problems created by the lack of silos. But sometimes the DM isn't skilled enough, the players aren't skilled enough, or the side effects (ex: 90% of the game ends up about combat because that's the only activity everyone can do together) are problematic.
There are some downsides to silo-ing, but IMO the upsides far outweigh.
Again, what if it doesn't fit my character concept? Better question, why is this needed as opposed to me stepping up, as the DM, and saying what my campaign will be about (whether that entails combat, intrigue, social maneuvering, exploration or whatever) and then my players making appropriate characters?
You mean, like how you'd end up not having a domain management silo in a game where you didn't want to do that, by doing that? Exactly!
Again, so he sits out a portion of the campaign.
As long as it's by choice, and not by the system forcing it, then you're good. I'm okay with the barbarian having _some_ ability to look around and notice things, maybe smell evidence, intimidate folks, etc... and if he wants to sit out those sections until the combat comes up, that's his choice. At least the system didn't force him not to participate or punish him for not building his character a certain way.
, or just do goofy stuff to make everyone else laugh, and the game is pretty much forcing him to play it straight. Otherwise, the party feels the loss of being one guy down.
