Siloing: Good or Bad?

[AllisterH]

I am NOT a fan of siloing. It's one of the reasons I'm not fond of 4e and prefer less structured point-buy games like GURPS, Mutants and Masterminds, and Hero system to 4e.

Hmm...

Point buy is WHY I like Siloing so much.

As mentioned, I find in point buy games, the generalist sucks. You don't dabble unless you're playing a single PC game

 

[Sadrik]

Hmm...

Point buy is WHY I like Siloing so much.

As mentioned, I find in point buy games, the generalist sucks. You don't dabble unless you're playing a single PC game

You personally like to specialize in a point based system. Therefor it works for you. I hope you can conceptualize that others may like to generalize.

Regardless this discussion is nether here nor there. "Point buy systems" or "broad selection systems", allows you to purchase or select varied powers both for in combat and out of combat - you often have the option to go all one way or the other. Point being that the player decides how they want their character, not the designer. I feel too much designer intent went into the split of powers and rituals, it is a bit stifling. I would have rather had the ritual system be part of the power system. Why not let a wizard select mount spell instead of some daily attack? Why could'nt the system be flexible enough to allow rituals be selected from the same list as attacks?

 

[Derren]

Hmm...

Point buy is WHY I like Siloing so much.

As mentioned, I find in point buy games, the generalist sucks. You don't dabble unless you're playing a single PC game

Its funny. People "specialize" because they want to play ultra leet killers and then complain when they have nothing to do outside of the combat (its nothing against you personally, but a general statment).

Imo, most people who complain that unless the game silos they are bored most of the time most blame no one except themselves for only participating in one "part" of the game. Such people should imo ask themselves if, when they only want to play combat characters, an RPG is the right game for them and if they won't have more fun with a Tabletop Wargame.

 

[AllisterH]

You personally like to specialize in a point based system. Therefor it works for you. I hope you can conceptualize that others may like to generalize.

Regardless this discussion is nether here nor there. "Point buy systems" or "broad selection systems", allows you to purchase or select varied powers both for in combat and out of combat - you often have the option to go all one way or the other. Point being that the player decides how they want their character, not the designer. I feel too much designer intent went into the split of powers and rituals, it is a bit stifling. I would have rather had the ritual system be part of the power system. Why not let a wizard select mount spell instead of some daily attack? Why could'nt the system be flexible enough to allow rituals be selected from the same list as attacks?

I said nothing about MY preference.

Look at it this way...Try being a generalist in earlier editions of Shadowrun and see how "effective" such a character is.

Indeed, I would argue that point buy games are more of an encouragement for powergaming than non-siloed games.

re: Combat

You seem exclusively fixated on combat Derren. What about the earlier editions of Star Wars where it was necessitated that you spend all your points in being a pilot to have any chance of doing anything well with a ship.

 

[pauljathome]

I said nothing about MY preference.

Look at it this way...Try being a generalist in earlier editions of Shadowrun and see how "effective" such a character is./QUOTE]

In games like Gurps (2nd or 3rd edition, anyway. Haven't played 4th) its utterly trivial to build an effective reasonably generalized character. In Hero you can also build reasonably generalized characters although not as general as in Gurps.

In both systems, the real difference between a generalist and a specialist is that the specialist can take greater penalties. They're both almost as effective in simple situations, the specialist shines in difficult ones.

And in both systems its fairly inexpensive to take a very effective, specialized character and add in a couple of extra skills or abilities to round out the character. Not completely free but fairly inexpensive. So, if you want your expert swordsman to also be a good poet all but the most avid of munchkins will be able to stomach the price.

 

[bardolph]

You may have never played 1e but you rolled on three charts to generate your first level M-U spells. I don't recall exactly what they were called (perhaps someone could step and provide there names) but it was something like roll on a offense list, a defense list and a utility list. It really is not all that breaking in any form.

That's not what I was referring to. What I was referring to was the fact that ALL classes get powers, not just Magic-Users.

They also all get the same number and type of powers.

This is very new, at least to D&D.

 

[bardolph]

I would have rather had the ritual system be part of the power system. Why not let a wizard select mount spell instead of some daily attack? Why could'nt the system be flexible enough to allow rituals be selected from the same list as attacks?

Because learned rituals are NOT a scarce commodity. Once you get acquire the Ritual Casting feat, you can learn ALL rituals, without penalty.

So, you get to have your cake, and eat it, too. Everyone wins.

 

[Sadrik]

I said nothing about MY preference.

Look at it this way...Try being a generalist in earlier editions of Shadowrun and see how "effective" such a character is.

In games like Gurps (2nd or 3rd edition, anyway. Haven't played 4th) its utterly trivial to build an effective reasonably generalized character. In Hero you can also build reasonably generalized characters although not as general as in Gurps.

In both systems, the real difference between a generalist and a specialist is that the specialist can take greater penalties. They're both almost as effective in simple situations, the specialist shines in difficult ones.

And in both systems its fairly inexpensive to take a very effective, specialized character and add in a couple of extra skills or abilities to round out the character. Not completely free but fairly inexpensive. So, if you want your expert swordsman to also be a good poet all but the most avid of munchkins will be able to stomach the price.

Excellent point. In champions I have always tried to build multiple specialties into my character. You never want to be a one-trick pony. I would say that point based systems want you to specialize in as many directions as you can stomach.

Siloing attack powers away from a more diverse population of powers, says you are specialized in attack powers, period.

 

[bardolph]

In games like Gurps (2nd or 3rd edition, anyway. Haven't played 4th) its utterly trivial to build an effective reasonably generalized character. In Hero you can also build reasonably generalized characters although not as general as in Gurps.

There's nothing trivial about building ANY kind of character in GURPS or HERO.

 

[Dausuul]

Excellent point. In champions I have always tried to build multiple specialties into my character. You never want to be a one-trick pony. I would say that point based systems want you to specialize in as many directions as you can stomach.

I would say that it depends on the level of diminishing returns which the point-based system imposes. GURPS has very steep diminishing returns, which pushes players toward generalization over specialization - for the price of a small improvement in your specialty, you can get some quite dramatic improvements in other areas.

On the other hand, games where diminishing returns kick in later or don't bite down as hard often see heavily specialized PCs.

Of course, the GURPS approach has some other consequences - in particular, it pushes PCs toward gaining breadth over depth as they advance. When you get your handful of character points at the end of an adventure, it's always much more appealing to pick up a new skill where you can see sharp, immediate gains, rather than to hold your points until you've accumulated enough to make an incremental improvement in your area of expertise.

As a result, in my experience at least, a GURPS character at the end of a long campaign is seldom much better at his/her specialty than at the start, but has greatly diversified his/her skill base. Whether you consider that a good thing or a bad thing is up to you - I rather like it, myself. It makes for a near-flat power curve and creates an E6-ish flavor. But other people might feel differently.

There's nothing trivial about building ANY kind of character in GURPS or HERO.

Can't speak to HERO, but I'm not actually sure GURPS is substantially worse than 4E; if GURPS had something like the Character Builder (maybe it does, I haven't played in a long time), I'll bet chargen would be a snap.