Siloing: Good or Bad?

[the Jester]

So in the run up to 4e there was a lot of talk about "siloing"- splitting combat abilities from noncombat. In 4e, this led to the split between attack powers, utility powers and rituals (among other things). The goal was to make all characters have some valid, useful choices in combat (and, one presumes, non-combat) encounters.

I'm sure many of those of us that played 3e have seen the "weird spell list sorcerer" come up. I dmed a party with two sorcerers whose first spells were not magic missile, mage armor or shield- instead, they used things like mount and grease and tried to be creative.

In 1e, your starting magic-user might have light as his only offensive spell!

Certainly, there's a lot to be said for the siloing approach- but then again, there's a lot to be said for the ability to make a non-combative pc.

What is your overall opinion on the siloing approach to characters? Good, bad, both, neither?

Discuss.

 

[Aus_Snow]

What is your overall opinion on the siloing approach to characters? Good, bad, both, neither?

Neither, but personally, I don't care for it.

 

[Stormonu]

What is your overall opinion on the siloing approach to characters? Good, bad, both, neither?

Discuss.

Bad. People run RPGs for different reasons, and stacking the game to support one facet at the cost of another often hurts more than it helps.

Back in 3E, I thought the game was moving forward towards a system that could handle combat and non-combat with equal aplomb. You could make a character who never got into combat and was still awesome and useful in the game. Or the reverse, but there were consequences either way. Given, 3E sometimes went a little too deep down the rabbit hole in complexity, but it still had resolution systems that you could use to differentiate the player from the character.

4E seemed to say forget it, the only thing worth having systems for is combat. Everyone needs to be great at combat, if nothing else. Everything out of combat, you can just wing it. Which I totally disagree with. I've had too many swiss-army knife player backgrounds to just allow winging it on either side. Give me some mechanics to back up either side, or I might as well go LARP or play cowboys n' indians out back.

 

[Kzach]

Didn't we just have this discussion?

Eh, I'll throw in my copper regardless.

The biggest problem with not siloing is that characters lose effectiveness in combat. Out of combat effectiveness is highly subjective. I tend to just roleplay through any out of combat conflicts. In fact, as a DM who was weaned on the era of "roleplaying is everything", I've had a lot of difficulty adapting to skills-based non-combat scenarios, both as a DM and as a player.

I still find skill challenges clunky and cumbersome and blocks to roleplaying.

So I always build a character for combat. I never choose non-combat abilities because I feel that just weakens the character unnecessarily. Why do that when I can just roleplay through any non-combat scenario?

And let's face it, it's a combat centric game. People who want more from D&D are playing the wrong game. But if you really want to have challenging and interesting and dynamic non-combat encounters that don't 100% rely on roleplaying, then you really have to silo.

Personally, I get annoyed at people who don't optimise their characters for combat. It means everyone in the group has to make up for their lack. To me it's part and parcel with team-work. If someone is always going off on their own and never being a team player, then I feel they're being selfish. The same goes for making ineffective characters.

So for me, I would welcome a fully siloed system with strictly combat and non-combat options and never the twain shall meet. Then I wouldn't have to put up with people who think taking +2 in Diplomacy over a +5 damage bonus is 'roleplaying'.

 

[bardolph]

Siloing = Good Thing.

I think experience has shown that balancing combat effectiveness against non-combat effectiveness is a fool's errand. Better is balancing each one separately.

Otherwise, players will naturally try to eliminate all competence in one area in order to squeeze out the highest incremental bonus possible in their specialty, resulting in characters who are unplayable outside a pretty narrow set of circumstances.

 

[Stormonu]

And let's face it, it's a combat centric game. People who want more from D&D are playing the wrong game.

I absolutely hate this approach to D&D and the opinion "if you're not into combat you're having BadWrongFun," that the only thing it is worthy of being used for is combat. I really believe a roleplaying game should be more well-rounded than being just about hack'n'slash. There are plenty of board games out there that have been done - Dragonstrike, Descent, Warhammer Quest, Heroquest, Heroscape, etc. - that D&D doesn't need to degenerate to being "just about combat". It's an RPG, not a board tactical wargame.

 

[Kzach]

I absolutely hate this approach to D&D and the opinion "if you're not into combat you're having BadWrongFun," that the only thing it is worthy of being used for is combat. I really believe a roleplaying game should be more well-rounded than being just about hack'n'slash. There are plenty of board games out there that have been done - Dragonstrike, Descent, Warhammer Quest, Heroquest, Heroscape, etc. - that D&D doesn't need to degenerate to being "just about combat". It's an RPG, not a board tactical wargame.

You're taking what I said way out of proportion and misinterpreting pretty much the entire gist.

D&D 4e is a combat-centric system. It's pretty hard to argue against that as a fact. That does not mean it's badwrongfun to not focus on combat. It also doesn't mean you have to focus on combat when using the system.

It does, however, mean that perhaps there are better suited systems to such a style of play.

Play however the Hell you want, I really don't care. But saying D&D 4e isn't a combat-centric system is like saying water isn't wet. The system itself focuses primarily on combat. Whether you use the system primarily for combat or not is entirely your prerogative and no-one can say whether that is or isn't how the game should be played.

On a related matter, I also hate it when 'roleplayers' use derogative terms to describe combat-centric play styles. It's the exact same 'badwrongfun' attitude as the opposite. Perhaps you should look to your own comments before deriding others.

 

[Stormonu]

You're taking what I said way out of proportion and misinterpreting pretty much the entire gist.

D&D 4e is a combat-centric system. It's pretty hard to argue against that as a fact.

I agree with your statement on this, but I feel that 4E's focus on combat was a step in the wrong direction - or at least not the direction I would have chosen. It's a big factor why my group is currently using the Storyteller system and we've put D&D up on the shelf (we tried it at least three times and realized it wasn't what we wanted)*.

And that makes me sad. I've been playing RPGs for 25 years or so and I hate to see my play style, for my favorite system, be thrown to the wayside so that I feel I have to go to other game systems to get my 'fix'. I want to play D&D, but not with the current ruleset.

* I haven't gone back to 3.5E/Pathfinder because part of the (new) group finds D&D "too confusing" with all the different dice and whatnot. Got to ease them into it, I guess.

 

[FireLance]

Siloing is good as a default, so that casual players can come in at approximately the same level of effectiveness. However, more experienced players should have the flexibility to silo less.

 

[Derren]

Siloing is bad. In an RPG combat is not something special which needs special rules for it. If someone wants to play a character who is not all that good in combat he should have the option to do so.