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Message: <blockquote data-quote="keterys" data-source="post: 5041095" data-attributes="member: 43019">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 Not if done well, it doesn't...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.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. 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.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?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.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. 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!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.</blockquote>

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