D&D 5E Inspiration! How's It Working Out For You?

[payn]

We used them for about 10 seconds of the campaign I played in. I would much prefer if there were some actual interaction with the rule set and chargen. Background, lineage, class items that you could activate with inspiration. That would be much more interesting to me than get advantage on a roll. I'd even take it as an optional module just to inspire me to use inspiration.

 

[SakanaSensei]

I tried it and didn’t like how much it felt like giving cookies out to players for being good little RPers.

While that’s definitely snarky, I hate using the mechanic and have been happy in being able to ignore it. I will be disappointed if they settle on baking it into mechanics more deeply such that it can’t be ignored.

 

[Flamestrike]

I kind of like the concept of inspiration in a way, kind of hate it. I dislike most things that are overtly meta-game rewards or penalties, I want the world to make sense from the perspective of the PCs, even if some things would be wacky to someone used to the real world. Inspiration just puts it too much into the "there's no in world justification" for me.

That, and I never remember to use it. I can't keep track of TIBF for my own PC, much less for the 6 PCs run.

Get your players to award it. They can nominate someone for inspiration and if you agree, they get it.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

We never used until the One playtest. Now we love it!

 

[CleverNickName]

I'm kicking around the idea of letting my players award it. At the end of each gaming session, the players all decide who gets to start next week's game with Inspiration. I want it to work more like an MVP award, for someone who played a really good game that evening.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I like the idea. I'm not a big fan of metagame resources, but having one for very occasional and fundamentally optional use feels about right.

As implemented in 5e it's (generally) too rare for people to use freely. Players write that they have it on their character sheet and then save it forever for that super consequential roll they never remember to use it on. And when they do use it, it's just advantage, which is a bit underwhelming.

The "make it a re-roll" fix helps tremendously with this problem as it is both more powerful, and easier to decide to actually use, as you've already failed and are staring down the consequences of failure. It also makes it a very occasional attempted re-do, which is the level of metagame resource power I can live with and actually appreciate.

For the OneD&D playtest WotC has gone the opposite direction. Rather than making it more powerful and easier to decide to use, they have just made it more prominent and plentiful, with an until long rest cutoff. Perhaps that is better from a balance perspective or whatever, but as someone who, once again, only likes metagame resources as a minor incursion on the game, I don't like it suddenly being thrust to prominence, as something players have to worry about and stress about optimizing the use of on a daily basis. It is also now too prominent to just decide to ignore without actual game balance repercussions. A big swing and a miss from my perspective.

 

[iserith]

In tonight's session, we lost the party's paladin to a critical hit by a mummy lord and a failed save against the rot. As our comrade fell, the DM asked how we react to the loss.

The player of the ranger says his character has a big grin on his face.

BAM. Inspiration.

 

[DarkCrisis]

When I DMed 5th ed I never thought to hand them out. No one ever mentioned it either.

Not really needed, I suppose

 

[Talltomwright]

There was a life or death Persuasion roll in my game last night (literally, it was certain TPK on a fail).

I don’t like Inspiration as DM carrot as it feels arbitrary and can lead to players RPing for me rather than RPing for their own enjoyment, so I give one point at each level up (and you can never have more than one.)

The characters have been down on their luck so everyone has spent theirs apart from the Bard.

First roll - 3. The players are distraught.

He remembers the banked inspiration point and rerolls - 20. Table erupts with whoops.

I wouldn’t want it as an every single session resource but as a ‘break glass in emergency’ tool it really adds to the tension and drama at the table, means that there are less moments of save or die but it still sits with the players’ agency (if they threw their inspiration away early then they have to accept their fate later on) without feeling like we are just playing on easy mode.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I voted: I use them and don't care for them, although a better option would have been: I try to use it but I always forget it is there...