D&D 5E How I'm Managing Inspiration

[GMMichael]

For example my sister's character has a trait that she is often fiddling with things and dropping them by accident.
She picked up an axe that was on display in a weapons shop and dropped it.

Is this something that deserves Inspiration or not?

Short answer: yes. Everything deserves inspiration! The main reason is that characters get only one inspiration at a time, so why the heck not? I believe they can award it to their comrades as well, which means that if your PC has inspiration, he can save you the trouble and remember to award it to his buddy.

For the record, it's pretty cool that your PC goes around dropping stuff (and remembering to roleplay it) all the time.

You have to be more careful when you start to realize that PCs are getting and using inspiration on just about every check they make. Only then do you say, "okay, maybe I'm being to liberal with the inspiration." That's when you use this criterion:

Did the PC just do something harmful to his character or character goals, yet is inline with what his character would do?

 

[Queer Venger]

I use campaign coins, specifically these ones

 

[Paraxis]

Those campaign coins are very cool looking. I found the product page on the paizo site and made a token to use on roll20 using the image thanks for showing these to me.

 

[Rhenny]

I love the big d20s!

At first I kept forgetting about awarding inspiration, but I kept a sign out reminding me to award it, and that helped. In the ideal game session, I want inspiration to flow so I am in the process of training myself to be less stingy. When the players use inspiration it adds excitement to the game so I don't mind if they use one every encounter. Once the players get the feeling that more inspiration will come their way, they loosen up too and they act in character more and take more risks. It's exciting.

 

[Queer Venger]

You are welcome, for anyone interested, here is the link: http://paizo.com/products/btpy99tg?d20-Crits-or-Fails-Coin-Gold

You can order them in packs of 10. Since I started using these I am more mindful to award inspiration. Soon I'll experiment with players awarding Inspiration to each other. I think its one of my favorite mechanics of 5e.

 

[Morrus]

I have a set of special inspiration dice, too.

As for forgetting, I use the option in the DMG where the players award it to each other. Works great!

 

[Jester David]

View attachment 66981 I use campaign coins, specifically these ones

Those are a pretty cool alternative.

 

[KarinsDad]

Short answer: yes. Everything deserves inspiration! The main reason is that characters get only one inspiration at a time, so why the heck not? I believe they can award it to their comrades as well, which means that if your PC has inspiration, he can save you the trouble and remember to award it to his buddy.

For the record, it's pretty cool that your PC goes around dropping stuff (and remembering to roleplay it) all the time.

You have to be more careful when you start to realize that PCs are getting and using inspiration on just about every check they make. Only then do you say, "okay, maybe I'm being to liberal with the inspiration." That's when you use this criterion:

Did the PC just do something harmful to his character or character goals, yet is inline with what his character would do?

Actually, I would be hesitant to hand out an inspiration every time a player roleplayed his PC dropping something.

Inspiration should be for something, well, inspirational in the game. Not for something pedestrian.

I tend to hand out inspiration if the player stays in character and the result of his or her doing so results in laughs at the table. I don't just hand it out (for example) to my wife for her halfling PC talking in her high pitched voice. I do hand it out to my wife if her halfling PC talking in her high pitched voice does something that gets the table rolling.

Effectively, I reward fun. Doing so encourages more fun.


I also do not hand out an inspiration to each PC at the start of every session. I dislike the entire "get out of jail once free" cards. It makes it feel like I'm playing a board game. I want players to earn the inspirations with their inspiring and fun roleplaying and PC actions. Handing it out for free makes it too cheap.

 

[KarinsDad]

Those campaign coins are very cool looking. I found the product page on the paizo site and made a token to use on roll20 using the image thanks for showing these to me.

View attachment 66987

That's a cool idea.

I can paste that image to our plastic inspiration tokens.

 

[GMMichael]

I tend to hand out inspiration if the player stays in character and the result of his or her doing so results in laughs at the table. I don't just hand it out (for example) to my wife for her halfling PC talking in her high pitched voice. I do hand it out to my wife if her halfling PC talking in her high pitched voice does something that gets the table rolling.

I also do not hand out an inspiration to each PC at the start of every session. I dislike the entire "get out of jail once free" cards.

To each table its own. Rule zero, and everything.

But I find that my tables laugh too much, so there's no way that I would award inspiration for . Only these .

Also, D&D 5 threw several pages of bonus charts out the window. Adv/dis is the reason for that. So I wouldn't consider inspiration to be like "get out of jail free." Its more like "thank goodness I don't have to add d20+2+3+2+4-2-2."