D&D 5E Desperation

[payn]

I've never been a fan of the recovery methods regarding Inspiration. Any interesting online ideas we borrowed for Inspiration did not work or stick at our table. The 5.5e mechanic of refreshing your Inspiration after scoring a natural 20 seems gimmicky to me so I'm just gonna nix that idea straight off the bat. I will still likely use the Inspiration idea - handing it out in creative ways, perhaps as a rather uncommon/rare reward if the fiction calls for a character being Inspired, but other than that I'm removing it as a constant bland resource.

Instead I'm thinking of rebranding the mechanic as Desperation and a PC earns Desperation when one gains the Bloodied condition. You can only have 1 Desperation at any one time, however, the caveat being, the PC loses their Desperation at the end of a combat encounter/scene. That limits the Desperation use to combat solely and it's likely to see more play.

And if you thinking this is too much of a boon for the PCs, there is nothing stopping DMs from adding this feature to key bad guys, right?

Thoughts? Too much admin?

Aside from inspiration (which I like), I do like this idea of desperation. Bloddied is a clear trigger and the encounter is a good time limit for having it. Nice idea.

 

[payn]

Actually, I just had an idea pop in my head. I know a lot of folks would probably hate it but what if each pillar had a meta-currency? Inspiration for social pillar, desperation for combat pillar, and...ingenuity for exploration pillar? Each would have their own triggers and time limits. I would really dig that. Also, its all pretty easy to simply ignore if you dont like it.

 

[AnotherGuy]

The "metagamer" must have figured out the loop this creates: I portray my character, I get rewarded, and now I have a resource to increase my chances of success which I have to use before end of session. That's exactly what you want if your ultimate goal is more interesting portrayals of the characters during play. Why do you suppose the others didn't latch onto that?

It was a while ago and 2 players have changed since then and my memory of that session has faded. If I'd had to hazard a guess, I'd probably lay the blame at my feet for not pushing harder with such a new concept . We went back to the generic system 1-2 sessions later. I think its time I give it another go, especially now with 2 newer, eager roleplayers.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I was so used to using physical tokens for inspiration that I became very bad at it when we switched to gaming online, so likewise, I just start people off having inspiration.

I have everyone start every session with Inspiration. Unused Inspiration does not carry over from session to session. Inspiration can be used to reroll any roll, take an extra action, regain an expended spell slot (equal to half your proficiency bonus rounded up), or regain an expended resource or feature that can be used as if you took a short rest.

The idea here is that inspiration is used to perform heroic actions.

I found I was terrible at remembering to grant Inspiration. And I'll admit this is definitely not a perfect solution, but it seems to work for my groups.

I like the idea of Desperation at half HP. It certainly feels properly "trope-y." Another option I'm thinking about is borrowing from Kids on Bike's Adversity Tokens and giving Inspiration on a nat 1, not a nat 20.

 

[NotAYakk]

A good inspiration mechanic can't rely on the DM being responsible for managing the inspiration of the players. There is just too much to do as a DM.

The "get inspiration on a 20" is intended to have it show up at the table more often. Remember that the DM should only call for d20 tests when the result matters; this helps discourage the DM from asking for rolls just to think up a response. If the result of a failed d20 test is "well, you can try again, nothing happens of note" then the test shouldn't happen; so all d20 tests should have a negative consequence, hence the inspiration reward (on top of anything else) for a natural 20 is justified.

Despiration is interesting. If you look at games like FATE, they have things where players can get a temporary bonus in exchange for the DM being able to mess with the PC later. This is tied to flaws -- the idea is that the DM can activate a flaw using the meta-currency, and the player gets the ability to get a bonus in exchange, time-shifted (possibly either way!).

That works better when that is the primary DM mechanic (triggering flaws). That isn't D&D.

So I'd rather have PCs run inspiration independently.

One thought I'd have was giving PCs more bonds. They can trigger a bond for inspiration and strengthening the bond. Maybe a triggered bond can produce a save-DC against a compulsion as well.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

It was a while ago and 2 players have changed since then and my memory of that session has faded. If I'd had to hazard a guess, I'd probably lay the blame at my feet for not pushing harder with such a new concept . We went back to the generic system 1-2 sessions later. I think its time I give it another go, especially now with 2 newer, eager roleplayers.

Inspiration always gets forgotten...

BUT i have related experience. One of the powergamers I took this screen name for used to not like RP heavy sessions, he would half pay attention until the 'good part' Until I started dropping plot and rp boosts in... "Oh you made friends with X they can give you Y"

after a few games of watching role players getting big bonus things he started power gaming the RP too.

 

[iserith]

It was a while ago and 2 players have changed since then and my memory of that session has faded. If I'd had to hazard a guess, I'd probably lay the blame at my feet for not pushing harder with such a new concept . We went back to the generic system 1-2 sessions later. I think its time I give it another go, especially now with 2 newer, eager roleplayers.

I think part of it is also the amount and type of content the group gets through in a given session (and, naturally, session length). We play for 4 hours and it is jam-packed with the PCs doing stuff. Because we cover so much ground, there are of course a lot of rolls. Therefore, the incentive to earn and spend Inspiration may be higher than in other games I've seen that aren't moving at this pace.

This may also be related to stakes. My players know that if they're rolling, failure is going to be bad relative to the situation. So they have an incentive to have Inspiration banked in case they have to roll. Almost always Inspiration in my games are spent on saves and ability checks and only rarely on attack rolls (often to just offset disadvantage).

 

[Blue]

Instead I'm thinking of rebranding the mechanic as Desperation and a PC earns Desperation when one gains the Bloodied condition. You can only have 1 Desperation at any one time, however, the caveat being, the PC loses their Desperation at the end of a combat encounter/scene. That limits the Desperation use to combat solely and it's likely to see more play.

Please, PLEASE, don't lock getting this as a reward that can only happen in combat.

And for me, doing it so that it's only usable in combat, going away after, projects a lot about that DM's priorities that I would find as a mismatch for my own and would stay away from that game or any other the DM runs. Not because they are a bad DM, but because what I want from a game likely doesn't match with what they do.

 

[NotAYakk]

Please, PLEASE, don't lock getting this as a reward that can only happen in combat.

And for me, doing it so that it's only usable in combat, going away after, projects a lot about that DM's priorities that I would find as a mismatch for my own and would stay away from that game or any other the DM runs. Not because they are a bad DM, but because what I want from a game likely doesn't match with what they do.

I think the problem is that they view checks outside of combat as non-dangerous. And they treat them as if the player can invoke them at will.

Ie, "I try to jump really high" and the DM automatically says "roll a d20". They do this 20 times, get instance inspiration.

The thing is, the rules say that the DM decides when a check happens. And, with the "you get inspiration for 20", what that means is only call for a check when it matters. If every low roll results in a problem (in combat this is easy; you waste your turn. Out of combat, it means there have to be stakes that matter, like jumping over a pit), then 20 granting inspiration isn't a problem. Even "a bad roll on a knowledge check means you believe something false".

Ie, don't use d20 rolls as a way to settle arguments between the DM and Player. Use them to determine the result of something risky.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Please, PLEASE, don't lock getting this as a reward that can only happen in combat.

And for me, doing it so that it's only usable in combat, going away after, projects a lot about that DM's priorities that I would find as a mismatch for my own and would stay away from that game or any other the DM runs. Not because they are a bad DM, but because what I want from a game likely doesn't match with what they do.

I get your concerns, my thinking was more along the death spiral, there are some other ideas floating in my head regarding the bloodied condition. I'm going to revisit Iserith's idea for Inspiration which will encompass all pillars of the game.

Furthermore our table has unlocked hit dice spend for a few years now for additional uses of one's resources, which assists in every pillar. We have expanded on feats, added and modified. Abilities now see use for odd numbers. The next thing I want to tackle are skills and eventually weapons.

The idea is I'm hoping to have a 5e system I'm happy with so the next time we start from 0, we use this system that offers players more depth in choice but is still far simpler than 3.x and combats don't grind at high level as they did for us in 4e.

The idea with Desperation is that the resource will likely see use as opposed to Inspiration now which rarely sees use for primarily 2 reasons (i) saving it for something really important + (ii) I forgot I had it.
I've even resorted to handing out poker chips, like some others have done.