D&D 5E Does your group use inspiration? If not, why not?

[Fauchard1520]

Just to clarify, I'm talking about Inspiration rather than Bardic Inspiration:

Typically, DMs award [inspiration] when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way.

I come from Exalted and Savage Worlds, where meta currencies like "stunt dice" and "bennies" are handed out like candy, allowing players to gain mechanical benefits for doing cool stuff. However, I tend to see a lot of resistance to the concept in 5e. These mechanics always struck me as a good way to encourage creativity and RP, which seems like a positive thing. Hence today's question: If you tend to ignore Inspiration in your games, why?

(Comic for illustrative purposes.)

 

[iserith]

Absolutely. It's a great mechanic for encouraging players to play to established characteristics. It's a bit cumbersome for the DM as written, so I have a way of dealing with it which is fair and offers no overhead to the DM. See The Case for Inspiration. This is very commonly lifted from my games and ported to other games once people see it in action.

 

[jayoungr]

I very rarely use it, but that's because I've had bad experiences with games that use "bennies." Specifically, Tenra Bansho Zero, in which the currency you have to use to power all your actions comes from other players. I was in a group with two other players who made wacky, over-the-top characters, while I made a character who sounded fun to me but ended up being the "straight man" of the group. The other two spent the whole session trying to top each other's hijinks and giving each other resources every time they laughed. Meanwhile, I was unable to generate enough resources to do anything, apart from the occasional "pity bennie" from one of the other two. It was one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever had, and it has made me allergic to any mechanic that decrees, "Dance for me and I shall give you food ... IF your dance is up to my standards."

On the rare occasions that I do use inspiration, I use it more as a bribe, like compelling an aspect in FATE: "I'll give you inspiration if your dislike of authority figures leads you to make trouble in this scene."

 

[commandercrud]

Never. I'm not going to reward players for doing what players should be doing anyway.

 

[ART!]

Sort of? Sometimes?

Basically, when we remember to: if the DM thinks of it, and then if the player remembers they have it.

When my group goes back to face-to-face gaming, I want to represent Inspiration with a physical token of some kind (I lean toward a special, larger-than-average d20 that the DM hands to the player). Maybe that will help? We'll see.

I kind of like the idea of the player who uses their Inspiration die then hands it to the player who they think did something cool very recently, and so on.

 

[prabe]

Nope. Traits, ideals, et al., are tools for the player. The addition to those of Inspiration is weak-sauce Fate-lite, and Fate was almost enough to ruin TRPGs for me (it's not about Fate being good or bad, just about Fate being bad for me). Haven't needed it, don't miss it.

 

[ZeshinX]

As a regular thing? No. For moments of sheer and complete joyful surprise when everyone at the table had their jaw hit the floor from the actions of one or several of the PCs? Sure, though not with any specific bonus as defined in the PHB. It'll be some boon appropriate to the thing that caused the joyful surprise, in whatever fashion feels fitting and usually something that benefits all in the party.

It's exceedingly rare, but has happened a handful of times in the 30 years I've been playing.

We've also houseruled various other boons across the editions (minus 4e, we skipped it as it wasn't our cup of tea). One that stands out was saving throws...if a player rolled a natural 20 on their save, we had them roll again and if they rolled another natural 20 they would become immune/unaffected by the specific trigger that called for the saving throw for the rest of that character's "life" (wildly unbalanced, but fun, since it only ever happened once in those 30 years).

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

I give one out at the beginning of each session. I use them similar to FATE points in that they can spend them for advantage where their character traits might apply. I also don't award them for 'cool' factor or rp. I award them when their traits make the story more interesting and/or complicate their goals. Players can reward inspiration to other players for any reason they like. I'm also ok with them having more than 1.

That said, they don't get used often and the players often forget they have them. Which is weird because, when I play, I always use it when I need it.

 

[tommybahama]

Yes, we use it but our DM often forgets about giving it out. Some YouTuber (maybe Zipperon Disney or Professor DM?) had a video saying they have a system where players reward the inspiration which I liked. I also think it should be used as a chance to re-roll a die roll since 90% of the time people ask to use it after the first roll fails and the DM always says, "Yes, but next time you have to declare it before the roll..." for the umteenth time.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

All the time. My goal is to have everyone have inspiration because the players are all continually doing stuff that is just plain cool, entertaining the table, or role-playing their characters very well.

When we could game in person, I would always use physical inspiration tokens. One of the few difficult things for me in the switch to gaming online has been not having that physical reminder to hand it out and for the player to remember they have it.