D&D 5E doing more with inspiration

[pukunui]

Sounds like you want a resource managed completely by the players that is DM's hands free.

Probably. I like the sound of the "Only Players Award Inspiration" variant from the DMG (pg 241). That being said, I still also like the idea of allowing inspiration to do more than just grant advantage (if for no other reason than to encourage my players to actually use it more often!).

 

[Quickleaf]

Probably. I like the sound of the "Only Players Award Inspiration" variant from the DMG (pg 241). That being said, I still also like the idea of allowing inspiration to do more than just grant advantage (if for no other reason than to encourage my players to actually use it more often!).

You may notice that most players only invest themselves in what matters for their character. For example, a player chooses to play a monk PC - you better believe they'll pay attention to their Ki Points. Because Ki Points let them do monk-ly things!

For example, [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s great idea to use Inspiration-fueled Planescape faction abilities follows the same thesis. Presumably players in a Planescape game choose to play a member of a certain faction (Xaositects for example) because they want to do Xaositect-ly things. Inspiration, in KM's model, lets them do that! So you can bet they'll pay attention to Inspiration.

What you may be noticing Inspiration is failing short or being forgotten in your group is that it is a generic mechanic. If it's not helping your monk be monkly or wizard be wizardly in a tangible way, many players just won't care. They file it under the broad category of "rules the DM can remember for me."

I would suggest extending this model to your players. Not knowing them or their tastes, I can only suggest you apply it as you see fit.

 

[pukunui]

Hmm. OK. That sounds somewhat appealing. I'd have to come up with inspiration-themed benefits for each of the default backgrounds in the PHB, but I think I could probably manage that - or I could just crib some from Kamakaze's Planescape faction backgrounds. That would certainly be a start. That still kinda limits what you can do with inspiration to just one other thing besides gaining advantage, though.

I really like the idea of letting inspiration have multiple effects. I think *that* might actually get my players to want to use it more. If they know they can use it to stave off death, or to regain a used spell slot, or something like that.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Some ideas from the cutting room floor of my Inspiration-as-faction-ability thought:

• Inspiration-powered magic items (possibly Intelligent)
• You can gain more than one Inspiration at a time, and spend them all at once for BIG BOOMS
• Inspiration as "Legendary Lite" (spend to use an action at the end of an enemy's turn or succeed in a save you'd otherwise fail)
• Inspiration as "Lair Actions" (spend to cause some environmental effect on Init 20).
• Inspiration as "Boss Weakness Juice" (can't hurt this enemy unless you have Inspiration!)
• Inspiration as bonus XP (similar to class-specific XP from earlier e's).
• Inspiration as relationships - you can only spend them on party members who are close friends or rivals.

Each of these have their own little flubs and issues for why they didn't work great for PS factions, but it might be worth breathing some life into them if your group is really attracted by something. Extra actions are appealing and broad, bonus XP works for an "XP and GP" focused group, a group that is more into the "story" might like an Inspiration-fuelled magic item with an agenda.

One thing that may also be useful in general for Inspiration is to crib a bit from FATE: offer it.

Say you know your party's monk is kind of a drunkard. When they're in town for the night, just say, "Okay, Bridget, if your character Lydia gets blasted on elven wine tonight, you can have Inspiration..." and then watch as everyone scrambles to figure out what's going on tonight where the DM might want to have Bridget out of the picture.

 

[Queer Venger]

Hi all,

I haven't been entirely happy with the way the inspiration mechanic in 5e works. I like the idea of it, but I've found that it was just one too many things for me to keep track of during play.

Since most of my players are familiar with FATE, we tried the Angry DM's variant inspiration rules (options 1, 9 and 10) ... but we're still not used to it, so we haven't used it much ... and I'm still not sure it addresses the fundamental issue I have with inspiration.

That is, I'm just not sure tying inspiration to advantage is the way to go. I think that's kind of boring, especially since there are so many other ways to get advantage in the game already.

I think it would be more fun if inspiration let you do other things besides just gain advantage. What if you could spend inspiration to regain an expended spell slot or to gain another use of an ability that normally only recharges on a short rest? What if you could spend inspiration to automatically stabilize yourself when you're dying? What if you could spend inspiration to deal max damage on a crit?

SWSE's Force Points mechanic worked in a similar fashion to this. It also let you roll a d6 and add that to a d20 roll. (No doubt the inspiration for the optional Hero Point rule in the 5e DMG.) SWSE also had the optional (and much rarer - more like inspiration) Destiny Points. They let you do things like automatically score a crit, cause an attack against you to automatically miss, take the damage meant for someone else within your reach, and so on.

Anyone got any thoughts on this? Anyone tried anything like this already?

Thanks in advance!

Cheers,
Jonathan

Jonathan, Ive been dealing with similar issues but once I began letting players share their inspiration points Ive seen a much more cooperative experience at my tables, (DMG). Im now treating Inspiration as a party resource, so I give players Tokens, (I use campaign coins D20 coin). Players will then pool their coins in a bundle and whenever a player needs it, the other players must award it to that player. Its working great and its not being abused.

 

[Jester David]

Yes. As I said above, I've got some gold d20s that I've been handing out to the players when they have inspiration. The thing is: remembering who's got inspiration and who hasn't isn't really the issue. For me, when I was using the default 5e rule, it was simply having to watch out for instances where the players were playing to their characters' traits and were thus deserving of inspiration. We're talking about having to keep about twenty-odd different traits in mind while you're playing. I ended up just telling them that I'd generally only focus on their flaws and it was up to them to petition me for the other traits. Needless to say, it still didn't end up getting used much. Perhaps part of the problem is that my players still just aren't used to the idea of the mechanic in the first place.

Personality traits are for the players, not the DM.
The personality traits are there to give the players a fallback when they're uncertain how to react to play their character in a certain situation. They're guidelines.

As a DM you just need to have a feel for your players and they're in-character versus just being themselves, and known when they're acting and making decisions in-character. When they're roleplaying well, whether guided by their traits or not, give them inspiration. Especially if they make a decision they don't want to make but their character would.

 

[GMMichael]

When they're roleplaying well, whether guided by their traits or not, give them inspiration. Especially if they make a decision they don't want to make but their character would.

Thank you. The best clue that someone's roleplaying well is when you think "I wouldn't have done that!" That's because the player is playing his character, not himself. Award inspiration!

Inspiration shouldn't be a DM chore at all, especially because each character just gets one. You don't have to worry about giving out too much. Hand it out like candy. +1 to Kamikaze too: he said "offer," I say "bribe." Want a character to make a tough call? Offer inspiration as a reward.

Players have only one good reason to not use inspiration: they're afraid it won't be there when they need it. It's what, a free +5 to your roll, statistically speaking? Why wouldn't they want that? If you start telling a player "you gain inspiration," several times while he's saving it for later, he'll realize that maybe he CAN use it, and gain another one later.

 

[pukunui]

I think what I'm going to do have inspiration work like Pathfinder's Hero Points. They can spend them to gain a variety of different effects, including advantage.

I'll also look at using the "Only Players Award Inspiration" variant from the DMG.

 

[Quickleaf]

Some ideas from the cutting room floor of my Inspiration-as-faction-ability thought:

• Inspiration-powered magic items (possibly Intelligent)
• You can gain more than one Inspiration at a time, and spend them all at once for BIG BOOMS
• Inspiration as "Legendary Lite" (spend to use an action at the end of an enemy's turn or succeed in a save you'd otherwise fail)
• Inspiration as "Lair Actions" (spend to cause some environmental effect on Init 20).
• Inspiration as "Boss Weakness Juice" (can't hurt this enemy unless you have Inspiration!)
• Inspiration as bonus XP (similar to class-specific XP from earlier e's).
• Inspiration as relationships - you can only spend them on party members who are close friends or rivals.

Each of these have their own little flubs and issues for why they didn't work great for PS factions, but it might be worth breathing some life into them if your group is really attracted by something. Extra actions are appealing and broad, bonus XP works for an "XP and GP" focused group, a group that is more into the "story" might like an Inspiration-fuelled magic item with an agenda.

One thing that may also be useful in general for Inspiration is to crib a bit from FATE: offer it.

Say you know your party's monk is kind of a drunkard. When they're in town for the night, just say, "Okay, Bridget, if your character Lydia gets blasted on elven wine tonight, you can have Inspiration..." and then watch as everyone scrambles to figure out what's going on tonight where the DM might want to have Bridget out of the picture.

I realize pukunui you've found something that will work for your group, but KM dang those are some inspired ideas!

I actually made a monster (a Muse) that had a recharging attack that was absolutely devastating if you DID NOT have Inspiration. Corner case scenario, but just goes to show there's lots of cool stuff that can be done with Inspiration thinking out-of-the-box.

 

[Jester David]

Another idea is treating Inspiration like compels in FATE. Keep a cheat sheet of Personality Traits and the like, and when they're in a relevant point in the story throw inspiration at them to play in character. Proactively reward roleplaying. Or they can refuse the inspiration and role play how they want.

Because it's induced, you can plan it in advance. Making the workload easier.