D&D 5E doing more with inspiration

[pukunui]

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.

That's what I was doing when I was trying out the Angry DM's variant (which is very much based on FATE). A link is in the OP.

I still found myself not using it as much as I could have. Partly because many of the PCs' traits weren't built with active invoking/compelling in mind, so it was hard to find ways to use them in the game. Partly because, as I've said, every PC has five traits and it can be difficult to keep them all straight when you're busy keeping track of so many other things - and I've even got them written out on tent cards that I hang on my DM screen. I think maybe it works better in FATE because that game is actually built around aspects. They're the bread and butter of the game. With D&D, the traits are just sort of tacked on. They're extra and aren't really that integral to the way the game functions, so it's easy to not pay much attention to them.

 

[Coffinthrower]

I've added items that can trigger inspiration earning, such as a green dragon dagger, which offers inspiration for an instance of betrayal, mirroring the green dragon's tendencies.

I agree that inspiration needs something more. Either more hard baked into character creation, or even possibly into monster's stat blocks as a hard choice pc's have to make because of something the monster can do.

 

[the Jester]

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?

I've been considering magic items that expand the uses of inspiration.

 

[jayoungr]

I'd like to offer a contrary viewpoint: I hate inspiration and prefer not to use it at all. It turns roleplaying into a competitive and frankly stressful exercise. The thought of being mechanically hamstrung because I can't come up with something to do that will wow the DM (or the entire table, if I have to impress the other players enough to make them give me cookies) is a nightmare.

You mention Force Points in Star Wars Saga Edition, but the difference there is that every player gets a certain number to spend whenever he/she levels up. There are no hoops to jump through to get them.

 

[pukunui]

[MENTION=6702445]jayoungr[/MENTION]: That's partly what attracted me to Angry's variant. By making inspiration and personal characteristics work more like fate points and aspects from FATE, you take away the hoop-jumping to a certain extent. You don't need to impress the DM or your fellow players. You just need to find a way to apply one of your traits to the situation and then you can spend inspiration. The DM also gains the ability to compel your character to act according to their flaws and such. It's a great mechanic for a story-driven system like FATE. I can see how it might not work so well in a game like D&D, especially when it's not as integral a part of the core rules as aspects are in FATE.

As for SWSE's Fate Points ... 5e has them too, in the form of the optional Hero Points. I thought about using them, but I think they step on the toes of the bard's Bardic Inspiration too much, so I'm not going to. I ran the Pathfinder Hero Points mechanic past my players and they liked the sound of being able to do more with inspiration than just gain advantage, so we're going to try that.