D&D (2024) How Would You Make Inspiration More Used?

[payn]

One thing that gamers might be at odds with is the idea of playing to faults and failures. D&D is power fantasy for a lot of folks and being rewarded for losing seems strange. I mean, in narrative game its how you earn XP, its how you are lead to play the game. In D&D thats through combat, exploration, and social pillars. Applications of your feats and skills are how you play your character, not by role playing their BIFTs. So, I would consider both the 20 and 1 rolls should net inspiration to encourage playing up both success and failure for the players. This encourages both the heroic nature of D&D, but also allows personality lowlights to also have a place in the game.

 

[Guest 7034872]

As a house rule, I let my players hoard their Inspiration Dice indefinitely, and then at any point in the game they can spend five such dice to level up, but only once in between the normal milestone leveling. I can attest this has led to players paying scrupulous attention to their Inspiration Dice.

 

[Hriston]

My best idea, as a DM, for encouraging use of inspiration, is to present situations to the players in which playing to their personal characteristics (TIBFs) will result in a complication and to award inspiration when they do so. Then, when a player spends their inspiration, to refocus the situation on their characteristics as quickly as possible to provide a steady flow of inspiration.

 

[Weiley31]

I mean, the way I house rule it is that Inspiration can be used to give the PC Advantage, an enemy Disadvantage, or using it as a 1D6 roll add-on. But then, I also allow PCs to store up to 3 inspiration. shrugs

 

[Bill Zebub]

In some campaigns I let it be spent after the roll. Players remember to use it then.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Two simple changes and the inspiration would flow like water. Remove the cap on inspiration (currently a binary, yes/no) and let players spend inspiration after a d20 roll (currently have to declare an inspiration spend before rolling).

These are both house rules we already have. Plus your inspiration resets to 1 at the start of each session, so you need to use it or lose it.

I would switch things around, so you get Inspiration on a Natural 1.

Another house rule we have.

I also let players decide if they are roleplaying their background to earn it. If they think so, they can go ahead and give themselves inspiration, it's not up to me.

 

[Sir Brennen]

In some campaigns I let it be spent after the roll. Players remember to use it then.

Yeah, failing a roll is a better prompt to remember you have Inspiration (or a helpful fellow player/GM mentioning it at that point), which is why we play it that way.

 

[CubicsRube]

I'm not running d&d currently, but i have thought of what house rules i'd make.

A big one would be that a character can once per session use one of their BIFTs to gain advantage on a roll that relates to it. Each BIFT can be used once. So that's up to 5 advantages per session. The onus is on the player to remind us. "I'm claiming advantage on thus CHA check as my bond with my elder statesman grandmother has made me extra charming".

 

[CubicsRube]

I would switch things around, so you get Inspiration on a Natural 1.

You auto-failed but hey there’s now a bright side: you have Inspiration for later.

I'm a fan of reverse spiral mechanics, they can encourage some tense situations. I'd also add in that another party member can gain inspiration if an ally goes down in a fight.

On uses, another thought I had would be to expend an inspiration to deal max damage. I could see that getting some use.

 

[payn]

I'm not running d&d currently, but i have thought of what house rules i'd make.

A big one would be that a character can once per session use one of their BIFTs to gain advantage on a roll that relates to it. Each BIFT can be used once. So that's up to 5 advantages per session. The onus is on the player to remind us. "I'm claiming advantage on thus CHA check as my bond with my elder statesman grandmother has made me extra charming".

I like this at first glance, problem is it seems a bit repetitive. I mean, if you want your game and characters to feel like something out of episodic television, this actually works really well. It can potentially turn characters into caricatures, which is going to be a taste thing on it being good or not.