Ideas for Improving Inspiration

[CapnZapp]

In another thread some of the (perceived) shortcomings of Inspiration came up

Angry GM did a thorough analysis of everywhere WotC's implementation went wrong. From that I refined a replacement set of rules. Explaining and justifying them are - I feel - out of scope for this thread. Either ask me or hunt down the original threads here at ENWorld

Inspiration
You either have or do not have Inspiration (feel free to use a marker as a reminder). You start every play session with Inspiration. When you have used your Inspiration, you may decide to regain Inspiration. If you don't, you will still regain it at the start of the next play session.


Using Inspiration
When you have Inspiration, you may use it on your turn. When you do, you get a +5 bonus on any single die roll, and you may additionally move up to 20 feet. You must decide before you roll. The movement is extra and does not trigger attacks of opportunity.

To use Inspiration, motivate and describe your action using one of your Traits, Bonds, Ideals or Flaws.


Regaining Inspiration
You regain Inspiration by giving in to your Flaws. You can do this in one of two ways:
• You allow your Flaw to distract you when taking an important action by taking Disadvantage on a significant d20 roll that would otherwise not have it.
• You allow your Flaw to control you by taking an impulsive and dangerous action you would otherwise not have taken.

Motivate and describe your action using one of your Flaws.

 

[Blue]

I've mentioned before that I let the players hand it out, and that takes care fo remembering it.

But if you are looking for a modification suggestion, use it more like compels in FATE. Keep a list of flaws and bonds (only), and not just reward them when the player intentionally triggers them, but also when something in-character but not-the-brightest comes up make it known you have it ready.

This helps people play more interesting, flawed characters. It also helps break the mindset that mechanically the only thing rewarded is character success. When character success is the only success rewarded in the rules (XP, loot, etc.), it trains players to always shoot for it.

 

[iserith]

I wrote a post about this a while back with a way of handling Inspiration that is very simple and fun:

The Case for Inspiration.

 

[robus]

Angry GM did a thorough analysis of everywhere WotC's implementation went wrong. From that I refined a replacement set of rules. Explaining and justifying them are - I feel - out of scope for this thread. Either ask me or hunt down the original threads here at ENWorld

Inspiration
You either have or do not have Inspiration (feel free to use a marker as a reminder). You start every play session with Inspiration. When you have used your Inspiration, you may decide to regain Inspiration. If you don't, you will still regain it at the start of the next play session.


Using Inspiration
When you have Inspiration, you may use it on your turn. When you do, you get a +5 bonus on any single die roll, and you may additionally move up to 20 feet. You must decide before you roll. The movement is extra and does not trigger attacks of opportunity.

To use Inspiration, motivate and describe your action using one of your Traits, Bonds, Ideals or Flaws.


Regaining Inspiration
You regain Inspiration by giving in to your Flaws. You can do this in one of two ways:
• You allow your Flaw to distract you when taking an important action by taking Disadvantage on a significant d20 roll that would otherwise not have it.
• You allow your Flaw to control you by taking an impulsive and dangerous action you would otherwise not have taken.

Motivate and describe your action using one of your Flaws.

I’ve adopted a similar approach after reading Angry’s analysis, though my players rarely use Inspiration. When they do they sadly never try to regain inspiration. My players don’t seem too invested in their characters as rounded individuals, they treat them more like pawns moving through the game world, which is fine but it means this mechanic doesn’t appeal as much as it might.

 

[Laurefindel]

My favourite way to play with inspiration is when players claim their own inspiration for themselves. Otherwise as a DM I don't always think of it, or don't always realise that this situation applies for this player's trait etc. Same when other players give inspiration to each other, not all players are equally good at it.

my preferred approach is to have each player write their traits on four separate cue cards. When they role play their trait, they raise their cue card, announce to all that they claim inspiration, and put this cue card away for this game, for a possibility of 4 inspiration per game.

[edit] ...which is what [MENTION=97077]iserith[/MENTION] from two posts above wrote in his own tread!

 

[iserith]

It still boggles my mind to hear that players forget about this mechanic in other groups. It's advantage in your back pocket whenever you need it for almost no real cost. That's pretty darn good in my view for mitigating risk on that attack roll, saving throw, or ability check you absolutely have to make in the moment. And in groups that use it as a salty re-roll, it's arguably even better.

I ran a session for a West Marches style game last night for two of my regulars and three randos. My regulars earned and spent Inspiration three times each. The randos did it twice each. So that was at least 12 times in the 4-hour session of someone portraying his or her character in a clever way and at least 12 times we had a build up of drama around an important roll, or once every 20 minutes. And I guarantee if those randos end up in my next session, they'll up their game and use it as much as my regulars.

If someone has a theory as to why players in other groups are forgetting about this mechanic, I'd love to hear it.

 

[Laurefindel]

If someone has a theory as to why players in other groups are forgetting about this mechanic, I'd love to hear it.

My guess is culture. It's not yet engraved in D&D's culture to have an active mechanics base on role play (beyond the few things that interact with alignment) like a lot of newer generation games do. Personally, I think inspiration (along with personality traits) is the single most "revolutionary" element of 5e.

I think that if class abilities where based off inspiration, either in a " spend inspiration to use X feature" or in a "as long as you have inspiration, you can X", inspiration would take a much more forward role.

 

[iserith]

My guess is culture. It's not yet engraved in D&D's culture to have an active mechanics base on role play (beyond the few things that interact with alignment) like a lot of newer generation games do. Personally, I think inspiration (along with personality traits) is the single most "revolutionary" element of 5e.

I think that if class abilities where based off inspiration, either in a " spend inspiration to use X feature" or in a "as long as you have inspiration, you can X", inspiration would take a much more forward role.

When I ran Sunless Citadel recently (TftYP), I set it up where you had a character and a backup character. You earned Inspiration as I described in my "Case for Inspiration" thread, but when you spend it, it had to be on someone else's failed roll and this added +1d6 to it. At the same time, your backup character earned a set amount of XP. The idea here was that the backup characters were in the Yawning Portal telling the story of the "active" characters' adventure and spending Inspiration was someone's backup PC telling other backup PCs, "That's not how I remember it..."

This was wildly successful in getting the players to earn and spend all their Inspiration in a given session. Guaranteed 20 Inspiration earned and spent in a 3-hour session across 5 players. As soon as someone failed a roll, the players were racing to be the one to say "That's not how I remember it!" It was hilarious and fun and played up a group of background characters arguing over the details of a story. It arguably encouraged the players to pay more attention to what other people are doing as well. I probably won't do this outside of running TftYP adventures, but it sure was fun.

 

[robus]

That’s an inspired way to run those adventures!

 

[robus]

That’s an inspired way to run those adventures!

Ha, I’m only now getting the unintended pun!