D&D (2024) Inspiration From Nat 20 Will Bog Down The Game

[pnewman]

I don't agree that any large majority of players is going to "naturally" do anything that impedes the flow of the game. Do your players constantly use Help actions and guidance at each and every skill check at your table, or do they trot those out for only very critical checks that carry significant weight?

In a good game anything the game lets you do is built into the math of the game. Therefore either D&D 5th and One D&D are not good games OR the players are supposed to spam Guidance on every single roll they can and it is already built into the math.
Thus we can logically conclude that, in One D&D, players are meant to spam for Inspiration constantly, almost always have Inspiration, and then apply it to every roll that matters. Thus, when One D&D players loose their Inspiration every morning, they are supposed to immediately start doing trivial things, pressure the DM into leting them roll for them, and all gain Inspiration as soon as they can every morning. One possible way that they could do this, if their DM says No to their rolling for trivial skill checks, is by attacking and killing random Commoners. Doing the math if four PC's each murder 50 Commoners every morning, using attack rolls to do so, then they are almost sure to have each rolled a 20 during the process, gaining Inspiration. Then they just kill the big bad (the other big bad, now that they are all serial mass killers) that same day, spening their Inspiration to make it easier.

Or they could just be an all-human party, but that will never happen....

 

[JiffyPopTart]

In a good game anything the game lets you do is built into the math of the game. Therefore either D&D 5th and One D&D are not good games OR the players are supposed to spam Guidance on every single roll they can and it is already built into the math.
Thus we can logically conclude that, in One D&D, players are meant to spam for Inspiration constantly, almost always have Inspiration, and then apply it to every roll that matters. Thus, when One D&D players loose their Inspiration every morning, they are supposed to immediately start doing trivial things, pressure the DM into leting them roll for them, and all gain Inspiration as soon as they can every morning. One possible way that they could do this, if their DM says No to their rolling for trivial skill checks, is by attacking and killing random Commoners. Doing the math if four PC's each murder 50 Commoners every morning, using attack rolls to do so, then they are almost sure to have each rolled a 20 during the process, gaining Inspiration. Then they just kill the big bad (the other big bad, now that they are all serial mass killers) that same day, spening their Inspiration to make it easier.

Or they could just be an all-human party, but that will never happen....

If you goal was "Say a lot of words and have no discernable point" then kudos to you good sir/ma'am.

I honestly can't tell if you are trying to comment on easy inspiration as being good, bad, or if even if it's relevant to what you wrote at all.

 

[pnewman]

If you goal was "Say a lot of words and have no discernable point" then kudos to you good sir/ma'am.

I honestly can't tell if you are trying to comment on easy inspiration as being good, bad, or if even if it's relevant to what you wrote at all.

Too long, didn't understand? Let me rephrase - "Players are supposed to do whatever the game lets them do. Therefore if One D&D lets players use Inspiration all the time then the game is now supposed to be about doing whatever it takes to have Inspiration."

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Too long, didn't understand? Let me rephrase - "Players are supposed to do whatever the game lets them do. Therefore if One D&D lets players use Inspiration all the time then the game is now supposed to be about doing whatever it takes to have Inspiration."

The game lets me put a 3 in my most important stat and still play. Am I supposed to be doing that because it's an option?

But you didn't answer the question...do the players at your table use guidance on every single check in the game it can be used?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Pick a fight > roll many d20 > pass Inspiration to allies > everybody has Inspiration.

It sounds a bit like the early suggestion of freely awarding advantage to players who did a good roleplay of what they were doing, which pretty much leads to advantage bloat.

Inspiration on a nat 20 is one of the biggest dealbreakers for me, they'd better present it as an optional rule. In my games I either don't use Inspiration at all, or use it very scarcily (typically only as a consolation prize to a player who purposefully made a sacrifice to save another or to roleplay a flaw of their PC, etc...). It's part of our playstyle. This rule forces everyone to use Inspiration.

Yep. You just convinced me.

I think inspiration is a cool game design idea, but I also liked it being fundamentally semi-optional and a matter of DM discretion. And the bad news is that while the inspiration on nat20s rule is clearly easily ignoreable, the playtest also encourages players to make race and feat choices that secure more of it for them (and give every player who just wants to play a human because they are a human inspiration every morning). Doubtlessly it will be embedded in various spells and class features before all is done. Thus it won't be an ignoreable rule without taking something away from players in fundamentally unbalanced ways.

So while I can imagine "nat20" inspiration being demoted to optional rule status, inspiration in general is probably going to be pretty deeply embedded in this system unless they make a major change from what seems to be the direction they plan to take it.

 

[Mistwell]

I don't agree that any large majority of players is going to "naturally" do anything that impedes the flow of the game. Do your players constantly use Help actions and guidance at each and every skill check at your table, or do they trot those out for only very critical checks that carry significant weight?

I didn't say or imply large majority. I went on to talk about how it's often just one or two but that will incentivize others to follow as they gain benefits from it.

And yes our players use guidance at every point where they can benefit from it and get it in there. The Help action is more for familiars, who use it very often. And no, this isn't for only significant checks. And that's with three different groups with almost no overlapping players. And Guidance spamming is a topic we've discussed here before that is an issue for some, so I a pretty sure it's not as unknown as you imply. It is after all a game - which attracts some people who like games and rules.

 

[Mistwell]

The game lets me put a 3 in my most important stat and still play. Am I supposed to be doing that because it's an option?

That was a pretty disingenuous response. He shouldn't need to state "because inspiration helps you do things better" for you to respond in that kind of context. I mean, were you just trying to pick a fight by misrepresenting his position? Not sure what he said to trigger that kind of thing.

He's right. Some meaningful portion of players will naturally tend to do things which gain them BENEFITS in the game. A three in your ability score isn't that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

That was a pretty disingenuous response. He shouldn't need to state "because inspiration helps you do things better" for you to respond in that kind of context. I mean, were you just trying to pick a fight by misrepresenting his position? Not sure what he said to trigger that kind of thing.

He's right. Some meaningful portion of players will naturally tend to do things which gain them BENEFITS in the game. A three in your ability score isn't that.

That's an issue with quality of players, not quality of the game system.

5e rewards players stopping every 5' of travel and saying "I look around for any danger" or every 5' of hallway and stating "I'm looking on all the walls, floor, and ceiling for traps." but doing so would grind the game to a halt.

5e also rewards players for taking a short rest after ever single expenditure of resources unless there is an imposed time limit on them.

In actual play neith of these two things happen, because players and GMs need the game to move at a certain pace.

Hand wringing about constant stupid die rolls to fish for inspiration strikes me as similar to the above two scenarios.

 

[Mistwell]

That's an issue with quality of players, not quality of the game system.

So now you're saying players who seek to gain benefits in the game are low quality players?

I'll ask again, why are you trying to pick a fight? What about this conversation makes you think that level of discourse is called for here?

5e rewards players stopping every 5' of travel and saying "I look around for any danger" or every 5' of hallway and stating "I'm looking on all the walls, floor, and ceiling for traps." but doing so would grind the game to a halt.

5e also rewards players for taking a short rest after ever single expenditure of resources unless there is an imposed time limit on them.

In actual play neith of these two things happen, because players and GMs need the game to move at a certain pace.

There are many MANY places where you can see people talking about 5 minute work days and the overly frequent use of short rests. So much so that it's expected WOTC are trying to eliminate short rests except for use of hit dice in part because of that issue. If it's not an issue in your game, that doesn't mean it's not a meaningful issue.

Hand wringing about constant stupid die rolls to fish for inspiration strikes me as similar to the above two scenarios.

Well then I guess it's a real issue. Because, as I said, the concept of players seeking more frequent short rests due to burst damage from some classes is a very real issue for a lot of games and not an inconsequential issue.

 

[Bill Zebub]

So now you're saying players who seek to gain benefits in the game are low quality players?

Yet another case of taking somebody’s statement to a logically consistent but by no means inevitable extreme end point and prefacing it with “So you’re saying that…”

Disingenuous rhetoric. 10 yard penalty. @Sabathius42’s ball. First down.