D&D 5E What 5e rule/option/class do you wish you saw in play MORE?

[Blue]

I plan to hit this hard the next time I DM. I hope to throw inspiration around like candy for people playing their concept and doing cool things in character.

Starting back when I was running 3.0, I let players reward other players with poker chips for good RP, which we worth extra shares of the RP XP I gave for that session. Because it was shares it wasn't abusable - if people gave out and received double the amount of chips they got, for example, 6/30th of the RP XP instead of 4/20th - more shares but each share smaller. But my current group are well trained because of doing that for years and my plan when my current campaign ends (13th Age, started before 5e was out) that when running 5e just let players police it and give them out to other players so they get given out frequently and even if I miss something because my attention is on another part of running the game. If it gets to be a problem the address it, but just trust we're adults.

 

[pukunui]

The downtime activities! No matter how much I dangle them in front of my players, they rarely bite.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Probably inspiration. Never remember to award, players never remember to ask for it, and when they earn it, never remember to use. But I think it's a great idea. Wish we could remember it more often.

 

[Kobold Stew]

Inspiration.

I've had it used in maybe 30% of the games I've played. I know there were initially fears it would be abused, but it really works. Good suggestion.

The ranger player in the party loved it, and refused part with it even after coming across a longbow +2.

That's exactly the way it should work! Just great.

 

[Yaarel]

Heh, now I am wondering about using inspiration points to spend on plot points?



A big yes to everything that makes magic items more colorful, especially attending to the mutual bond during attunement.

I was leaning toward implementing Arcana checks to ‘identify’ magical properties during attunement. But now, I think the idea is better, to have attunement plug into full access and full knowledge ... but thus also bond with whatever magical ‘impulse’ and ‘purpose’ that brought the magic item into existence.

 

[Xaelvaen]

The downtime activities! No matter how much I dangle them in front of my players, they rarely bite.

You could try my trick, if you think it would assist you and your group. During character creation, I ask players what sorts of downtimes they have - do they like gambling, crafting, etc, etc, and I remind them vehemently during creation that these will be important.

Usually at least once during a campaign, I'll make a downtime part of the main adventure - like, they need to wait 2 weeks before an event will happen and they need to carouse to be part of the community by the time it does, or they need to create items (based on aforementioned crafts) in order to properly find an opening to gain the information they need.

Example: In a magical-technology world, there was a nation that held a Technology Invitational (sort of like E3), and the only chance the characters had at getting to the Big Bad, was through having an item the judges would deem worthy of an invitation. Of course, during character creation, one of them decided he was an inventor during his youth, and still tinkered while on the road. Another said that while she had no expertise in the manufacturing of such things, she loved collecting them in her travels (thus she had a great idea of what would draw people's attention). They worked together, with the rest of the party assisting for speed, to create a free-floating orb that could record, with magical precision, the events that happened around it in a 120ft Dome, one direction at a time.

 

[cbwjm]

Inspiration. Finally, some mechanical support for how you envision your character. Follow up on your flaws or do something foolhardy because the cause means that much and the system supports it.

*EVERY* 5e game I've been in has been DMed by people who have been playing D&D for a long time and it's absolutely ignored. Even when in session 0 I've brought it up I've gotten a speech about "I won't use it for anything relating to your characters' RP, but I might give it out for doing something overwhelmingly awesome" - which translated to never in about 30 sessions.

It is, by a landslide, the new rule in 5e that I am the most stoked about seeing, and yet it has never once come into play with multiple DMs and campaigns. It has been invisibly house ruled away - not even worth mentioning changed when talking about house rules, just removed silently unless someone specifically asks about it.

I often forget to give out inspiration and when they have it, the players often forget to use it.

 

[Yaarel]

Poker chips for inspiration?

 

[Mort]

Poker chips for inspiration?

That's what we do with Deadlands, should work great with 5e.

Sent from my SM-G930V using EN World mobile app

 

[Yaarel]

[MENTION=762]Mort[/MENTION],

In your thread, you require players during character creation to think about why they are working together as a team. In one game they were all Knights of the Silver Flame, in an other, they all worked for a University.

This ‘team creation’ as part of character creation helps players invest in the setting, which in turn, makes downtime activities in the context of that setting more meaningful, with regard to what players might need to do, and how to do it.