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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7427628" data-attributes="member: 5142">One of the core problems, IMHO, is that even if you expanded the Inspiration Bonds system, it would still be a mostly secondary to the core game. As such, the amount of effort that you need to put in to making Inspiration Bonds work as a more critical player-facing world-building mechanic may not be worth the gains. You could definitely use Inspiration Bonds to world-build, and it may be worth looking into it for players to think more about their characters. However, this process in 5e is undoubtedly more detached from the core mechanics and character creation process than it is in Fate, where it is an explicit part of the Social Contract of its gameplay. Inspiration is not given much elucidation or support in 5e. It ties itself primarily to Background and so, in some regards, it is narrower in its scope and application. Furthermore, it's also an issue of how these player aspects in Fate empower additional player-facing "world-building" in play, but I will get to that later. My impression here is that the Inspiration Bond system is so haphazardly vestigial to 5E that it is often not a matter of whether "the player and GM choose to ignore them," but, rather, whether "the player and GM choose to include them." I think that this latter point is more often than not a better representation of how Inspiration-Bonds play out at most tables: a proportionately equal afterthought to playing the core game. You could agree upon nearly anything that you want for your character's backstory. This is equally true for both 5e D&D and Fate, so much that it borders on a tautology. Yet there are a few pretty big critical differences here between 5e and Fate. IME, I would say that Fate's comparative "meat" in this regards, however, comes from the 1) mechanical prominence, 2) degree of empowerment, and 3) play consistency and frequency of these systems. But these three dimensions are intricately tied, so I can speak of them together with some contrast with D&D 5e, since that seems to be our comparison point. As I said before, the Inspiration-Bond mechanic is more vestigial to character creation in 5e. In contrast, Aspects (e.g., High Concept, Trouble, etc.) are character creation in Fate. Your aspects define who you are or, alternatively, how you define yourself. The core of your character concept are these aspects, particularly the High Concept and Trouble, which are primary pumps of your character concept's "heart" and the Fate point economy. The game book encourages you to build setting in your character concept as expressed in your aspects. From the Fate-SRD: You cannot create a character in Fate without a High Concept and Trouble, but you could create characters in D&D 5e without Bonds. Arguably but uncontroversially, the primary focus in D&D is on Race/Class combination. What about Background in 5e? It's honestly a bit more secondary. It's primary perks are Two Bonus Skills > Two Bonus Language/Tool Proficiencies > Bonus Starting Goods. The Inspiration System is tacked onto Background. (Why does my character flaw stem from being a Guild Artisan?) Thus it is ironically relegated to the background of the Background system. In Fate, this is less about your "Background" and more about your "Foreground" of who you are playing. It's about establishing who you want to play and what you want to see in play. It is core to your character concept. It is your character pitch. You will be invoking aspects, and your aspects will be compelled. There is a consistent engagement in play with those aspects. This is more mechanical "meat" than Inspiration. When you use a Fate point (aka Fate's "inspiration" mechanic), then you will likely be invoking off one of those aspects for the bonus, re-roll, or the "other worldbuilding" thing that I alluded to earlier. That worldbuilding thing is "Declaring a Story Detail." A player can invoke one of their aspects  - though with the GM's right to reject it - to declare the existence of a story point that works in the advantage of the player/character. Here is the example that Fate uses: Similarly, we could turn to the point of our previous character, the Disgraced Ex-Bodyguard of Prince Alfric. The players may be trying to sneak into the manor of the prince. The players fail to find a suitable "conventional" entrance into the manor. The Player then turns to the GM with a Fate point and says, "So because I am the 'Disgraced Ex-Bodyguard of Prince Alfric,' I know that there is a secret tunnel that leads from the kitchen in the manor to the garden." That character's world-building aspect has just empowered the player to world-build some more amidst gameplay. It did not stop at character creation. This IMO "meatier" because the worldbuilding here is more substantial to the core player-facing mechanics. I seriously doubt that the Inspiration-Bond system would ever see play like this. An Aside: Point #2 (i.e., Degree of Empowerment) also gets into the point that I raised earlier about level-gating character concept. Feats limit this concept in 5e, but that is not the case in Fate. Unfortunately we don't know what a Dragonmarked feat system would like in 5e, and it is questionable that it would have one. After all, how to implement Dragonmarks is one of the big debate points when people talk of porting Eberron to 5e. If you make it a feat system in 5e, then this means that only humans can start at 1st level in their Dragonmark. And due to the Ability Score Improvement, you are forcing players to decide between Character Functionality and Character Concept. Often, IME, the former wins even though the latter is more desired. So let's instead operate on the principle that the 5e Inspiration Bond system applied to 3.5 Eberron. If I were in 3e, then my character concept is limited by the Dragonmarked feats available for my level, such that I can only take Lesser Mark of Making (?). But my desired starting point for my character may be at a more "advanced" point in my character's life when they already have the Greater Mark of Making. I could start my character in Fate with that as an aspect; however, D&D says "no" because it ties these things into power level and an increasing degree of mechanical advantages. In terms of worldbuilding as an aspect of character creation, this means that there is more inherent worldbuilding potential out of the gate mechanically with a Fate character than with a D&D 5e character. This is not a value judgment on D&D 5e. It's simply about recognizing the limitations, strengths and weaknesses, and benefits of different systems.EDIT: For the sake of everyone else, please don't quote giant chunks of my wall of text. Please quote key ideas and snippets. Otherwise, this all becomes far more unpleasant to read.</blockquote>

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