Improved Inspiration

[Khrysaes]

So, Inspiration in the PHB:

If you have inspiration, you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll.


My problem is, is that as a DM, I often forget to do anything with it other than giving it out at the beginning of a session, usually for describing what happened in the previous session.

But I feel that I want something else, more mechanically based rather than DM whim. i.e. do x, trigger y.

To that end, how do other people that use it, manage inspiration at their table?

I was thinking of getting rid of the luck feat, and implementing something like Edge from Shadowrun. I.e. create an attribute of "luck" or "edge", the modifier determines your maximum number of edge in a pool. Spectacular successes or failures i.e. when you roll a d20 and the dice result, pre modifier, is more or less than the target by x, generate an edge. One edge is expended to reroll one dice. By removing luck, this also means that "going from disadvantage to super advantage" from the feat is removed.

[Kane0]

I typically start a session with everyone having inspiration, and handing one out when a character plays up a trait, bond or flaw.

I also let inspiration be used for rerolls instead of advantage before rolling, and can be shared between players like a meta 'help action'

Edit: oh and i make sure to use tokens so i dont forget it exists.

[TalksAlone]

I've created a variant on inspiration that helps adress the problem of simply forgetting.

Additionally I've always felt uncomfortable being on the position of a "critic" of the player's "character work". How do you determine what is worthy of inspiration or not? Doesn't that disproportionally benefit veterans?

I've thus created two modifications that can be applied together or separetely:

1 - Players award themselves inspiration. The catch is: they must describe how that moment or situation informs or inspires their characters, or give a glimpse inside the character's mind, a symbolic action that gives hints on their motivations, or anything the player can come up with to spice things up.

2 - Players can spend inspiration to trigger the golden rule. If a feature, spell or action doesn't work RAW or RAI for a specific action the player has come up with, the player can spend their character's inspiration to apply the "rule of cool". They must take the wheel on the description of how the action they've decided on is freaking cool, or how that character got to that conclusion, or again anything that they can come up with. The catch is: the DM still rules how the action works mechanically.

Addendum - The DM may only award inspiration at the start of a session. The DM can't apply the rule of cool by themselves.

No limits, no checks, no DM micromanaging, just cool descriptions and internal monologues. It teaches the players to be responsible for their characters and not to depend on the DM to create arcs for them. And I think most importantly, gives the players a power the DM doesn't have.

Hope I've helped.

[EggKookoo]

I top off everyone with inspiration at the start of a session. I don't give it out otherwise. I know the intent is to reward exceptional roleplaying but my players are generally pretty good about not metagaming and running their PCs properly, and honestly I don't need the extra cognitive load of assessing judgment on something they're already doing decently enough as it is.

I also buffed inspiration. You can use it normally, of course (advantage on rolls, and you can grant it to another player). But you can also burn it to automatically succeed at a roll, similar to Legendary Resistance. You can only do this for yourself. You effectively give yourself the minimum value you need in order to succeed, assuming it's possible at all to succeed. And even if that number works out to be 20, it never scores a critical hit. And as DM I reserve the right to prohibit its use in specific circumstances, although I have yet to do so.

I did this because honestly getting advantage in 5e is not that hard, at least with my players' PC/builds, so there's little value in RAW inspiration. Which weirdly causes my players to not use it and then forget about it. So adding a guaranteed success improves its value greatly and now my players frequently weigh whether it's worth it or not to use it. Burning it like this often creates a Big Damn Heroes moment for the player involved. And once spent, there's a definite loss of that safety net that the players noticeably feel.

[KorvinStarmast]

My problem is, is that as a DM, I often forget to do anything with it other than giving it out at the beginning of a session, Don't worry about it. My players almost never remember that they have it. The few who do use it.
Not worth beating yourself up over, and I don't think any new mechanic is needed.
Just give it out liberally.

[ScoutTrooper]

For me, I started to associate the general joy of everyone caused from someone's roleplaying as inspiration. On session with little RP, and more combat. I tend to do a review at the end and double check traits, bonds, flaws. After awhile a situation happened while I busying myself with setting up the next encounter, and letting the RolePlay go with little interaction, the players started to award one another or put in a case that another player should get inspiration. Which I totally allowed and awarded.

[Townopolis]

My favorite take on Inspiration is to make it more like Portent. When you get it, you roll the d20 immediately and write the result down. Then you can substitute that number in for any appropriate roll, including attacks and saves made against you/your abilities.

Oh, and I also rename it Gnosis because there's usually a bard at the table.

So far, knowing that you have a number you can pull out to virtually guarantee something going off (or something not happening to you) seems to work pretty well to making it worth remembering.

Edit: I totally ignored OP. For giving out inspiration, I remember it more the more players use it. I also really like the idea of encouraging players to at least nominate each-other for inspiration from time to time, though I wouldn't be comfortable giving up veto power on such nominations.

If you want something mechanical, I would lean toward getting inspiration every time you purposefully choose RP over optimal strategy--specifically, I would say you can get inspiration by roleplaying your flaw in some significant way. This could lead to disruptive behavior, though, so I'd keep an eye on it unless you know you can trust your party to be cool.