Inspiration: an underutilized, flexible tool in D&D 5e
The inspiration mechanic in 5th edition D&D (2014) is a flexible tool for us DMs to shape our games. It’s a little bit of mechanical candy which we can give to players to reward them for cool moments and helpful acts. We can almost think of inspiration like our own Pavlovian bell with which we condition our players towards desirable behavior. I generally don’t advise to think of players as dogs in any other situation, however…
Here’s a quick recap of how inspiration works: The DM hands out inspiration as a reward, mostly after interesting roleplaying moments. Players can have one instance of inspiration at any time, never more. When players have inspiration, they can use it to gain advantage on any Ability check, saving throw or attack roll. That’s how the 2014 Player’s Handbook describes the inspiration mechanic. However, with a few modifications we can get even more out of inspiration.
D&D Initiative House Rules
There are two variants of initiative which can ensure that players have and use inspiration more frequently. First, let players reroll a d20 with inspiration instead of having to declare using inspiration before a roll to gain advantage. With this rule, inspiration becomes more powerful, which means players are more likely to use it.
Secondly, let players award inspiration to each other. As DMs, we are handling a lot of tasks while we’re running the game. Often, handing out inspiration is at the bottom of the list of important things we need to keep track of. While we can still work on getting into the habit of handing out inspiration more frequently, with this rule, more people are keeping an eye out for inspiration-worthy actions. Therefore, players become more likely to gain inspiration in any given session. We can talk to our players before we implement the rule so that they know what kinds of situations we want them to award inspiration to each other for.
Give out inspiration in D&D 5e for…
There are two main categories of things that we can award inspiration for. Of course, we can modify these to encourage specific actions. For example, in a horror-themed game, we might award inspiration especially for moments in which characters reveal their fears. In any game, however, we can award inspiration for cool stuff, and helpful stuff.
Cool stuff
We, and our players, can keep an eye out for cool stuff other players do, and award them inspiration for it. These might be cool roleplaying moments, like a deep in-character conversation between party members to discuss the moral purpose of the group. Or we might hand out inspiration for cool tactical ideas. Maybe the rogue figures out a way for everyone to silently enter the vault, or the battlemaster fighter uses a maneuver in just the right situation at just the right time. Finally, we can award inspiration for cool descriptions. The sorcerer might describe her skin changing in intricate patterns while she is casting her spells, or the paladin describes how holy light infuses their action-hero-style leap to fell a monster.
We can encourage players to build a cinematic, immersive, and cool story by giving them inspiration for cool things they do.
Helpful stuff
Besides actions that make the game more cinematic, we can also award inspiration when players help out the group or us, the DM. This could be anything from bringing an awesome snack, or cool props, or even organizational helpful things like coordinating the game time, or setting up a Discord server for the group. When we reward players with inspiration for these kinds of acts, we foster a cooperative environment in which everyone feels responsible for the game and the group.
We can also hand out inspiration if a player helps out the group and the DM during the game. A player might track initiative for us, make sure that everyone gets the spotlight from time to time, or keep great notes.
Then there are situations in which a player might help out the DM, but at the same time not really help out the party. For example, a player might remind us, the DM, that our monster still has another attack which we overlooked, or that we mentioned pools of acid last session which we had now forgotten. These kinds of helpful things for the DM deserve inspiration because they can increase the drama of a situation, even though—or perhaps because—they put the characters in danger.
Give out inspiration at least once per D&D session per player
A good starting point for how much inspiration we hand out is this: Give inspiration to each player once per session. Getting into this habit has multiple positive effects.
First, Players will notice, and use their inspiration more frequently instead of hoarding it.
Second, we will loosely track the engagement of each player in the game. If we notice that we haven’t given a player inspiration at the end of the session, we might think about whether we give that player enough attention. Or maybe they’re not finding moments to shine in the game for some reason. If we notice that this player consistently doesn’t get inspiration, we might check in with them and see how they’re feeling about the game.
Hand out inspiration frequently for behavior which we want to encourage: mainly cool stuff, and helpful stuff. Used in this way, inspiration becomes a flexible DMing tool with which we can improve our D&D games.
