Fixing inspiration in 5e

5e Game mechanics

Inspiration can be tricky for both GMs and players alike; it's easy to forget to award it, and it's even easier to forget to use it. This post discusses a few variant rules for inspiration that might help you make better use of it.

Inspiration in 5e

The 5th edition systems reference document (SRD) has the following to say about inspiration: "Typically, DMs award it when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way."

That is, basically, roleplaying well. Further, "... you can expend it when you make an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check. Spending your inspiration gives you advantage on that roll."

And, except for a few small details (like the fact that you can give other characters your inspiration), that's pretty much it!

The 5e Dungeon Master's Guide (DMG) expands on these basic rules, going into more detail about what you could award inspiration for, like compelling roleplay; heroism; as a reward for victory; and genre emulation. And as a rule of thumb, each character should be given about one inspiration per session.

Okay, so that's the rundown on rules-as-written (RAW) inspiration. What are the issues with it?

It sucks for classes that use offensive saving throws instead of attack rolls

For example, spellcasters! According to RAW, you can use it to give yourself advantage on an attack roll, but if you're a bit squishy and prefer casting spells that require saving throws, you can't use inspiration to help with that.

One possible solution to this is to allow it to be used to impose disadvantage on another creature, rather than just advantage for you. This does of course raise an interesting question about saving throws on multiple targets... For example, would using Fireball in this way be too overpowered? Perhaps you could balance this by allowing inspiration to give disadvantage on single-target saving throw spells, but not multiple-target ones.

It's just advantage, not a re-roll

According to RAW, you can't just re-roll a dice if you don't like it; you must use it with standard advantage rules, meaning that you have to state beforehard that you're using your inspiration to gain advantage.

The solution to this is pretty simple, and I think 95% of home games rule it this way anyway: Just allow it to be used as a re-roll, after you've totally failed your initial roll.

It's a metacurrency

This isn't really a problem for most people, but it bears mentioning. Inspiration is one of the few metacurrencies in the game; that is, it has nothing to do with your character's resources/gear/currency/loot/spell slots/HP/stats/etc., it's solely an imaginary construct that the player, not the character, controls. The DMG briefly mentions this, saying that some DMs feel that it "adds a layer of metagame thinking".

The DMG goes on to imply that some people think that those epic moments that are usually rewarded with inspiration—heroism, intense roleplaying, hilarious puns—are such integral parts of the game that they don't need incentivising. Put differently; doing epic shit should be enough reward in itself, without bringing a metacurrency into the picture.

That's a totally valid opinion! But I think most people enjoy gaining and using inspiration, so this isn't too big of a deal.

GMs always forget to distribute it

This is a classic one.

I have a big old sticky note with INSPIRATION highlighted in bright colours and capital letters stuck to my GM screen, but I still often forget to give it out. More recently, I've begun keeping a list of my characters' names on my GM screen, and I add one post-it note alongside each name at the start of every session. Each time I award inspiration to that player, I rip off one of the post-it notes. In this way, I can see at a glance whether I've awarded inspiration to a particular player in that session or the previous one; if I notice two or more post-it notes against a particular character's name, that means they haven't had inspiration in one or two sessions, and it's a good reminder to look out for opportunities to award inspiration to them in the near future.

Another possible solution is to allow players to distribute inspiration themselves. The DMG offers this as a variant rule, where each player can award one inspiration to another player per session.

You could do it more loosely, as well; players can award inspiration to other players whenever it seems appropriate. You will want to have a decent group for this, and make sure that it's not being used to metagame too hard; for example, don't let players give out inspiration willy-nilly just before a boss fight that they know is imminent...

Another possible solution is to give out one inspiration to every player at the start of every session. The DMG actually describes this approach, where the DM has a set of special inspiration d20s that they physically hand out, instead of marking it on a player sheet. There are interesting variants to this; for example, a physical token that you give back to the GM at the end of the session—encouraging you to use it quickly, rather than hoarding it (or, more likely, forgetting about it).

Some people are more into roleplaying than other people

Sometimes, players that are more comfortable roleplaying may be more likely to receive inspiration. And that can feel a bit unfair for the players that are less comfortable with intense roleplaying, but who still contribute to the game in a significant way.

This kind of relates to inspiration being a metacurrency, in that it can be used to incentivise certain styles of play. Of course, this can actually be a good thing, as long as everyone at the table is aligned in their vision of how the game should be played.

One way around this issue that I'm particularly fond of is to find the thing that each player enjoys the most, and reward that behaviour. For example, if someone is less comfortable with intense roleplaying, but really loves combat, perhaps you reward them with inspiration when they do something out-of-the-box creative in a combat encounter.

Everyone forgets they have it

...and with RAW stating that you can only have one at a time, more often than not the player already has a forgotten inspiration when they're awarded with a new one, effectively wasting it completely.

This one's pretty easy to solve. Just allow for more than one. Two? Five? Infinite? What are the downsides here?

I've found between 2–5 to be the sweet spot. You don't really want to incentivise your players to hoard inspiration for that boss fight; ideally they're using them at approximately the same rate that they're receiving them. This will totally depend on your party, and their propensity to use inspiration (or otherwise).

Other ideas

One thing that Brennan Lee Mulligan seems to do is, instead of awarding inspiration in the typical way, he tells players that they have advantage when they do something that really aligns with their character or is really heroic or what have you—so, instead of giving inspiration for a future roll, which has no link to the source of the inspiration, its use is inherently linked to its source. It also makes it more likely that you pull off whatever cool thing it is that you're trying to do. On the other hand, it does mean that you can't really give it out for some really funny remark or something that doesn't require a roll (which is like 60% of the inspiration that I end up awarding), but you could always combine the two methods. Giving advantage in the moment, for excellent roleplay or other reasons, is an underappreciated GMing technique anyway.

Finally, you could do what XP to Level 3 does: Everyone gets a coin at the beginning of the session. You can flip it over to get advantage, or re-roll a dice (with the caveat that you have to take the second roll). Once flipped, it stays flipped (i.e., inactive) until you get a nat 1, or you are the target of a crit; if either of those things happen, you flip it over again and can reuse it as above. Additionally, the GM can flip your token to give you disadvantage on a roll (and therefore give you inspiration/advantage for a future roll). And it can be awarded as inspiration as usual. The GM can also just give you a token (or flip it back over) if you have been rolling really badly; we've all been there.

One final thought: If you're a rogue, it can be useful to use inspiration to give you advantage on an attack, and therefore gain sneak attack!

If you want to hear about us yarning about inspiration, check out our podcast episode on Inspiration, introversion and cursed dice. And shout out to RPGBot—they have a really interesting episode on metacurrencies as well.