Inspiration

From Player's Handbook, page 143; and Dungeon Master's Guide, page 240.

Inspiration is a rule the Dungeon Master can use to reward you for playing your character in a way that's true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw. By using inspiration, you can draw on your personality trait of compassion for the downtrodden to give you an edge in negotiating with the Beggar Prince. Or inspiration can let you call on your bond to the defense of your home village to push past the effect of a spell that has been laid on you.

Awarding inspiration is an effective way to encourage roleplaying and risk-taking. Having inspiration gives a character an obvious benefit: being able to gain advantage on one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. Remember that a character can have no more than one inspiration at a time.

Gaining Inspiration
Your DM can choose to give you inspiration for a variety of reasons. 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. Your DM will tell you how you can earn inspiration in the game. You either have inspiration or you don't — you can't stockpile multiple "inspirations" for later use.

Using Inspiration
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. Additionally, if you have inspiration, you can reward another player for good roleplaying, clever thinking, or simply doing something exciting in the game.

When another player character does something that really contributes to the story in a fun and interesting way, you can give up your inspiration to give that character inspiration.

Awarding Inspiration
Think of inspiration as a spice that you can use to enhance your campaign. Some DMs forgo using inspiration, while others embrace it as a key part of the game. If you take away anything from this section, remember this golden rule: inspiration should make the game more enjoyable for everyone. Award inspiration when players take actions that make the game more exciting, amusing, or memorable.

As a rule of thumb, aim to award inspiration to each character about once per session of play. Over time, you might want to award inspiration more or less often, at a rate that works best for your table. You might use the same rate for your entire DMing career, or you might change it with each campaign.

Offering inspiration as a reward encourages certain types of behavior in your players. Think of your style as a DM and your group's preferences. What helps make the game more fun for your group? What type of action fit in with your campaign's style or genre? Your answer to those questions help determine when you award inspiration.

Roleplaying. Using inspiration to reward roleplaying is a good place to start for most groups. Reward a player with inspiration when that player causes his or her character to do something that is consistent with the character's personality trait, flaw, or bond. The character's action should be notable in some way. It might drive the story forward, push the adventurers into danger, or make everyone at the table laugh. In essence. you reward the player for roleplaying in a way that makes the game more enjoyable for everyone else.

Take into account each player's roleplaying style, and try not to favor one style over another. For example, Allison might be comfortable speaking in an accent and adopting her character's mannerisms, but Paul feels self-conscious when trying to act and prefers to describe his character's attitude and actions. Neither style is better than the other. Inspiration encourages players to take part and make a good effort, and awarding it fairly makes the game better for everyone.

Heroism. You can use inspiration to encourage player characters to take risks. A fighter might not normally hurl himself over a balcony to land in the mid of a pack of hungry ghouls, but you can reward the character's daring maneuver with inspiration. Such a reward tells the players that you want them to embrace swashbuckling action.

This approach is great for campaigns that emphasize action-packed heroics. For such campaigns, consider allowing inspiration to be spent after a d20 roll, rather than before. This approach turns inspiration into a cushion against failure — and a guarantee that it comes into play only when a player is faced directly by failure. Such an assurance makes risky tactics less daunting.

A Reward for Victory. Some DMs prefer to play an impartial role in their campaigns. Inspiration normally requires a DM's judgment to award, which might run against your style if you like a campaign where you let dice determine most outcomes. If that's your style, consider using inspiration as a reward when the characters achieve an important goal or victory, representing a surge of confidence and energy.

Under this model, give everyone in the party inspiration if the characters manage to defeat a powerful foe, execute a cunning plan to achieve a goal, or otherwise overcome a daunting obstacle in the campaign.

Genre Emulation. Inspiration is a handy tool for reinforcing the conventions of a particular genre. Under this approach, think of the motifs of a genre as personality traits, flaws, and bonds that can apply to any of the adventurers. For example, in a campaign inspired by film noir, characters could have an additional flaw: "I can 't resist helping a person I find alluring despite warnings that he or she is nothing but trouble." If the characters agree to help a suspicious but seductive noble and thereby become entangled in a web of intrigue and betrayal, reward them with inspiration.

Similarly, characters in a horror story typically can't help but spend a night in a haunted house to learn its secrets. They probably also go off alone when they shouldn't. If the party splits up, consider giving each character inspiration.

A sensible person would avoid the noble's intrigues and the haunted house, but in film noir or horror, we're not dealing with sensible people; we're dealing with protagonists in a particular type of story. For this approach to work, create a list of your genre's main conventions and share it with your players. Before the campaign begins, talk about the list to make sure your group is on board for embracing those conventions.

Players and Inspiration. Remember that a player with inspiration can award it to another player. Some groups even like to treat inspiration as a group resource, deciding collectively when to spend it on a roll. It's best to let players award their inspiration as they see fit, but feel free to talk to them about following certain guidelines, particularly if you're trying to reinforce conventions of a certain genre.

When Do You Award Inspiration
Consider the timing of your inspiration rewards. Some DMs like to award inspiration in response to an action. Other DMs like to encourage specific actions by offering inspiration while a player is considering options. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses.

Waiting until after an action preserves the flow of play, but it also means players don't know whether their decisions will earn them inspiration. It also means the player can't spend the inspiration on the act that earned it, unless you allow a player to retroactively spend it or are quick enough to award it before any rolls. This approach works best for groups that want to focus on immersion and player agency, where the DM steps back and gives the players more freedom to do what they want.

Telling a player that an action will earn inspiration provides clarity, but it can make it feel like you are manipulating the players or making choices for them. Offering inspiration before an action works great with groups that are comfortable with an emphasis on genre emulation and group storytelling, where character freedom isn't as important as weaving a compelling tale together.

Start with awarding inspiration after an action, especially for your first campaign or when playing with a new group. That approach is the least disruptive to the flow of play and avoids making the players feel as if you are being manipulative.

Tracking Inspiration
A player typically notes on a character sheet whether he or she has inspiration, or you can use poker chips or some other token. Alternatively, you can hand out special d20s to represent inspiration. When a player spends inspiration, he or she rolls the die and then hands it back to you. If the player instead gives the inspiration to someone else, the d20 can go to that other person.

Ignoring Inspiration
Inspiration might not work for your campaign. Some DMs feel it adds a layer of metagame thinking, and others feel that heroism, roleplaying, and other parts of the game are their own rewards that don't need incentives like inspiration.

If you choose to ignore inspiration, you're telling the players that your campaign is one where you let the dice fall where they may. It's a good option for gritty campaigns or ones where the DM focuses on playing an impartial role as a rules arbiter.

Variant: Only Players Award Inspiration
As a DM, you have a lot to track during the game. Sometimes you can lose track of inspiration and forget to award it. As a variant rule, you can allow the players to handle awarding inspiration entirely. During every session, each player can award inspiration to another player. A player follows whatever guidelines the group has agreed on for awarding inspiration.

This approach makes your life easier and also gives players the chance to recognize each other for good play. You still need to make sure that inspiration is being awarded fairly.

This approach works best with groups that are focused on the story. It falls flat if the players merely manipulate it to gain advantage in key situations, without earning inspiration by way of good roleplaying or whatever other criteria the group has established.

In this variant, you can allow each player to award inspiration more than once per session. If you do so, the first time that a player awards inspiration in a session is free. Whenever that player awards it later in the same session. you gain inspiration that you can spend to give advantage to any foe of the player characters. There's no limit to the number of inspirations you can gain in this way, and unspent inspiration carries over from one session to the next.