First, if the proposed rule change isn't attempting to address anything you think is a problem, when what is it trying to address? Is there something lacking from the current experience? For example, if every choice should have a consequence, then so shouldn't every roll of the dice? That may be what they're trying to do. We should all try to think beyond our narrow experiences and see the bigger picture.
Second, I don't think this breaks Inspiration. It was an underutilized mechanic. Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used. Inspiration isn't even an optional rule. It's right there on the character sheet. It's on their D&D Beyond sheets, which is another business partner with Critical Role. And that lack of use is something WotC wants to fix.
If you're worried about momentum and using that inspiration to garner more inspiration, I get that. I don't like giving them a cherry on top of the 20. I'd rather see it on the 1; because failure is a teacher. That said, other game systems have similar mechanics and aren't shy about handing them out. Rolling dice is fun. Letting your players roll more dice is more fun for them. None of that is wrong.
It's trying to patch what was to begin with, a bad change. A solution searching for a problem, they had a solution but no problem for it and that solution in and of itself creates problems. Simple as.
It actually does break Inspiration, Inspiration is meant to be a reward that DMs can hand out to players for things like good role play, if it's under-utilized then that is down to players and DMs, but now the feature is basically just another "advantage" feature, as if we needed another one. Advantage/Disadvantage is good in some aspects but it's becoming too dominate. Inspiration was good for what it was intended for, it's not good for where it's going, esp when you look at something like the Musician feat. It's stacking inspiration with bardic inspiration now, as if bardic inspiration wasn't already powerful enough!
Inspiration was never meant to be a feature that was regularly used in the first place, which is why players can pass inspiration to another player, it's a rare resource and now it's just been cheapened.
Also, just because some companies don't use inspiration in their content doesn't mean it's broken, D&D should NOT base itself off of critical role, that'd be a dumb decision, D&D gets it's money from players playing the game and that experience is not the same experience as Critical Role; Critical Role is a series that uses D&D, yes, but it is not a series that plays like D&D. Stop feeding into the Matt Mercer Effect, even Matt Mercer hates that.
Can you explain some of this thought process for me? Nothing about the description for Inspiration hints at it being a rare occurrence. If that's how you see it, then fine. To each their own. But I just don't see it. I can envision a table where everyone is so into it that inspiration can flow like water.
And I'm not feeding the Mercer Effect. Do you even know what that is, or did you just see the name and respond to that alone? You act like so many teenagers I've been teaching to play for the last three years. Please don't. The topic of streams eventually comes up, and every time I tell my students not to compare themselves to the professionals. Every player and DM is different, so not being able to emulate X style of game is fine. Because those same pros can't do their style of game, either.
It's like telling someone not to over prepare. Poll a hundred people, and you can get a hundred answers. It's useless advice.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
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.
- PHB
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.
- DMG
Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
First, if the proposed rule change isn't attempting to address anything you think is a problem, when what is it trying to address? Is there something lacking from the current experience? For example, if every choice should have a consequence, then so shouldn't every roll of the dice? That may be what they're trying to do. We should all try to think beyond our narrow experiences and see the bigger picture.
Second, I don't think this breaks Inspiration. It was an underutilized mechanic. Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used. Inspiration isn't even an optional rule. It's right there on the character sheet. It's on their D&D Beyond sheets, which is another business partner with Critical Role. And that lack of use is something WotC wants to fix.
If you're worried about momentum and using that inspiration to garner more inspiration, I get that. I don't like giving them a cherry on top of the 20. I'd rather see it on the 1; because failure is a teacher. That said, other game systems have similar mechanics and aren't shy about handing them out. Rolling dice is fun. Letting your players roll more dice is more fun for them. None of that is wrong.
It's trying to patch what was to begin with, a bad change. A solution searching for a problem, they had a solution but no problem for it and that solution in and of itself creates problems. Simple as.
It actually does break Inspiration, Inspiration is meant to be a reward that DMs can hand out to players for things like good role play, if it's under-utilized then that is down to players and DMs, but now the feature is basically just another "advantage" feature, as if we needed another one. Advantage/Disadvantage is good in some aspects but it's becoming too dominate. Inspiration was good for what it was intended for, it's not good for where it's going, esp when you look at something like the Musician feat. It's stacking inspiration with bardic inspiration now, as if bardic inspiration wasn't already powerful enough!
Inspiration was never meant to be a feature that was regularly used in the first place, which is why players can pass inspiration to another player, it's a rare resource and now it's just been cheapened.
Also, just because some companies don't use inspiration in their content doesn't mean it's broken, D&D should NOT base itself off of critical role, that'd be a dumb decision, D&D gets it's money from players playing the game and that experience is not the same experience as Critical Role; Critical Role is a series that uses D&D, yes, but it is not a series that plays like D&D. Stop feeding into the Matt Mercer Effect, even Matt Mercer hates that.
Can you explain some of this thought process for me? Nothing about the description for Inspiration hints at it being a rare occurrence. If that's how you see it, then fine. To each their own. But I just don't see it. I can envision a table where everyone is so into it that inspiration can flow like water.
And I'm not feeding the Mercer Effect. Do you even know what that is, or did you just see the name and respond to that alone? You act like so many teenagers I've been teaching to play for the last three years. Please don't. The topic of streams eventually comes up, and every time I tell my students not to compare themselves to the professionals. Every player and DM is different, so not being able to emulate X style of game is fine. Because those same pros can't do their style of game, either.
It's like telling someone not to over prepare. Poll a hundred people, and you can get a hundred answers. It's useless advice.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
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.
- PHB
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.
- DMG
Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
You can't farm it as you can only have one. If you get another you have to give it to someone else.
First, if the proposed rule change isn't attempting to address anything you think is a problem, when what is it trying to address? Is there something lacking from the current experience? For example, if every choice should have a consequence, then so shouldn't every roll of the dice? That may be what they're trying to do. We should all try to think beyond our narrow experiences and see the bigger picture.
Second, I don't think this breaks Inspiration. It was an underutilized mechanic. Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used. Inspiration isn't even an optional rule. It's right there on the character sheet. It's on their D&D Beyond sheets, which is another business partner with Critical Role. And that lack of use is something WotC wants to fix.
If you're worried about momentum and using that inspiration to garner more inspiration, I get that. I don't like giving them a cherry on top of the 20. I'd rather see it on the 1; because failure is a teacher. That said, other game systems have similar mechanics and aren't shy about handing them out. Rolling dice is fun. Letting your players roll more dice is more fun for them. None of that is wrong.
It's trying to patch what was to begin with, a bad change. A solution searching for a problem, they had a solution but no problem for it and that solution in and of itself creates problems. Simple as.
It actually does break Inspiration, Inspiration is meant to be a reward that DMs can hand out to players for things like good role play, if it's under-utilized then that is down to players and DMs, but now the feature is basically just another "advantage" feature, as if we needed another one. Advantage/Disadvantage is good in some aspects but it's becoming too dominate. Inspiration was good for what it was intended for, it's not good for where it's going, esp when you look at something like the Musician feat. It's stacking inspiration with bardic inspiration now, as if bardic inspiration wasn't already powerful enough!
Inspiration was never meant to be a feature that was regularly used in the first place, which is why players can pass inspiration to another player, it's a rare resource and now it's just been cheapened.
Also, just because some companies don't use inspiration in their content doesn't mean it's broken, D&D should NOT base itself off of critical role, that'd be a dumb decision, D&D gets it's money from players playing the game and that experience is not the same experience as Critical Role; Critical Role is a series that uses D&D, yes, but it is not a series that plays like D&D. Stop feeding into the Matt Mercer Effect, even Matt Mercer hates that.
Can you explain some of this thought process for me? Nothing about the description for Inspiration hints at it being a rare occurrence. If that's how you see it, then fine. To each their own. But I just don't see it. I can envision a table where everyone is so into it that inspiration can flow like water.
And I'm not feeding the Mercer Effect. Do you even know what that is, or did you just see the name and respond to that alone? You act like so many teenagers I've been teaching to play for the last three years. Please don't. The topic of streams eventually comes up, and every time I tell my students not to compare themselves to the professionals. Every player and DM is different, so not being able to emulate X style of game is fine. Because those same pros can't do their style of game, either.
It's like telling someone not to over prepare. Poll a hundred people, and you can get a hundred answers. It's useless advice.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
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.
- PHB
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.
- DMG
Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
You can't farm it as you can only have one. If you get another you have to give it to someone else.
you can't have multiple, yes, but getting it once per short rest from musician means you can basically keep half the party with inspiration at any given point, probably the entire party when you progress into the mid-game. It's basically stupidly easy to get now from a single feat, and it gives advantage on use which means most players are going to use it soon since it's a 9.75% chance to get a nat 20. Which is why I say it's no longer a valuable reward but a piece of cheap candy.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Your formatting is annoying.
You're right about what the Mercer Effect is, which is why it's so mind-boggling that you think I'm trying to prop it up. I'm not. I made an observation, which may or may not be something WotC sees, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was noticed by the higher ups. That observation was a literal business partner and high-profile advertiser wasn't using a mechanic in the Player's Handbook. House rules and the implementation of numerous optional and variant rules aside, that's a glaring omission. There's a Reddit post on the subject from five years ago, but that's it. And, to be clear, his explanation is completely justified. He had, and still has, a lot to keep track of.
But I digress, and I think you had it backwards. If anything, invoking the Mercer Effect would mean fewer people are using Inspiration. And, clearly, that's not what WotC wants. So, for whatever reason, they're changing it up.
I'm going to stick to my guns and say nothing has been broken. Inspiration can still a reward for doing something "particularly heroic or amusing." There's just another way to earn it; a tried and true method in case the DM forgets. I'm sorry you think that's bad, and I think you need to lighten up. Because, in the games I've played since the playtest has come out, I haven't noticed a change.
This playtest is in its infancy. We have a long way to go between now and probably Autumn 2024. Because that's when all the big rules releases have been.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
Yeah, I'm standing by that one, too. So what? I was specifically referring to the idea of rolling pointless ability checks over and over for that 20, anyway. Wasn't that obvious. And I've already talked about those, so I don't need to go over them again. It's just not a big deal, mechanically. If you're worried about a lack of roleplaying, there's no rule to fix that. That's a player issue.
Like I told Mana before I blocked hr, it's not the Nat1/Nat20 that's her problem. Her problem is with a DM who might make her roll when she doesn't want to. Or with players who might try and bully the DM. And...fair, I guess. But, again, those are interpersonal issues. There are no rules which can fix people. This has now been 22 pages on what happens when you roll the die, and people are losing their minds over it. In a game where you're supposed to roll dice.
And if someone rolling a D20 twice does somehow break a game, I mean utterly derailing it, I'd love to read about it.
This was supposed to be all one post. Some of it got deleted when I was trying to clean up your mess. For the love of all that is holy, find a better way to reply. Saying dealing with this is inconvenient is putting it mildly.
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.
- PHB
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.
- DMG
Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
You know what? I already wrote a lot for this that got deleted, and I honestly don't think I care enough to retype all that. Heaven help me, I'll try, but it might not be recognizably the same.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
I'm in two games. Nobody was playing a human in the ongoing one, and nobody chose to start as a human in the one that started up during the playtest. (And I specifically said we'd be using the playtest document going forward, so that was the human they had to choose if they did.) So I haven't seen how they start every day with Inspiration, but so what? If you don't lie it, then set a slower pace for the game. It could be sessions between long rests.
The new Musician feat is interesting, but only because Inspiration can be doled out after a short rest as well. It means WotC hasn't forgotten about it, and it will still be encouraged. This gives me hope for what the classes might look like down the line. That said, it's another pacing tool for the players. They decide how often they short rest, and Inspiration goes away at the end of the day. It's a temporary resource that either gets used or lost. If it happens a little more often, so what?
"Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be..."
You cannot have this both ways. If the DM wants to hand out Inspiration like dang Halloween candy, they darn well can. And you don't have the right to be upset over that. You want Inspiration to be special because, I think, you want to feel special. And that's fine. We all want to feel special sometimes. That said, you're no more special than anyone else playing the game. Not at your table, not at mine, and not at anyone else's.
Inspiration does not need to be or feel special. It never did, and even if it was before, it doesn't need to stay that way.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
Do you even know the odds of using Inspiration (or some other source of Advantage) to earn a point of Inspiration via the D20? It's 9.75%. I know that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.
It's advantage, as a mechanic. That's it. That's what you're arguing against: easy advantage. The new Unarmed Strike rules do it, too. I don't know what else to tell you, except don't play with the optional flanking rules from the DMG.
Like I told Mana before I blocked hr, it's not the Nat1/Nat20 that's her problem. Her problem is with a DM who might make her roll when she doesn't want to. Or with players who might try and bully the DM. And...fair, I guess. But, again, those are interpersonal issues. There are no rules which can fix people. This has now been 22 pages on what happens when you roll the die, and people are losing their minds over it. In a game where you're supposed to roll dice.
No, it definitely is the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule that I have an issue with. If the nat 1/20 auto fail/success was not there, I wouldn't have any problem at all. I am fine with the DM being able to decide when a roll is warranted or not warranted; I am not fine with the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rules because they remove agency from the player and negate character investment. When combined with how DM's can decide whether a roll is warranted or not, it adds unnecessary variance to Organize Play because you will have DMs that will use it to ignore the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule and you will have DM's making people roll because a 5% auto fail/success chance. It will hinder fun in more cases when it actually matters and the people who are for it are unlikely to see a difference in gameplay regardless of whether it makes it to the release version or not.
Making this clear to everyone now, my issue is the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule. I do not have any issue with DM's being able to decide by RAW when a roll is warranted or unwarranted. Only when the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule comes into play do I have issues with the system.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
My problem with gaining inspiration on rolling a 20 is that it makes the game more complicated without making it better. It's not like people need to be motivated to roll 20s.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
My problem with gaining inspiration on rolling a 20 is that it makes the game more complicated without making it better. It's not like people need to be motivated to roll 20s.
I address that further down.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun?
The way this is written, you are suggesting any other outcome that does not including rolling a dice and succeeding as not being fun. The logical extension to this, is that failure is bad and therefor players should never fail? Why bother rolling dice at all then, since the very purpose of dice in the construct of the game is to resolve situations where there is a chance of failure. If nothing is risked, what value does success actually have?
I can appreciate that not every table is my table, and that a beer and pretzels style game where random chance and silly outcomes makes for a fun evening. In that style of game, the auto success/fail rules as a houserule is perfectly fine. Where I draw exception however, is that those are not the style of games I run, and making this the mandatory rule is forcing the game towards more of that style.
Now the obvious argument is that I can houserule to remove the auto success/fail. And that is true, to an extent. However there is something to be said about the implied legitimacy of a rule when it is in the rule book, versus what makes more or less sense for a table.
I also find a disturbing number of commentators are focusing on a binary assessment of the scenario. Yes, you can use DM fiat to say "this is impossible for you, so you can't roll" however it is a common situation at my table that something is only possible to some of the characters, as a result of choices those players have made. Those choices matter, the auto success/fail rule now means that either I invalidate those choices by letting everyone roll, or alternatively I have to say to the table that only some people can roll.
Under the current rule, those outcomes are hidden, part of the encounter design and the choices the players make resolve the situation with very little feedback from me.
Since examples can be helpful, let's say I have an situation where listening at a door (a DC 25 perception check) will provide a certain outcome.
Under the current rules, anyone may have the idea and try the action; but some characters will just not be able to make that DC of 25. But this information isn't known, and the party makes a choice and deals with the consequences of that choice. Now, lets imagine the same situation occurs with the new rule. I have two choices:
Tell the player they listen at the door and hear nothing (no roll, I have determined they can't make it)
Allow them to roll, and they have a 5% chance of success when they shouldn't
In the first case, it is telling the party, "You tried with the wrong person" - Now sure, you can have out of game discussions about not kicking the can down the road, fishing for success etc. But all these are added work and drama that just doesn't need to exist. In the second case, I am invalidating the player choice and agency for those characters who DID invest in increasing their perception.
The current rules handle this far more elegantly than the proposed rules do, and it really is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
My problem with gaining inspiration on rolling a 20 is that it makes the game more complicated without making it better. It's not like people need to be motivated to roll 20s.
I address that further down.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
People have enjoyed the game just fine all while ignoring or forgetting about inspiration for close to a decade. It is very obviously not needed to get people to roll dice. Nothing is gained by doubling down on a mechanic very few people have cared about through out the entire existence of said mechanic. There are already LOTS of ways to gain advantage both in and out of combat. We really don't need another.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
Even Critical Role, never once used it in a major campaign. EXU did, when Aabria Iyengar was the DM, and I haven't watched Calamity yet, but Mercer never has. That's literally hundreds of episodes of a high-profile game, run by a business partner, where a core book mechanic isn't used.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Your formatting is annoying.
You're right about what the Mercer Effect is, which is why it's so mind-boggling that you think I'm trying to prop it up. I'm not. I made an observation, which may or may not be something WotC sees, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was noticed by the higher ups. That observation was a literal business partner and high-profile advertiser wasn't using a mechanic in the Player's Handbook. House rules and the implementation of numerous optional and variant rules aside, that's a glaring omission. There's a Reddit post on the subject from five years ago, but that's it. And, to be clear, his explanation is completely justified. He had, and still has, a lot to keep track of.
But I digress, and I think you had it backwards. If anything, invoking the Mercer Effect would mean fewer people are using Inspiration. And, clearly, that's not what WotC wants. So, for whatever reason, they're changing it up.
I'm going to stick to my guns and say nothing has been broken. Inspiration can still a reward for doing something "particularly heroic or amusing." There's just another way to earn it; a tried and true method in case the DM forgets. I'm sorry you think that's bad, and I think you need to lighten up. Because, in the games I've played since the playtest has come out, I haven't noticed a change.
This playtest is in its infancy. We have a long way to go between now and probably Autumn 2024. Because that's when all the big rules releases have been.
Transitioning back on target. It's not a big deal if a little more inspiration is handed out throughout a game because of 20s. It could always stack with bardic inspiration, and can't be "farmed" unless the DM allows it to be. And that becomes a problem for the table the rules cannot address.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
Yeah, I'm standing by that one, too. So what? I was specifically referring to the idea of rolling pointless ability checks over and over for that 20, anyway. Wasn't that obvious. And I've already talked about those, so I don't need to go over them again. It's just not a big deal, mechanically. If you're worried about a lack of roleplaying, there's no rule to fix that. That's a player issue.
Like I told Mana before I blocked hr, it's not the Nat1/Nat20 that's her problem. Her problem is with a DM who might make her roll when she doesn't want to. Or with players who might try and bully the DM. And...fair, I guess. But, again, those are interpersonal issues. There are no rules which can fix people. This has now been 22 pages on what happens when you roll the die, and people are losing their minds over it. In a game where you're supposed to roll dice.
And if someone rolling a D20 twice does somehow break a game, I mean utterly derailing it, I'd love to read about it.
Let's just move away from Critical Role discussion entirely, it's pointless. I do not watch it, so i can not fully comment on it. I will stick to the point that we should not care about what Critical Role does or does not utilize, the same will go for most campaigns on youtube/twitch/etc, those are suspect to being altered for camera and also just an anecdotal source, which isn't reliable. It would be better to get surveys to actually see where D&D players really think changes are needed. (which is really what they are doing, purposing ideas and getting feed back)
Also not saying that rolling a D20 ruins the game, I am saying the mechanical changes to inspiration essentially ruin the entire core concept of what inspiration is; that is to say, what inspiration is in one D&D, is not what inspiration is in 5E. We really didn't need another source of advantage to begin with given how powerful advantage has been in 5E, if anything 5E gets a little to dominated by advantage already. This is another reason why I say that the change is bad, advantage in and of itself was a good change but one that already dominates too much, a lot of battles contain parties trying to get "advantage" in one way or another, which isn't really as tactical as it sounds, rather it's just using abilities and spells. Overall, if inspiration was such an issue, I think it would have been better to remove the feature than to do what we now see in oneD&D.
This was supposed to be all one post. Some of it got deleted when I was trying to clean up your mess. For the love of all that is holy, find a better way to reply. Saying dealing with this is inconvenient is putting it mildly.
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.
- PHB
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.
- DMG
Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
You know what? I already wrote a lot for this that got deleted, and I honestly don't think I care enough to retype all that. Heaven help me, I'll try, but it might not be recognizably the same.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
I'm in two games. Nobody was playing a human in the ongoing one, and nobody chose to start as a human in the one that started up during the playtest. (And I specifically said we'd be using the playtest document going forward, so that was the human they had to choose if they did.) So I haven't seen how they start every day with Inspiration, but so what? If you don't lie it, then set a slower pace for the game. It could be sessions between long rests.
The new Musician feat is interesting, but only because Inspiration can be doled out after a short rest as well. It means WotC hasn't forgotten about it, and it will still be encouraged. This gives me hope for what the classes might look like down the line. That said, it's another pacing tool for the players. They decide how often they short rest, and Inspiration goes away at the end of the day. It's a temporary resource that either gets used or lost. If it happens a little more often, so what?
"Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be..."
You cannot have this both ways. If the DM wants to hand out Inspiration like dang Halloween candy, they darn well can. And you don't have the right to be upset over that. You want Inspiration to be special because, I think, you want to feel special. And that's fine. We all want to feel special sometimes. That said, you're no more special than anyone else playing the game. Not at your table, not at mine, and not at anyone else's.
Inspiration does not need to be or feel special. It never did, and even if it was before, it doesn't need to stay that way.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
Do you even know the odds of using Inspiration (or some other source of Advantage) to earn a point of Inspiration via the D20? It's 9.75%. I know that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.
It's advantage, as a mechanic. That's it. That's what you're arguing against: easy advantage. The new Unarmed Strike rules do it, too. I don't know what else to tell you, except don't play with the optional flanking rules from the DMG.
If a DM wants to hand out inspiration like halloween candy than they can, that ISN'T what I have issue with, what I have issue with is that the game MECHANICS (not the DM), is handing inspiration out like candy. It's a bit of a strawman to go on that tangent because I've never once said I have an issue with a DM determining how much they want to reward players with the feature.
Literally the last post I made before you posted this, I clearly stated it as 9.75%, and 9.75% is not a statistically insignificant amount, nor is the fact that from doing this on a roll, you reduce the chance of a nat 1 from 5% to 0.25%. You basically want to use inspiration the first chance you get, every time, it is not a stockpile resource like in 5E where you save it for when it truly matters, for that roll you really do not want to fail. It's just another advantage feature, when we already had possibly slightly too many methods before.
Also D&D does not need dice rolls every 5 minutes, for social interactions, there doesn't need to be a D20 to determine if every social encounter is good. Sometimes dice rolls interrupt the flow of the role-play and sometimes they also slow down combat. But that gets back to issues from pages ago like now being made to roll for concentration literally every attack when you have a bonus so high that a 1 shouldn't fail. Rolling dice can be fun but that doesn't mean they should be shoe-horned into literally every opportunity, at that point they go from fun to intrusive.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
People have enjoyed the game just fine all while ignoring or forgetting about inspiration for close to a decade. It is very obviously not needed to get people to roll dice. Nothing is gained by doubling down on a mechanic very few people have cared about through out the entire existence of said mechanic. There are already LOTS of ways to gain advantage both in and out of combat. We really don't need another.
I don't have the statistics, and I don't think you do either. Saying "very few people have cared about" Inspiration is a loaded statement, and you know it. It's something best to be backed up. We're all just speculating, or are you privy to information the rest of us don't have?
What I don't get is why everyone is losing their dang minds in what seems like every other thread about the playtest. And all because this stuff might make it into a book two years from now. I want to have constructive conversations about this, I want to believe that's possible, but everyone just sounds so mad.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
People have enjoyed the game just fine all while ignoring or forgetting about inspiration for close to a decade. It is very obviously not needed to get people to roll dice. Nothing is gained by doubling down on a mechanic very few people have cared about through out the entire existence of said mechanic. There are already LOTS of ways to gain advantage both in and out of combat. We really don't need another.
I don't have the statistics, and I don't think you do either. Saying "very few people have cared about" Inspiration is a loaded statement, and you know it. It's something best to be backed up. We're all just speculating, or are you privy to information the rest of us don't have?
What I don't get is why everyone is losing their dang minds in what seems like every other thread about the playtest. And all because this stuff might make it into a book two years from now. I want to have constructive conversations about this, I want to believe that's possible, but everyone just sounds so mad.
And over a game for twelve-year-olds.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
People have enjoyed the game just fine all while ignoring or forgetting about inspiration for close to a decade. It is very obviously not needed to get people to roll dice. Nothing is gained by doubling down on a mechanic very few people have cared about through out the entire existence of said mechanic. There are already LOTS of ways to gain advantage both in and out of combat. We really don't need another.
I don't have the statistics, and I don't think you do either. Saying "very few people have cared about" Inspiration is a loaded statement, and you know it. It's something best to be backed up. We're all just speculating, or are you privy to information the rest of us don't have?
What I don't get is why everyone is losing their dang minds in what seems like every other thread about the playtest. And all because this stuff might make it into a book two years from now. I want to have constructive conversations about this, I want to believe that's possible, but everyone just sounds so mad.
And over a game for twelve-year-olds.
Kind of insulting to say this is a game for 12 year-olds; honestly there are more adults that play D&D than there are kids. Also if people sound mad, that is you projecting it onto them. Tone does not carry over well when it comes to text. People are making constructive arguments and having constructive conversations; it may be a tad heated, but it doesn't mean it is not constructive. Just because someone heavily disagrees with your views, does not make their arguments non-constructive.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
While I would be hesitant to trust any statistics WotC has considering those same statistics gave us the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule; I do personally find that most people I talk to and in the groups I've played in, inspiration is often forgotten about. People just don't really remember to use them.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
While I would be hesitant to trust any statistics WotC has considering those same statistics gave us the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule; I do personally find that most people I talk to and in the groups I've played in, inspiration is often forgotten about. People just don't really remember to use them.
Well, to be fair, the nat 1/20 rules is just them checking the waters because they found that there were people that either didn't understand/read the current rules for ability checks or played using the auto fail/success as a house rule.
As far as Inspiration goes, I created a poll in General Discussion Forums to see what the experiences are for people that frequent DnDBeyond.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
While I would be hesitant to trust any statistics WotC has considering those same statistics gave us the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule; I do personally find that most people I talk to and in the groups I've played in, inspiration is often forgotten about. People just don't really remember to use them.
Well, to be fair, the nat 1/20 rules is just them checking the waters because they found that there were people that either didn't understand/read the current rules for ability checks or played using the auto fail/success as a house rule.
As far as Inspiration goes, I created a poll in General Discussion Forums to see what the experiences are for people that frequent DnDBeyond.
I feel like they really thought the vast majority of players really did use the nat 1/20 house rule though; like that was their reasoning for making it the rule or did I interpret Jeremy Crawford wrong?
From my experience this really does not seem to be the case. Granted of course, my sample size is not large and thus my results could be an outlier, but from the groups I play in and the groups my co-workers play in (I am a new employee to this company too so they are quite unrelated to my groups), no one seemed to use that house rule (my groups did at first, but we ended up throwing it out due to unsatisfactory experiences with it); and if it matters, my co-workers definitely do not seem like the optimizing type.
Yeah it was apparently a very frequent question asked to the sage and with surveys it was apparently a very common house rule. Me if I felt the need to make everything unified I'd go the other way and remove automatic success/failure from combat rolls. If you are fighting something you need a 20 to hit, you need to run the DM threw a plot event at you not something to fight, and okay whatever after a certain level you never miss slimes and zombies, not a big loss. I've only bumped into the latter in 40+ years of gaming and the 5% miss chance on zombies going away wont bother me. Make the unity the inspiration on a 20, add some universal negative on a 1 like you lose a inspiration if you have one, or my preference give the DM a inspiration pool for his monsters that ones feed into.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
While I would be hesitant to trust any statistics WotC has considering those same statistics gave us the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule; I do personally find that most people I talk to and in the groups I've played in, inspiration is often forgotten about. People just don't really remember to use them.
Well, to be fair, the nat 1/20 rules is just them checking the waters because they found that there were people that either didn't understand/read the current rules for ability checks or played using the auto fail/success as a house rule.
As far as Inspiration goes, I created a poll in General Discussion Forums to see what the experiences are for people that frequent DnDBeyond.
I feel like they really thought the vast majority of players really did use the nat 1/20 house rule though; like that was their reasoning for making it the rule or did I interpret Jeremy Crawford wrong?
From my experience this really does not seem to be the case. Granted of course, my sample size is not large and thus my results could be an outlier, but from the groups I play in and the groups my co-workers play in (I am a new employee to this company too so they are quite unrelated to my groups), no one seemed to use that house rule; and if it matters, my co-workers definitely do not seem like the optimizing type.
What comes out the other end of the UA testing may tell us. We can only fill out the survey then wait.
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Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be, which isn't to say rare but it's meant to be a reward for playing your character as they should be or in a compelling way, if it were handed out like candy at Halloween than that isn't really a reward, it's a participation prize. The recommendation in the DMG was 1 point per player per session, which can be adjusted as the DM desires, or they can fore-go Inspiration entirely (that's the DM's choice). It's not something that was mechanically rewarded but a way to encourage certain styles of play which fits with the DMs campaign and the character development of the PC in question, making it mechanically rewarded entirely breaks what Inspiration was entirely designed for.
Also the Matt Mercer Effect is when people try to play DnD expecting it to be like Critical Role, which is the accurate, you were basically saying we should look at the way critical role plays.
I do not care if critical role plays a certain way, DnD is not critical role and that is not a good basis for is Inspiration in need of change. The changes to Inspiration in oned&d HAVE broken what Inspiration is, that isn't even debatable, since it turned a non-mechanical reward into a mechanical piece of candy. I do not watch Critical Role, and have no intention too, I'm sure it's good but it's not a good basis for what D&D should be, nor is it a good basis for what works and does not work within D&D.
Can't be Farmed? Except Humans get it every long rest and then the Musician feat gives it to PROFICIENCY number of players per short & long rest!
You can't farm it as you can only have one. If you get another you have to give it to someone else.
you can't have multiple, yes, but getting it once per short rest from musician means you can basically keep half the party with inspiration at any given point, probably the entire party when you progress into the mid-game. It's basically stupidly easy to get now from a single feat, and it gives advantage on use which means most players are going to use it soon since it's a 9.75% chance to get a nat 20. Which is why I say it's no longer a valuable reward but a piece of cheap candy.
Okay, we'll cover that in chunks
Your formatting is annoying.
You're right about what the Mercer Effect is, which is why it's so mind-boggling that you think I'm trying to prop it up. I'm not. I made an observation, which may or may not be something WotC sees, and it wouldn't surprise me if it was noticed by the higher ups. That observation was a literal business partner and high-profile advertiser wasn't using a mechanic in the Player's Handbook. House rules and the implementation of numerous optional and variant rules aside, that's a glaring omission. There's a Reddit post on the subject from five years ago, but that's it. And, to be clear, his explanation is completely justified. He had, and still has, a lot to keep track of.
But I digress, and I think you had it backwards. If anything, invoking the Mercer Effect would mean fewer people are using Inspiration. And, clearly, that's not what WotC wants. So, for whatever reason, they're changing it up.
I'm going to stick to my guns and say nothing has been broken. Inspiration can still a reward for doing something "particularly heroic or amusing." There's just another way to earn it; a tried and true method in case the DM forgets. I'm sorry you think that's bad, and I think you need to lighten up. Because, in the games I've played since the playtest has come out, I haven't noticed a change.
This playtest is in its infancy. We have a long way to go between now and probably Autumn 2024. Because that's when all the big rules releases have been.
Yeah, I'm standing by that one, too. So what? I was specifically referring to the idea of rolling pointless ability checks over and over for that 20, anyway. Wasn't that obvious. And I've already talked about those, so I don't need to go over them again. It's just not a big deal, mechanically. If you're worried about a lack of roleplaying, there's no rule to fix that. That's a player issue.
Like I told Mana before I blocked hr, it's not the Nat1/Nat20 that's her problem. Her problem is with a DM who might make her roll when she doesn't want to. Or with players who might try and bully the DM. And...fair, I guess. But, again, those are interpersonal issues. There are no rules which can fix people. This has now been 22 pages on what happens when you roll the die, and people are losing their minds over it. In a game where you're supposed to roll dice.
And if someone rolling a D20 twice does somehow break a game, I mean utterly derailing it, I'd love to read about it.
This was supposed to be all one post. Some of it got deleted when I was trying to clean up your mess. For the love of all that is holy, find a better way to reply. Saying dealing with this is inconvenient is putting it mildly.
You know what? I already wrote a lot for this that got deleted, and I honestly don't think I care enough to retype all that. Heaven help me, I'll try, but it might not be recognizably the same.
So what if Inspiration can now also be earned mechanically? It can still be an award for whatever you think is strong roleplaying; which is entirely subjective. It's just now also accessible via another means. If we're honestly going to say there's no wrong way to play the game, then why does Inspiration being a "participation prize" offend you so much? Are you trying to be elitist, or is that just coming out naturally?
I'm in two games. Nobody was playing a human in the ongoing one, and nobody chose to start as a human in the one that started up during the playtest. (And I specifically said we'd be using the playtest document going forward, so that was the human they had to choose if they did.) So I haven't seen how they start every day with Inspiration, but so what? If you don't lie it, then set a slower pace for the game. It could be sessions between long rests.
The new Musician feat is interesting, but only because Inspiration can be doled out after a short rest as well. It means WotC hasn't forgotten about it, and it will still be encouraged. This gives me hope for what the classes might look like down the line. That said, it's another pacing tool for the players. They decide how often they short rest, and Inspiration goes away at the end of the day. It's a temporary resource that either gets used or lost. If it happens a little more often, so what?
"Inspiration is suppose to be as common as the DM wants it to be..."
You cannot have this both ways. If the DM wants to hand out Inspiration like dang Halloween candy, they darn well can. And you don't have the right to be upset over that. You want Inspiration to be special because, I think, you want to feel special. And that's fine. We all want to feel special sometimes. That said, you're no more special than anyone else playing the game. Not at your table, not at mine, and not at anyone else's.
Inspiration does not need to be or feel special. It never did, and even if it was before, it doesn't need to stay that way.
Do you want people to roll dice or not? Do you want them to fail and not succeed? To not had fun? Your entire, emotional, argument is hiding behind a veneer of game design I don't think you fully grasp. Inspiration couldn't break the game before, so it can't now. The frequency is irrelevant. I don't know that it should be awarded on a 20, because I don't think players need a cherry on top of automatically succeeding, but that's about it.
Do you even know the odds of using Inspiration (or some other source of Advantage) to earn a point of Inspiration via the D20? It's 9.75%. I know that sounds like a lot, but it really isn't.
It's advantage, as a mechanic. That's it. That's what you're arguing against: easy advantage. The new Unarmed Strike rules do it, too. I don't know what else to tell you, except don't play with the optional flanking rules from the DMG.
No, it definitely is the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule that I have an issue with. If the nat 1/20 auto fail/success was not there, I wouldn't have any problem at all. I am fine with the DM being able to decide when a roll is warranted or not warranted; I am not fine with the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rules because they remove agency from the player and negate character investment. When combined with how DM's can decide whether a roll is warranted or not, it adds unnecessary variance to Organize Play because you will have DMs that will use it to ignore the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule and you will have DM's making people roll because a 5% auto fail/success chance. It will hinder fun in more cases when it actually matters and the people who are for it are unlikely to see a difference in gameplay regardless of whether it makes it to the release version or not.
Making this clear to everyone now, my issue is the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule. I do not have any issue with DM's being able to decide by RAW when a roll is warranted or unwarranted. Only when the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule comes into play do I have issues with the system.
My problem with gaining inspiration on rolling a 20 is that it makes the game more complicated without making it better. It's not like people need to be motivated to roll 20s.
I address that further down.
The way this is written, you are suggesting any other outcome that does not including rolling a dice and succeeding as not being fun. The logical extension to this, is that failure is bad and therefor players should never fail? Why bother rolling dice at all then, since the very purpose of dice in the construct of the game is to resolve situations where there is a chance of failure. If nothing is risked, what value does success actually have?
I can appreciate that not every table is my table, and that a beer and pretzels style game where random chance and silly outcomes makes for a fun evening. In that style of game, the auto success/fail rules as a houserule is perfectly fine. Where I draw exception however, is that those are not the style of games I run, and making this the mandatory rule is forcing the game towards more of that style.
Now the obvious argument is that I can houserule to remove the auto success/fail. And that is true, to an extent. However there is something to be said about the implied legitimacy of a rule when it is in the rule book, versus what makes more or less sense for a table.
I also find a disturbing number of commentators are focusing on a binary assessment of the scenario. Yes, you can use DM fiat to say "this is impossible for you, so you can't roll" however it is a common situation at my table that something is only possible to some of the characters, as a result of choices those players have made. Those choices matter, the auto success/fail rule now means that either I invalidate those choices by letting everyone roll, or alternatively I have to say to the table that only some people can roll.
Under the current rule, those outcomes are hidden, part of the encounter design and the choices the players make resolve the situation with very little feedback from me.
Since examples can be helpful, let's say I have an situation where listening at a door (a DC 25 perception check) will provide a certain outcome.
Under the current rules, anyone may have the idea and try the action; but some characters will just not be able to make that DC of 25. But this information isn't known, and the party makes a choice and deals with the consequences of that choice. Now, lets imagine the same situation occurs with the new rule. I have two choices:
In the first case, it is telling the party, "You tried with the wrong person" - Now sure, you can have out of game discussions about not kicking the can down the road, fishing for success etc. But all these are added work and drama that just doesn't need to exist. In the second case, I am invalidating the player choice and agency for those characters who DID invest in increasing their perception.
The current rules handle this far more elegantly than the proposed rules do, and it really is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
That is a pretty jerky way to say it.
And my followup to that statement is "it would be better to not have inspiration at all than to have it based on rolling 20s". Having it based on rolling 20s adds nothing to the game. If you want to make 20s exciting... make them exciting by what they do. If the existing inspiration mechanic seems useless... just throw it out.
People have enjoyed the game just fine all while ignoring or forgetting about inspiration for close to a decade. It is very obviously not needed to get people to roll dice. Nothing is gained by doubling down on a mechanic very few people have cared about through out the entire existence of said mechanic. There are already LOTS of ways to gain advantage both in and out of combat. We really don't need another.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Let's just move away from Critical Role discussion entirely, it's pointless. I do not watch it, so i can not fully comment on it. I will stick to the point that we should not care about what Critical Role does or does not utilize, the same will go for most campaigns on youtube/twitch/etc, those are suspect to being altered for camera and also just an anecdotal source, which isn't reliable. It would be better to get surveys to actually see where D&D players really think changes are needed. (which is really what they are doing, purposing ideas and getting feed back)
Also not saying that rolling a D20 ruins the game, I am saying the mechanical changes to inspiration essentially ruin the entire core concept of what inspiration is; that is to say, what inspiration is in one D&D, is not what inspiration is in 5E. We really didn't need another source of advantage to begin with given how powerful advantage has been in 5E, if anything 5E gets a little to dominated by advantage already. This is another reason why I say that the change is bad, advantage in and of itself was a good change but one that already dominates too much, a lot of battles contain parties trying to get "advantage" in one way or another, which isn't really as tactical as it sounds, rather it's just using abilities and spells. Overall, if inspiration was such an issue, I think it would have been better to remove the feature than to do what we now see in oneD&D.
If a DM wants to hand out inspiration like halloween candy than they can, that ISN'T what I have issue with, what I have issue with is that the game MECHANICS (not the DM), is handing inspiration out like candy. It's a bit of a strawman to go on that tangent because I've never once said I have an issue with a DM determining how much they want to reward players with the feature.
Literally the last post I made before you posted this, I clearly stated it as 9.75%, and 9.75% is not a statistically insignificant amount, nor is the fact that from doing this on a roll, you reduce the chance of a nat 1 from 5% to 0.25%. You basically want to use inspiration the first chance you get, every time, it is not a stockpile resource like in 5E where you save it for when it truly matters, for that roll you really do not want to fail. It's just another advantage feature, when we already had possibly slightly too many methods before.
Also D&D does not need dice rolls every 5 minutes, for social interactions, there doesn't need to be a D20 to determine if every social encounter is good. Sometimes dice rolls interrupt the flow of the role-play and sometimes they also slow down combat. But that gets back to issues from pages ago like now being made to roll for concentration literally every attack when you have a bonus so high that a 1 shouldn't fail. Rolling dice can be fun but that doesn't mean they should be shoe-horned into literally every opportunity, at that point they go from fun to intrusive.
Some people, yes. And I'm sure some have been using the optional Flanking rules, the variant for Playing on a Grid, or picking any of these cherries for their game.
I don't have the statistics, and I don't think you do either. Saying "very few people have cared about" Inspiration is a loaded statement, and you know it. It's something best to be backed up. We're all just speculating, or are you privy to information the rest of us don't have?
What I don't get is why everyone is losing their dang minds in what seems like every other thread about the playtest. And all because this stuff might make it into a book two years from now. I want to have constructive conversations about this, I want to believe that's possible, but everyone just sounds so mad.
And over a game for twelve-year-olds.
Inspiration was not frequently used according to the creators of the game. They have the statics. It is part of why they are trying the change. They talk about it in the video for a bit, but nothing super in depth.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Kind of insulting to say this is a game for 12 year-olds; honestly there are more adults that play D&D than there are kids. Also if people sound mad, that is you projecting it onto them. Tone does not carry over well when it comes to text. People are making constructive arguments and having constructive conversations; it may be a tad heated, but it doesn't mean it is not constructive. Just because someone heavily disagrees with your views, does not make their arguments non-constructive.
While I would be hesitant to trust any statistics WotC has considering those same statistics gave us the nat 1/20 auto fail/success rule; I do personally find that most people I talk to and in the groups I've played in, inspiration is often forgotten about. People just don't really remember to use them.
Well, to be fair, the nat 1/20 rules is just them checking the waters because they found that there were people that either didn't understand/read the current rules for ability checks or played using the auto fail/success as a house rule.
As far as Inspiration goes, I created a poll in General Discussion Forums to see what the experiences are for people that frequent DnDBeyond.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
I feel like they really thought the vast majority of players really did use the nat 1/20 house rule though; like that was their reasoning for making it the rule or did I interpret Jeremy Crawford wrong?
From my experience this really does not seem to be the case. Granted of course, my sample size is not large and thus my results could be an outlier, but from the groups I play in and the groups my co-workers play in (I am a new employee to this company too so they are quite unrelated to my groups), no one seemed to use that house rule (my groups did at first, but we ended up throwing it out due to unsatisfactory experiences with it); and if it matters, my co-workers definitely do not seem like the optimizing type.
Yeah it was apparently a very frequent question asked to the sage and with surveys it was apparently a very common house rule. Me if I felt the need to make everything unified I'd go the other way and remove automatic success/failure from combat rolls. If you are fighting something you need a 20 to hit, you need to run the DM threw a plot event at you not something to fight, and okay whatever after a certain level you never miss slimes and zombies, not a big loss. I've only bumped into the latter in 40+ years of gaming and the 5% miss chance on zombies going away wont bother me. Make the unity the inspiration on a 20, add some universal negative on a 1 like you lose a inspiration if you have one, or my preference give the DM a inspiration pool for his monsters that ones feed into.
What comes out the other end of the UA testing may tell us. We can only fill out the survey then wait.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master