Instead of Inspiration, we'll be using the Benny system from Savage Worlds, but built into DnD 5e. 

What's the difference?

Inspiration is a hard mechanic, Bennies are both a mechanic and a narrative tool. 

It helps the DM advance the story or encounter, encourages player/dm collaboration and increases player agency while reducing DM's need to prep for everything. 

You can call them Bennies or  Inspirations or whatever you like. 

To replace Inspiration with Bennies, do the following: 

Each player has 3 Bennies or Inspirations for each session. DM has 1 for each player for each session + each important or key NPC has one of their own. 

Players can regain Bennies for good teamwork, roleplaying their character, inspiring dialogue, creative playing etc.

It is recommended to be overly generous with Bennies. If you are stingy with bennies, then your players will be likely to save them for combat stuff instead of creative story building. 

A player can use a Benny to do one of the following things:

Reroll an ability check or saving throw (like with Inspiration)

Reroll damage

Influence the Story (this is great! Examples in the end)

Additional options for DMs to consider:

Reduce long rest to 4 hours (great for when they are under time pressure and DM wants to allow pushing their limits)

Regain Hit Dice

And more

The DM can use them for the following: 

Replace Legendary Resistances with Bennies. Technically any NPC can have Legendary Resistance if the DM has bennies left. 

Rerolls for NPCs

Remove a status effect from an NPC or monster

Influence the Story examples: 

This is the best thing, and the reason why we want to use this for DnD too. All Influence the Story uses are done with DM discretion, but it is recommended to allow most things that are reasonable and advance the story. 

1. Did you forget to buy a lantern? Use a benny to rewrite the story so that you actually bought it. 

2. You have an awesome plan, but it would require you to find a bucket in the dungeon. Use a benny to influence the dungeon so that there is a bucket! 

3. Did you forget to ask some detail from the friendly NPC or forget to tell them some crucial info. Rewrite with a benny to get the information you forgot. 

Real life examples from our previous game: 

1. Player infiltrated a Council Building. Brute used a benny and asked to find cleaning equipment and an apron there. He then posed as a cleaner who was sent to clean the place as punishment from the Baron (this fit the story really well). The deception was successful and the guards were just laughing at his punishment and the apron that was four sizes too small. But the persuasion to go upstairs failed, so they sent him to clean the toilet first. 

2. Player thief had to get past a stationary guard. He used a benny and asked for a flower pot to be on a fence. He was granted the flower pot, which he knocked over to create a loud mess to distract the guard and have their brute friend sent to clean it. 

3. Brute wanted to taunt the BBEG in a steampunk town. He used a benny and asked if there could be some sort of a public announcement system in town, which I approved. He then broke in and used the PA to taunt their enemy for all people to hear. Ah, what a beautiful plan. 

I like this. One other thing I would suggest to use it for - mini-retcons for those times when a player ends their turn or begins an action and realizes they forgot to do something they meant to do first. A ranger attacking when they meant to Hunter's Mark first, or a rogue ending their turn and only realizing they forgot to close the door when the rat swarm approaches, those kinds of things.

Quote from scatterbraind >>

I like this. One other thing I would suggest to use it for - mini-retcons for those times when a player ends their turn or begins an action and realizes they forgot to do something they meant to do first. A ranger attacking when they meant to Hunter's Mark first, or a rogue ending their turn and only realizing they forgot to close the door when the rat swarm approaches, those kinds of things.

 Great additions! You immediately got the gist. :D

A benny is an important resource that can be a crucial life-saver too, so deciding to use a benny to retroactively close the door is great example. So this case the player decides to use a benny rather than use their entire next turn to go back and close the door. So it's pretty certainly a win for the DM too, if the party doesn't have to criss-cross around. :)

I think this also has one benefit that I didn't mention. Lately there has been intense talk about fudging rolls (let's not go there here). 
This effectively allows for the DM to reroll too. DM's role is always to be a leader of the story, so they use their bennies to the benefit of the story. So they don't necessarily have to use Bennies to kill off the players with a close call reroll, although they can if it serves the story. Instead DMs can save them for situations where succeeding is more important story-wise, sometimes in the players' favor. Like a friendly NPC can reroll Perception to warn the players. 

Another addition comes to mind: Giving players the "Remove Status Effect"

In Savage, you can use a benny to instantly remove the Shaken status, which happens as a result of taking damage. So this happens quite a bit and it's a really brutal mechanic, making you technically Incapacitated in DnD terms. Lasts until a successful Spirit roll. 

It would be nice to have some Playtesting with players being offered the same "remove status effect" that DMs can do. These other things are pretty easy balance-wise, but this should go through some playtesting, because the ability to remove any effect instantly is very strong. Maybe it needs to be specified or limited in some way for the players. Or maybe not. 

I feel like this remove status effect would be very helpful to the DM, if the party is short of players. In those cases status effects can make combat balancing tricky, because if 2/2 players are under an effect or incapacitated from damage, it takes a frustrating turn very quickly. In larger parties this is usually resolved by friends nuking the enemies or helping their friends. In small parties the combat quickly comes to a halt, so it's very difficult to give monsters any tricky status abilities. 

Second idea: 

Can be used to turn an enemy crit into a normal success. Also, BTW. In Savage, you can't use a benny to reroll a crit fail. I suggest the same for DnD 5e. In Savage, you get to keep the better score when you reroll - except if your reroll is a crit fail, then you have to accept it. 

Third idea: (feel free to reflect on all of these)

When your HP reaches 0 and you'd go down, you can immediately use a Benny to drop to 1hp instead. This is an existing mechanic, but all players having it might lower mortality. Then again, I'm pretty sure if there are enough useful options for bennies, then they will probably save 1 or 2 for combat, so between all the available combat options, I don't think this should be a problem. 

I see this as an interesting mechanic which helps the dm to provide more player driven content. Having an extra resource which can be used to create possibilities for story development seems like a welcome addition. And let's face it, inspiration is very uninspiring mechanic as some content creator put it.

Also, the "oops I forgot to x"-situations would greatly benefit from this mechanic. If one has to use a resource to correct the oopsie, it does not feel like someone is getting a free pass for not remembering how their character works. Dnd is filled with "once per long rest, once per day, once per short rest" abilities which one can forget to use as they are seldom used. Some abilities are also very situational and therefore easily forgottable.

The OP has many good uses for such a resource described already, but I believe this mechanic to have a unique use in every table. Every group has probably a different problems, mistakes, playstyle and having this kind of mechanic in game provides possibilities to enhance just the right aspect of the game. Whether it is influencing story, allowing correction of mistakes or making sure that rogue gets the lock open on a day filled with bad luck dice. 

I'll put this into consideration for sure. Thanks for sharing!

I like this idea for story-driven content but I'm not a fan of gameifying them much more than that. If DMs can use them against players (to remove conditions, add Legendary Resistance, whatever), then it becomes less of a fun resource and more of a separate stat that the players also need to keep track of. 

I did use something similar (I just called them story points or something like that) for an in-canon one shot I did with the players and they liked that a lot. Maybe I'll give this a try in an upcoming one-shot and see if I like it before being too critical. 

Quote from VanZoeren >>

I like this idea for story-driven content but I'm not a fan of gameifying them much more than that. If DMs can use them against players (to remove conditions, add Legendary Resistance, whatever), then it becomes less of a fun resource and more of a separate stat that the players also need to keep track of. 

I did use something similar (I just called them story points or something like that) for an in-canon one shot I did with the players and they liked that a lot. Maybe I'll give this a try in an upcoming one-shot and see if I like it before being too critical. 

Cheers! I hope you like it. 😄

DM removing conditions has one perk. Legendary Resistance is somewhat frustrating sometimes, especially if there is only one caster who uses saves. Mainly because what it does is "lol nope, you still fail and lose a slot", which basically undoes their action. So maybe replacing Legendary Resi altogether with removing the condition, the player could maybe enjoy one turn of paralyze for example. But still the DM wouldn't need to fear "stunlocks" ruining a boss fight. 

Quote from Ikilol >>

I see this as an interesting mechanic which helps the dm to provide more player driven content. Having an extra resource which can be used to create possibilities for story development seems like a welcome addition. And let's face it, inspiration is very uninspiring mechanic as some content creator put it.

 

Also, the "oops I forgot to x"-situations would greatly benefit from this mechanic. If one has to use a resource to correct the oopsie, it does not feel like someone is getting a free pass for not remembering how their character works. Dnd is filled with "once per long rest, once per day, once per short rest" abilities which one can forget to use as they are seldom used. Some abilities are also very situational and therefore easily forgottable.

 

The OP has many good uses for such a resource described already, but I believe this mechanic to have a unique use in every table. Every group has probably a different problems, mistakes, playstyle and having this kind of mechanic in game provides possibilities to enhance just the right aspect of the game. Whether it is influencing story, allowing correction of mistakes or making sure that rogue gets the lock open on a day filled with bad luck dice. 

 

I'll put this into consideration for sure. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers mate! 

To me this really hits the nail that I find lacking in DnD. 

As DM, I tend to get that feeling of "from the DM, for the players" a lot more than in other systems. I like it when the game feels as much of a mutual project as possible. I want to feel more like a Creative Enabler and less like a Designer. 😄