Inspiration Guidance, Leveled XP Rewards

The 5e PHB says that how inspiration is handled is up to the DM. 

So here's how I'm going to handle it. 

AWARDING INSPIRATION

Awarding it yourself is a pain. You have enough stuff to think about. Let the players award it to themselves when they fulfill the conditions. 

Of course, the conditions need to be clear and obvious for this to work (see inspiration actions below). In other words, fulfilling inspiration conditions is something observable in the fiction, just like triggering a trap. As long as the conditions are clear, refereeing this is in principle no different from refereeing whether someone stepped on a pressure plate. 

Put tokens in a bowl or what have you. When a player reaches to take a token, you'll know they're giving themselves inspiration. If you can't imagine why, ask. You can get more clarification and, in the worst case, veto. 

Don't bother arguing and slowing the game down. Deal with misunderstandings afterward, and let them know beforehand that that's how it's gonna be. 

MAXIMUM INSPIRATION

RAW, if you have inspiration, and then you do something that would earn you inspiration again, nothing happens. 

I'm changing that to: if you have inspiration already and you do something that would grant inspiration, instead gain XP. 

How much you award is up to you. I'd say 5 or 10 percent of the XP difference between your current and next level is fine (i.e., subtract the current level's XP threshold from the next level's and multiply by your percent). I think I'll stick with 10%. 

Here's a table. The tiny reward is 1% of XP needed to level; the small reward is 5%; the large reward is 10%. You could hand these out for other things as well, like quest completion. 

Tiny / Small / Large Individual XP Rewards by Level

1. 3/15/30
2. 6/30/60
3. 18/90/180
4. 38/190/380
5. 75/375/750
6. 90/450/900
7. 110/550/1100
8. 140/700/1400
9. 160/800/1600
10. 210/1050/2100
11. 150/750/1500
12. 200/1000/2000
13. 200/1000/2000
14. 250/1250/2500
15. 300/1500/3000
16. 300/1500/3000
17. 400/2000/4000
18. 400/2000/4000
19. 500/2500/5000
20. stack inspiration

INSPIRATION ACTIONS

There are six conditions under which you can earn inspiration. I'll give examples afterward. 

Get inspiration / XP when you:

1. Answer or react to answer of personal question 
2. Judge or react to judgment of  actions or motivations
3. React to suffering, yours or another's
4. Become more intimate with another character
5. Get closer to your personal goal
6. Make a serious vow with full intention to keep it (punish fatuous or long unfulfilled vows with XP freeze or an XP reduction equal to the large award)

SCENE FRAMING

Sometimes a player might want to do something to get inspiration, but he needs the cooperation of NPCs, the environment, or the the other PCs to do so. Like, he might have some

backstory nonsense he's super hyped about. Or maybe she's missing a body part, and there's some story behind that, like Ahab's peg leg. 

Answering or reacting to the answering of a personal question is inspiration action #1, and that's definitely what this would fall under. 

But unless someone asks Ahab about the peg leg, he can't answer, and maybe nobody's thought to ask because they don't know if there's anything interesting behind it.

So, if you permit scene framing, it would be fine for Ahab's player to say, hey guys, does anyone want to ask me about how I got this peg leg? If they do, remember, they would get inspiration too. If none of the players want to, Ahab's player could ask if an NPC who's around might be interested. And then the interaction could play out. 

But, if you don't want that kind of business, just don't encourage or allow it. 

DIRECTION

Don't let things drag. Feel free to say CUT! and move on. 

Think about how good TV does this. Someone gives up personal info or becomes more intimate, someone else reacts, maybe there's a counter reaction, and then some transition occurs ("we've got company!"), or the scene abruptly cuts. 

Do that. 

WEAKNESS

Don't allow it. If someone doesn't know another person and then shares a meal, that's becoming more intimate, sure. Inspiration. But sharing another meal doesn't make them more intimate. That's just weak repetition and water-treading.

If someone tries to claim inspiration for that, let them know it's weak and that something stronger will be required, something that takes us somewhere. They can either reformulate or give you one argument. If that doesn't change your mind, move on without permitting inspiration. 

Like, you can drink to oblivion once to show suffering from alcoholism. Doing it again is just boring. Now we need you to hurt someone or endanger someone, etc. 

PACING

Let's not all take turns asking probing questions about childhood, okay? One inspiration action per scene, thank you, unless you think it's really good. 

WHY

Because I'm a hippie who likes a bit of drama in the elfgames. 

EXAMPLE INSPIRATION ACTIONS

Sharing a blanket with someone for warmth. 

Sharing a meal with someone. 

Fighting with someone. 

Condemning someone's religious views. 

Defending your own views against the condemnation of others. 

Vowing to track down the men who did this and bring them to justice (or wear their skins, whatever floats your boat).

Answer the villager's question about why you'd risk your life for this. 

Vow to never let this happen to him again. 

Scouring all the libraries of the city for info on the burial place of your great great grandfather, last warden of the south. 

Asking how you got that scar. 

Asking what you'll do after all this is over. 

Answering what is best in life. 

Holding the dog's head in your lap as it dies. 

Bringing wine and bread to the grieving widow and sitting quietly with her. 

[Hoard of the Dragon Queen] XP #hdqRemix

First thing's first: let's fix the XP system.

Hoard of the Dragon Queen is about two things:

ONE:  Killing Cultists

TWO: Taking Their Stuff

That is literally the point. Against the Cult of the Dragon Queen would have been a great name as well.

So let's make the actual incentive structure of the game reflect that.

ONE: no XP for defeating monters EXCEPT CULTISTS

Fighting bullywugs? Sorry, no XP for that. Why are you doing it again? For kicks? Okay.

Fighting cultists? GREAT KILL AWAY. Your life is dope, and you do dope things.

TWO: 1 XP per GP recovered FROM THE CULT and SECURELY DEPOSITED wherever

You slap the half-hobbit bartender and nick the coin from the till? Wonderful. Buy some Alizé.

You recover some money stolen from some podunk town by the cult? Well then my lads and lassies, that's 1 XP per gp safely deposited somewhere:

1. given to someone you think deserves it
2. hidden where no one will find it
3. stored with your faction
4. stored with a bank
5. etc.
6. we're all grownups here, or soon we shall be

THREE (OPTONAL): 10% of next level's XP value for completing faction quests or ad-hoc quests. 

Factions are a thing. If you want them to have more pull on the players, give them XP for doing what the factions want. 

THE REMIX WILL NEVER DIE

(at least until it's done)

Personal Story

I like the creation of story to be a goal of play, even in D&D. Not just things happening one after another, but actual this-all-means-something story.

It can be really complicated and lame, but it doesn't have to be.

And, in fact, it doesn't need to happen all the time; it just needs to be possibly happen, and its happening needs to be a goal.

What I'm about to propose makes all kinds of sense in my mind, but I haven't actually tried it out properly yet.

1. If we encode something that your toon wants, we have the possibility of narrative. 
2. If we want the issue, whatever it is, to be the focus or goal of play, then we need some way to arrive at a conclusion to it. 
3. Stories are crazy and can resolve any number of ways. 
4. This game already has a way of keeping score. It is called XP. 
5. I would like player skill to partially determine the outcome (comedic or tragic) of the PC's story.
6. We can run the game in such a way that acquiring XP reflects player skill (OSR play typically does this)
7. Therefore, we can use XP to determine the resolution of the story.
8. But how to measure? 
9. I will tell you.

In 4E, there is a thing called an extended rest. Hint: it's just "resting for a day," which has existed since forever as the means to restore your "daily/adventure resources" like spells and hp. 

That's a reset button; so the XP-acquisition cycle needs to be tied to that. 

The question of skill is: how much XP can you acquire per cycle? Skilled play should result on average in a high ratio of XP per rest. That's what we want to encourage anyway. (This "solves" the 15 minute adventuring day, btw.)

(Presumably you're going into a dungeon, an area that you will NOT be able to clear in one go. That's what these rules are designed to cover. If you're going into an area that CAN be cleared in one go, scale the following to that, with 100% clear meaning 100% chance of comedy. Keeping reading; it'll make sense.)

To make this work, you need to know a couple things:

1. What is the maximum feasible XP acquisition per daily cycle? 
2. Arithmetic.

Once you know those, you will need to do a few things:

1. Divide the max feasible XP per cycle by 100; this is called the "XP unit" or whatever is a better name
2. Decouple the daily resource reset from diurnal fictional processes (i.e., sleeping for a night does NOT mean you get your spells and hp back)
3. Optionally, come up with a fictional trigger for the daily resource reset, or
4. Don't worry about it, and just let it be meta

Now then, the party will be tracking how much XP they've gained anyway; if they're curious, they can cross reference with the XP unit value to see what % chance they've got at getting a comedic resolution to their PC's personal story. 

Now, the personal story may not be resolved by the time the PCs take an "extended rest" and trigger the daily resource refresh. That's fine. Just take the % they've gathered so far and have them note it.

When it comes time (that's another post) to resolve their personal story, you will average all the %s they've accrued during their daily resource cycles and try to roll under that. Max is 100% so that there is always at least a 1% chance of tragedy. 

This is all very high level and without example. I will try to fix that real quick. 

Brill Ficklam is a level 1 fighter. The GM has determined that 200 XP is the max feasible to be gained per extended rest (XR). So 2 XP is the XP unit; every 2 XP is +1% chance of comedic resolution. 

Brill wants to get married, say, because he thinks only romance can make him happy. (I don't know; I'm just coming up with stuff off the top of my head). But the problem is he's really socially awkward; so he wants to train with the party's rogue to get better at talking to girls so he can finally get a date. That seems like an okay story, fine. 

Over the course of two XRs, Brill has had a lot of romantic disappointment and gained 100 and 150 XP, which is 50% and 75% chance of comedy respectively. Say it's come to do or die in the narrative, and he's pulled out all the stops, and is he going to get this date with the girl he's been pining over for the past three months? Average those results, and you get 62.5 (round up because we like Brill). So 63% chance of comedic resolution. Roll it, and GM says what happens, etc. 

Nobody may know what to do with this yet! I'm writing it mostly for my own reference later. 

Negative XP

YOUR PLAYERS WILL LOVE THIS

Instead of giving XP for fighting monsters,

GIVE THEM NEGATIVE XP FOR IT.

What I mean is, for every point of hp they lose, THEY ALSO LOSE 1 XP.

So, if the cleric loses 3, the thief 2, and the fighter 5 hp over the course of the fight, the whole party loses (3 + 2 + 5) = 10 / 3 [number of PCs in party] = 3.333 round UP [hahahah] = 4 XP each.

Don't worry about the hp getting healed. What matters is they lost it. If they get hit, get healed, get hit again, they're JUST LOSING MORE HP.

Get outta there. It's a bad scene.

I'm doing this for my 4E thieves guild game next time. We'll see how THAT goes.

Grounded 4e

NOTE: all the math here has been updated and expanded with a ton more options; see here: http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/03/edition-math-conversion-compendium.html.

There are a number of pretty simple, mostly GM-facing hacks you can do to make 4e play more grounded.

No Math Bloat

These changes make leveling more about new abilities than new numbers. It makes gear much more important. It makes monsters really scary. It probably means you want to use something other than monsters for XP bags (like quest award XP or XP for treasure). 

• Gaining a new level does not by itself grant additional hp
• Remove half level bonuses across the board
• Scaling published skill DCs higher than 19:
• For Rituals with ranges of effect:
• Either leave them alone, to let some ranges be unobtainable at low level, or:
• subtract 19 from the DC
• divide remaining DC by 2, rounding down
• Add to 19 for final DC
• Example (Ritual: Chorus of Truth)
• 19 is the high bound of the lowest range of results. We leave that be. 
• The next range includes 10 results. We reduce that to 5: 20-24.
• The next range is 10 as well. That gets reduced to 5: 25-29.
• The final range is just one number higher and up: 30+. 
• For DCs that are just high because the PCs are presumed to also be of high level: 
• ignore the DC
• just use 11/12/19 range as given in the DM cheat sheet below
• For monsters:
• After determining their level (if converting from HD-determined monsters), either:
• Leave the levels alone, or:
• Remove half their level from their attacks, defenses, initiative, and skill checks

I think I like to just leave them alone and let higher level monsters be really hard to hit.

Converting pre-4e Monsters

To convert an older monster to 4e style:

• damage
• give it damage expressions like so: http://slyflourish.com/master_dm_sheet.pdf
• 1d8+3 + 1/level (1d8+4 at level 1)
• -2 for area
• +2 for limited
• +2 for brute
• +4 for brute limited
• minimum damage for minions
• on top of normal damage, add flat (nonscaling) +1d12 
• this brings the average damage expression to an average of 15
• retain any special abilities (but not multiple attacks probably unless elite or solo)
• determine how much hp it should have:
•  by hand:
• < 1 HD: minion
• HD - X: 7 + 6/level (13 at level 1)
• HD + 0: 9 + 8/level (17 at level 1)
• HD + 1:  13 + 10/level (23 at level 1)
• HD + 2: elite (double a +0 monster's hp, 34 at level 1)
• by the DM sheet above:
• <1 HD: minion
• HD - X: low - 11
• HD + 0: standard - 13
• HD + 1: high - 15
• HD + 2: (low * 2) - 11
• to determine what 4e level a monster of a given HD should be
• HD1 = Level 1
• HD2 = Level 3 (hp = level 1's hp x 2)
• >= HD3 = Level [HD*2]

This preserves the double-hp jump from HD1 to HD 2 and the steadier HP increase thereafter. The increased damage across the board likewise makes the first level much more difficult for PCs. The hp subtraction from monsters makes sure they can go down in a hit or two, as in days of yore. 

Other Tweaks

• All creatures (including your allies) provide cover, and may be struck on miss by 5+. 
• Track encumbrance for real (more in an upcoming post)
• Whenever they take an extended rest, do something bad. 
• Make dungeons dark, apply RAW dim light penalties
• Consider capping advancement at 10 or 11.
• Restock dungeons
• Wandering monsters (10% chance each 10 minutes)