How I do Insp in D&D 5e

Update four years later: I’ve made a more comprehensive guide to how

I do insp

So if I understand the book, inspiration isn’t a number, you either have it or you don’t have it.

This caused the problem that when the players already had insp, you couldn’t hand it out again. If player’s are regularly using their insp, they can do things to re-gain their insp, but if they aren’t, the inspiration can stop flowing. Which kind of makes it so that the rule doesn’t exist.

Here’s my solution. I have a huge bowl of tokens (I use black go stones) that represent insp. I give them out to players and they can have any number of tokens. Already inspired but does something that deserves an insp token? Here, have it.

However, when you use your insp or when you give your insp away, you give away all of it! So it’s still the same as in the book: you have insp or you don’t have insp.

But that one insp can be represented by one or five or fifteen tokens, or any number.

I use the mental model of the insp being like jelly. You can get jelly pieces but when you receive them, they “stick together”.

This way of representing insp is only cosmetic. There’s no rules changes. It might seem that it doesn’t do any difference, but it has made a lot of difference. It’s easier to remember to hand out insp once you can do it freely, without considering whether or not the player already had insp. I’ve also seen players grab insp from the bowl and give to each other.