Earning Inspiration

In my own game, Inspiration can be earned in three ways:

1) By playing up to your personality traits, ideals, bonds or flaws, especially when they would be different than the optimum way to play out a scene, an encounter, or combat. If you're an artisan and refuse to cast fireball in a roomful of trolls because it would destroy the rare tapestries, that's Inspiration-worthy. This is the method used in the 5th edition Player's Handbook.

2) By doing something exceptionally heroic or dangerous, that puts you or the party at risk, in order to accomplish something amazing. This is also known as the "holy sh*t, that's awesome!" rule, referring to the utterance I'll make when something awesome happens in-game.

3) The ever-present "DM's Discretion" rule. I may award inspiration whenever there is a reason to give it that isn't covered in 1 or 2 above. I could give it for a success: like a PC finally finishing a personal quest. I could give it out of pity: maybe a PC just lost all their armor to an acid-spitting monster. I might even give it for something that sends me into a coughing fit of laughter. So stay on your toes. :-)