Dungeons & Dragonsclassifies the types of players a Dungeon Master may have in quite a few categories — though it’s likely that your players will fit into more than one. Among those, we have the instigating players (or just instigators), who can be one of the most complicated ones to have at the table.
Still, having one at the table can be a true blessing, allowing your campaign to reach heights no one, not even you, were expecting. But this blessing can turn into a curse if you don’t go along with it. How do you ensure your instigator has a fun time without compromising the game for everyone else?
6Embrace Their Chaos
Prepare To Improvise
Improvising is a key aspect of D&D, and that’s likely not a surprise to you. However, having an instigator means you’ll have to improvise a lot more than you may have expected.
Prepare to think about places you haven’t thought of, create NPCs on the fly, and think of logistics from your world you didn’t even realize would be relevant. In fact, be ready for your campaign to not end the way you thought it would. If you have a hard time with those, you’re able to prepare quick lists of names or similar during your free time.
Improvisation is a skill; thus,it is something you can practiceand improve on as the sessions go by. Think about all the likely or stupid outcomes from your instigator’s actions, and roll with it. Once you stop trying to prevent chaos, you can have a lot of fun with it.
5Be Chaotic Yourself
MakeThemImprovise
Why should you be the only one that gets caught off-guard, though? If your player (or players) wants to be random and poke everything, you may poke them back in ways they weren’t expecting. They may expect an NPC to fight back or run away if they attack the person unprompted, but what if the NPC just has a full-on meltdown from the pain and starts crying?
Make NPCs with unexpected reactions. Create traps that ridicule the people who fall on them rather than just damage or conditions. Have a BBEG whose plan is so elaborate and unorthodox that no one knows what they’ll do — you don’t even need to know, you can just improvise at the moment if you feel confident enough. Never let them know your next move.
4Avoid Lack Of Reactions
“Nothing Happens” Won’t Work Here
Instigators tend to get bored when nothing is going on, and they may start interacting with things such as the environment. Describing the environment in a lot of detail is already a great way to let them have fun, but if they start interacting with things, don’t say things such as “Nothing happens.”
“Oh, but they are literally just touching a wall that has nothing on it! What am I supposed to describe?” Well, the thing is, there’salwayssomething, as it is impossible for absolutely nothing to happen. If all they’re doing is touching a completely irrelevant wall, you can talk about the sensation of touching it, the material, the temperature, whether their hands get dirty from dust or something else, bugs that might be on the wall, etc.
Did they attempt to opena locked door?Describe how the door refused to move despite their push. Did they poke a random object? Make it fall. Even if these interactions will add absolutely nothing to the story, the sheer fact that their interactions are generating consequences — as irrelevant as they are — is already something to have fun with.
3Say “No” In Extreme Circumstances
Not Everything Is Okay
This tip might sound contradictory, but depending on how extreme your player is with their instigating, it’s best to say no or talk to them about it. Instigators tend to make scenarios more dangerous than necessary with their actions, such as provoking enemies. As long as everyone is okay with that, it won’t be a problem, but in some cases, it can still be a bit too much.
The instigator might go a bit too far just to see what will happen, putting their character and the party in danger, which they’re just too weak to deal with at the moment. While an instigator may be okay with losing their character with their actions, the same might not be the case for the whole party.
Thus, ensure that at least the rest of the group won’t suffer irreversible consequences because of your instigator, and it’s okay to call them out and talk to them if they’re about to do something like that. Unless they’re a problematic player, which would be a whole different conversation, they likely don’t want to ruin their friends' fun.
2Adjust Combat Accordingly
For Better Or Worse (For Them)
With all that said, let’s combine some of our previous tips for a more specific situation: Combat. Instigators can cause unexpected confrontations with NPCs, some of which might be too powerful for the party, unbeknownst to them.
It’s more than okay totune the difficultydown if you think your player just provoked a fight they can’t win. Or you can just have them all lose in a way that won’t result in a TPK, such as the NPCs toying with them or wanting to keep them alive. Still, if the whole group is having fun and is on board with the danger, you can just beat them all and leave them to their Death Saving Throws.
Alternatively, suppose your instigator also happens to be a skilled player in terms of mechanics and does something random that completely beats the big bad. In that case, it’s okay to improvise something like a round two, where the villain is still alive, and the fight goes a bit longer. Don’t completely annul their action, though, as that is not fun at all for the player. Let it have consequences, just don’t let it end the fight if you want it to go harder.
1Tempt Them
Instigate Them Right Back
We’ve talked about you causing some chaos yourself or describing the environment in detail to give your player something to interact with, but you may go harder on this topic. If your player wants to instigate, nothing will help you more than some reverse psychology.
Describe something that is clearly dangerous or unstable, and just have fun with how your player will do everything in their power to trigger that something you’re describing.
Put a big red button in a dungeon with no explanation as to what it does. Show a magical item with a bunch of necrotic energy around it and see if they will go for the probably cursed item. Give them a perfect opportunity to start a fight while also not giving them all the details as to what will happen if they start a fight right now. In other words, provoke them.
