That’s not really what I call Star Wars style. Spontaneous magical transformation into a species? Yyyyyeah. Plus it basically the GM abusing his powers to strip the PCs of one of the player’s most fundamental choices - race.
“You can play whatever race you want, but you’re gonna get turned into a human and stick that way until you jump through the hoop I want you to jump through.”
That’s bad GMing.
I can’t tell what really happened. Did #1 IN THE GAME put up loud music and flashing lights so that none of the chartectors could hear the illusionary Sith? or did the player do it In Real Life?
Everyone who has responded thinks it was IRL and therefore a rude thing to do leading to their advice to get rid of that player.
I read it as something that happened in the game. …So my advice is to have the players police each other. The Jedi player should get visions of what happened, and the knowledge that the actions of charector #1 caused the party to miss out on important information. That should get them to, in game, make him behave.
I’ll also second Podkayne on the weapons limiting… You say they’re guerrilla soldiers? Staying away from everyone and not talking to anyone? Well once they run out of energy/parts/charges/clips… well thats tough. They are out and noone is willing to sell them more because they’re not about to sell to strangers!
Having life changing events happen to charectors is also a good thing. I used to run a Champions campaign (super heros) where one player built a, legal by the rules, charector who was immaterial and thus immune to almost all weapons, but so weak that almost any weapon that could affect him would have killed him outright. He could ignore all fights, ruin all mysteries by passing through walls, being invisible, etc. and generally ruined the game for everyone. Putting me in the position of either putting up with it, or deliberatly killing him off. … So I had him be hit by a weird combination of effects that ‘thrust’ him into a body and get stuck there. I took his old charector sheet from him and handed him one that I made myself, balanced for the game.
My motto is “I run a fair, fun game. Don’t F**K with the GM.”
For a campaign to be successful the players and the GM all need to be on the same page. Before starting a new campaign I like to get all the players together and give them a few ideas for games. Then they all make characters and we start playing the following week. I’ve found that this method gets everyone involved in the game and they’re more likely to make characters that compliment one another.
Last year I gave my players the option of a d6 Star Wars campaign set on a smuggling ship, a game of Blue Planet where they were troubleshooters for a corporation, Delta Green for Call of Cthulhu, and one other I can’t remember now. The players selected Star Wars and went about with character creation together. The campaign worked out until one player kind of ruined it for everyone else but looking back I have to take some blame as the GM.
One thing to remember is that the game doesn’t belong to you, or them, the game belongs to everyone. If you’re not having fun then there’s no reason to keep on running the game. I suggest you either start over or pick another game to play.
Marc
With player number 1: The next time he tries to do something which is unreasonable but within the rules, tell him no. Make up any justification you want, or BS it with something like “a strange disturbance in the Force”, or no justification at all, if you prefer (“It doesn’t work.” “What? Why wouldn’t it work?” “You can’t tell why it didn’t work, it seems like it should. But it doesn’t.”). If he then tunes you out, that is 100% his problem, not yours. Schedule an encounter of some sort shortly afterwards, and while he’s ignoring you, his character is just standing there ignoring the encounter. With most encounters, just standing there ignoring it is a pretty good way to get killed. If he complains about getting killed, then ask him why he didn’t do anything. Then let him roll up another character, without letting him do the same unbalancing things he did before.
A similar solution applies to the Everquest guy. Let him play Everquest. Don’t prompt him when anything happens. If the rest of the characters say they’re going somewhere and he doesn’t say he’s going with them, he’s not going with them. If a fight breaks out, his character just stands there until he says otherwise. Again, if and when he dies, ask him why he didn’t do something.
And you’re perfectly justified in doing whatever the hell you think you should. Like with blowing up that skyscraper: If the guy didn’t even check if it was evacuated, then he’s being incredibly callous towards the lives of others. Such callousness deserves dark side points, or whatever alignment-shifting mechanism is in place in a system.
That’s about all I think you can do, with this campaign. But if you’re set on playing with this group, the best solution might be to have Player 1 GM the next campaign, instead of you. Put his rules knowledge and always-right mentality to work for you instead of against you.
Man, if you were sentient electricity, Mynocks would mess you up hardcore. I suggest you create a new race that feeds similarly, that are the natural predators of his “race” - they have been subsiding on ordinary power sources for centuries, since their prey had been hidden in a planetary core that baffled their alien senses… but hey! There’s a free-range version! Tasty.
Jeez, since he’s essentially a droid, any Jedi or Sith who knows enough about mechanical systems can shut him down with the wave of a hand…
If there are any repeat villains - well, next time, someone can bring along a restraining-bolt rifle. Blam! Bzzt.
All ways that specifically target the weaknesses of the character he’s chosen to play, but that won’t result in a total party wipe.
I would’ve opted for the Blue Planet game, personally.
Now there’s a system with which you can easily dispose of troublesome characters. 
Actually, my concern was more to do with the part that this guy is like ERG-1. Energy field in a suit of armor. You take away the armor, he can’t manipulate anything, I’m guessing. So drop him in a droid someone else owns, then, or a car or something. I figured the human part would cut out some of the more annoying parts of his personality as well. Or… well, maybe he can’t communicate with the rest of his species more than a planet away. I dunno.
Just don’t think it fits the milieu of Star Wars; plus if one of your players picks a species that you later decide you don’t want them to have… that’s kinda “too bad.” Temporary transformations can be fun, but retroactively invalidating the player’s choice? Not cool. Best you can do at that point is work in a plotline about someone or something hunting that species to death… Maybe it’ll get rid of the problem, or maybe it’ll at least lead to interesting roleplaying.
His current form has a lot of exploitable vulnerabilities that can be used without invoking GM fiat to abracadabra him into a more palatable form.
[total nerdism] I remember back in highschool when I was DM’ing and one of the players found an obscure rule book which had a character class identical to a paladin with none of the restrictions and full priest spells. While it was within the rules, it was still way out of bounds. Of course I said no. [/total nerdism]
A being of pure energy and logic you say? My vast space opera experience leads me to believe that character #1 must soon become obsessed with the emotion you Hu-mans call “love”.
More seriously, you can’t expect player #1 to role-play this classic theme, presented with it he’ll just ignore it.
Better would be to saddle these combat monsters with an NPC who MUST be protected…a droid with the secret plans, the last member of a dying species who alone can lead them to the cosmic macguffin, the company representative who can ensure they get paid for their contract. Said NPC is useless in a fight, but brilliant at finding ways to get themselves in trouble.
As for blowing up skyscrapers, you simply have to show the consequences of such actions. “As the building blows up, you see hundreds of people on fire jumping out of windows…a day care center full of Wookie children is crushed by debris as the parents look on in horror. Imperial forensics shows up, and traces the explosive residue to the batch you had. Now every Wookie in the galaxy is after your blood, your faces are on every imperial post office, use of unneccesary force against your band of terrorists has been approved”.
In other words, if they do evil things, even if they argue that their characters wouldn’t have KNOWN that blowing up a skyscraper would kill 10,000 sentient beings, if they kill 10,000 sentient beings there will be consequences. And the argument that such things happen every day, no one would notice…that’s crap, why did you accept that?
If you fire a grenade launcher in a city, you’ll cause collateral damage. Even if the character at first didn’t understand that, you simply have to show the them the dead and maimed innocents, and they’ll know next time. As far as being combat monsters, their opponents should use tactics that avoid their powers. If they are all mercenary commandos, fighters attack the ship they are on. The captain surrenders, the crew evacuate. Can any of them pilot a ship? If they are landing on a planet with any sort of legal system, the cops demand they turn over their weapons. If they refuse, they’ll have to slaughter the cops. Can they achieve their mission with every cop on the planet after them, their faces on every sub-space video screen? Make it impossible to outrun their past…they shouldn’t be allowed to blow up everyone on planet A, then move on to planet B as if nothing happened. Are there no Hutt crimelords annoyed at their activities? Are there no bounty hunters? Are no enraged wookie parents?
In other words, attack them in their weak spots…their lack of humanity, their barbarity, their evil. Force them to recognize the evil they do, present them with scenarios where bringing out the heavy weapons will kill innocent people, force them to SAVE people not kill them.
It sounds like you need to talk with them. Tell them you are going to end the campaign unless they take your suggestions to heart. Also ask them what they are looking for from the game. Maybe they do just want to rampage. Surely your planet has a SWAT team though that can handle measly grenades. I think you need to raise the stakes and make them care about the plot more. Perhaps they are poisoned and are loosing 10 hp a day until they find the antidote which is held by a far distant heavily protected bad guy. Arrest the everquest guy and have them break him out of the insanely fortified jail. Or make the plot more grand: where they are the central figures and can save the world (or an npc they care about,) with heroic action. Failing all of the above there is always the tried and true rust monster of invulnerability, followed by a good mugging/theft for all their money by vastly superior npcs and an irreversible mind wipe for #1.
I meant to say 10 hp per day permanently or even just a a level/skill per day if they are too powerful.
It seems to me that Smiling Bandit has an out-of-game challenge which makes this very difficult to resolve. Did I read correctly that Player #1 is a business partner? In that case, no solution which would depend upon alienating Player #1 is really workable. The out-of-game consequences could get way out of hand.
Which suggests that any in-game solution actually available to the GM would need the more or less willing consent of Player #1; which doesn’t sound likely.
Bandit, I have to agree with the posters who suggest that this game may not be fixable. Are there barriers to shutting it down?
Presumably you don’t want to break relationships with any of the players. But what would happen if you said “I’m not going to be able to continue to GM this game. You’re welcome to continue it in somebody else’s house, but I need to drop out”?
It would leave you out of a game; but this one doesn’t sound like any fun as it is. Maybe in a few months you could start up something different, with a different group of players.
Alternatively, give Player #1 the GM hat.
I get the strong impression that player #1 is The Critic. He’s the guy who can tell everone else what they’re doing wrong, and how they can do it right, but he never steps up to take charge; to lead, or organize, in any way or fashion.
It seems that he leaves that for everyone else to do, just so he can step forward and become The Critic.
I think he has serious self-esteem issues as well as passive/aggressive ones.
Bandit: this stereo he cranks up in the middle of your game when things don’t go his way…who’s stereo is it?
Essentially, are you hosting the game at your place? Or someone else’s? You might cut down on the “Distraction Factor” by hosting the game at your place, where you control the environment, and can ameliorate the “Distraction Factor.” Mr. EverCrack can’t play EverCrack if you have the RPG at your place, and remove all game consoles, or place them off limits. Mr. Stereo can’t turn on your stereo and drown you out if you don’t let him.
Also, if you like I have some technically savvy characters from that version (d6 Westend games right?) of Star Wars. I’ll have to dig out the char sheets so you can have those to draw upon. Brief synopsis, and yes we broke the game. But we all had fun.
Khell(human): Pilot of the Quantum Fireball. Leader of the party. Ex-pirate, currently runs Khell and Tarne’s ship escort service. Smuggler like skills. Mostly neutral but some republic ties.
Tarne(human): Co-pilot and gunner for the Quantum Fireball. Ex-pirate from same group as Khell Has excellent slicing and droid skills. Heavily reprogrammed a droid to take over the ion turret in the Quantum Fireball. Also made a virus that can be transmitted over comms that would disable the thruster controls of a ship(and an anti-virus as well).
Thorne: Half-trained Noghri Death Commando, has it in for the Empire for what they did to Honoghr. Combat monster, wears an atmosphere suit so as not to reveal his nationality. Has a personalized A-wing.
B.C. Wookie with a Skipray blast boat. Was a member of the pirate/smuggling gang that Tarne and Khell were in.
(Rest I can’t remember their names)
(Woman) Force sensitive pilot of really cool ship we found.
(Man) Ex-imperial pilot with a custom Tie Interceptor
(Bob the blob) Smart ex-imperial techno blob. Similar in character design to #1, but not as annoying.
Ok now for some more interesting details. The Quantum Fireball was a corellian made transport that was really tricked out. It had rear-firiing concussion missiles, 3 retractable turrets, two laser, one ion. One front facing quad laser. It also had very nice large hangar that was able to fit an A-wing and Tie-interceptor in it at the same time(Handy eh?), and it could eject them into space (Woo!). Also, the big game killer, it had a turbolaser mounted in the middle of a ship. To accomodate this massive juggernaut of destruction alot of space was set aside for a large capacitor bank and a generator from a Corellian corvette to quick-power the turbolaser. Of course it only got one shot off every couple rounds, but hey that’s still pretty nasty. Also as far as #1 goes I think anything that he could think up could probably be countered by the skills of the blob and Tarne.
That’s it for now.
Oh yeah, thats an if you want these to draw upon I can try and find the old character sheets. Honestly given the situation if you want to keep the game going these characters or something more powerfull than your characters chasing them for past offenses could prove interesting. And I’m willing to provide on the fly what would these characters do in X situation if you want to use them(via IM). But that may disrupt the EQ enviornment by having another box there.
This might work… but based on what Smiling Bandit’s written about #1, I have my doubts. I think he’d get frustrated with his players like he’s been getting with his GM.
I’ve had GMs like Player #1. It does not make for a fun campaign for anyone but the GM. Expect every one of his NPCs to have the same unbeatableness as his current PC has, and everything to be nearly impossible for the PCs to win.