So we had a force sensitive character die prematurely. He was right around the cusp of discovering the ancient ways... and then he died. Almost made a lightsaber too.

You'd think the player would toss his sheet and roll up a new one. He didn't. He became a force ghost. Apparently, non-Jedi force sensitives can become Force Ghosts, I looked it up on wookieepedia.

At first, I thought, hey, cool, EotE is narrative, so I'll just let it fly for awhile. The first thing he did was assist a piloting check (like when Obi-wan says "Use the Force, Luke!"). Except this Force Ghost said "Hey! There's a TIE to the Left! 9 o' clock!"... I should have known, it was a precursor to player abuse hell.

And now he won't go away. He just tags along with the group and forces me to pass him notes and tell him everything with his near perfect stealth checks. I don't even bother forcing him to roll for stealth anymore, at least until we run into a Sith. He's the team recon now too, waltzing into dangerous traps and coming back to say "Yep, it's a trap". He almost tried to replace our astronavigator by standing in the middle of space, and having the party fly to him, but I wasn't having any of that. A force ghost has to at LEAST be standing on something.

He's practically the most powerful character of the group now. He's omniscient. Just last session, in the midst of an asteroid chase, he assisted the PC mechanic by standing on the outside of the party's freighter, in space, and pinpointing what exactly was wrong from the outside.

The other players at the table were having fun with this whole ordeal, but recently he's been meddling with their private affairs. The last time he didn't get his way, he did what he called a "Force Popup Window". He appears in their food and says every waking hour "Don't forget! Use the Force, Luke!", causing strain damage to the other characters.

And don't get me started on the amount of fear checks he makes my NPCs go through...

He is simply... more powerful than I could have possibly imagined. What would you do about him?

Edit: This is a joke post.

Let Lord Vader hire a very specific set of Bounty Hunters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL8hvlYOrik

Shame that CW Season 6 is literally days old, so that becoming the Force Ghost is not that easy, is not common knowledge yet.

Let him fade away.

In some of the EU, Force Ghosts fade away and disappear after a while.

Let it be harder to contact the other players, let him make rolls to do so.

Does he have Influence? Let it be a normal force roll to see if he can even do it. Dark side points mean he fades a little more. Despair could mean that he vanishes completely or the other players stop believing in ghosts.

Just suggestions.

First and foremost you should consider taking the group aside minus the Force-Ghost and asking them how they feel about the offending player's contributions to the game and if it fits with the style of roleplaying and group dynamic they desire in your game.

This should not be a search for allies to 'gang up' on your problem-player, but a means of gauging how your group feels about it and allowing you to express your frustration.

The next step should be speaking to the player privately. You should tell him/her that you've concerns that it doesn't really fit with the narrative theme of the campaign you're trying to run and that the character is detracting from your enjoyment.

Express that while you're happy to have the player continue to be a part of the group and the campaign, that essentially, the force-ghost is breaking the game. Connection to the Force, one-ness with said Force and any other magical excuses said player offers don't really afford any legitimate omniscience to know every little detail of the challenges you want to throw at the party.

If the player is argumentative, perhaps try to reach a compromise and propose limitations to the Force Ghost's capabilities.

My group has a 'utility NPC' that is run by our Mechanic and is essentially a cyber-warfare slicing AI. We built it up a character sheet, dedicated skills and talents. LR-0 WADE (Weaponised Analysis and Decryption Entity) doesn't come into play often, but serves as a source of information and a readily available slicer in the event that the mechanic can't make it that week (No one else has ranks in computers!) and the character sheet itself belongs to the group. She doesn't have 'wounds', but her Strain is essentially her healthpool, if depleted, she becomes inactive until the mechanic can repair her program.

Something similar could be done with your Force Ghost. Potentially he could serve as an 'off-screen' mentor to the players' next character?

Alternatively, failing all other options, you could put your foot down. Surely this departed Force-Sensitive has better things to do? There are mysteries of the Force and the universe that he can seek answers to and he's explaining structural damage to spaceships?

Surely manifesting himself imposes a great amount of strain...

One last offering, and feel free to correct me if something in the EU suggests otherwise, but Force Ghosts have really only appeared to or interacted with Force Sensitives, Jedi, Sith and the like. That might, at the very least, let your poor NPCs get off the hook in terms of your malevolent haunt.

First of all, according to the old D20 rules for Force spirits, he can only manifest in areas or near persons touched by the light side of the Force. The less strong this connection is, the harder it is to manifest and/or be heard. Every single time this player wants to manifest, have him make a Discipline check, starting at Hard and going upwards.

Second, don't award him XP anymore. The character is dead, he can no longer evolve and grow. See how long it keeps being fun to play a character who can never improve, through XP or equipment.

Have an adventure take the players to a location that's strong in the Force, either light or dark side. When the ghost enters the location he needs to make Discipline checks - the dark side location would frighten and overwhelm him, while the light side location would fill him with peace and tranquility, making it hard to remain "anchored" in the physical world. Keep upgrading the Discipline checks, and once he rolls a Despair or accumulates a certain number of Threat, have him vanish.

Another option is to have the continuous disturbances that ripple out when he manifests attract the attention of other Force users. Start him out with an Imperial Inquisitor, and every time the players get away have the Empire intensify the search. Eventually this would attract the attention of Darth Vader, at which point your ghost player will no longer be an issue.

Or how about a combination? Have the group visit a dark side location and make a dark side spirit attach itself to your player's Force ghost. Any time he showed up, have the dark side spirit manifest alongside him, using its own Force abilities to cloud his vision and generally neutralize any advantage they get from having the ghost around.

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you're a big part of the problem here. You let this player convince you to let him do the following:

1) Make a force ghost (and thus ignore character death, something no other player could do),

2) Assist in skill checks,

3) Hang around all the **** time (just like Obi-Wan and Yoda, right? Wrong),

4) Enforce Fear checks on NPCs,

5) Cause strain damage to other PCs,

6) Be invulnerable, invisible, intangible, and irreplaceable,

7) Boss you around.

Collaborative storytelling is one thing, but that list is a whole 'nother ball game. Why did you let this happen? Why do you keep letting it happen? You're the GM. You're doing everyone at the table the best favour ever, by letting them be the heroes in a world you create and maintain. There's no reason one of them should be twisting your arm like they are.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

Poe's Law.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

I guess the joke's on us then. Try using the sarcasm tags next time.

It wouldn't be the first time that some newb GM allowed something like this and then didn't know how to deal with it. Some people play with jerks who will try to take advantage of their inexperience. Best thing I can suggest is to get advice before agreeing to anything that seems out of character for the game or that you are in any way unsure of.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

In my opinion, you didn't make it implausible enough to hit the parody mark. None of the behaviour in your post is that much of a stretch for gamers (at least, in my experience).

No. On two counts. Didn't realize it was a joke. How I would deal with Mr. Force Ghost. That is all.

If I were a Force Ghost I would just hang around Coruscant and shove hot dogs into my face and haunt ballrooms until they had to hire somebody to come deal with me.

If I were a Force Ghost I would just hang around Coruscant and shove hot dogs into my face and haunt ballrooms until they had to hire somebody to come deal with me.

Who ya gonna call? Force Ghostbusters!

So much for being helpful.

Better tone that down a bit, apparently.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

So this post is somewhere between Poe's Law and "Uh, I was only trolling guys. Just kidding."

Yeah, that stuff doesn't work on 4chan either.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

In my opinion, you didn't make it implausible enough to hit the parody mark. None of the behaviour in your post is that much of a stretch for gamers (at least, in my experience).

Totally. I'm in a diceless, open-world game where one of the players' characters decided he had his very own Force ghost companion (among countless other ridiculous things), who was able to tell him everything he needed to know about everything (including the location, anywhere in the galaxy, of the other PCs who were trying to avoid him). We eventually had to band together and run him off.

At least it wasn't Jar Jar, The one thing that could annoy the Dark Side....

Use the Yhuzan Vong. While I don't particularly mind them, the advantage is they are completely immune to direct manipulation of the force. Your force ghost can't see them affect them or anything.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

So this post is somewhere between Poe's Law and "Uh, I was only trolling guys. Just kidding."

Yeah, that stuff doesn't work on 4chan either.

Good to know.

My entire original post was a joke. I made it all up. Was it funny? Guess not, 6 posts in, nobody got it.

So this post is somewhere between Poe's Law and "Uh, I was only trolling guys. Just kidding."

Yeah, that stuff doesn't work on 4chan either.

So the OP pretty much = troll to be ignored?

Good to know.

What a negative backlash. Honestly I expected people to get the joke, laugh, and call me out on it. It was intended to be a positive experience for everyone. I at least learned something from this.

This is everyone's reaction:

So the OP pretty much = troll to be ignored?

Good to know.

That's not what I said, no.

My point was simply that around the internet, it's very common for a person to take a position or make a statement that, when decried for its inaccuracy (or simple unpopularity) the person making the statement backpedals and claims that he was "only joking" or "just trolling." Obviously, a person that elects to use such a defense is probably neither joking nor trolling, but merely attempting to save face after a post backfired. This type of behavior is relatively common on various anonymous message boards, and is almost never accepted.

This thread is an example of that behavior, as well as a good example of the behavior known popularly as "Poe's Law." More the latter than the former.

Of course, it doesn't help that the acronym "OP" can refer to "Original Post" or "Original Poster," so perhaps I misinterpreted your post.

What a negative backlash. Honestly I expected people to get the joke, laugh, and call me out on it. It was intended to be a positive experience for everyone. I at least learned something from this.

This is everyone's reaction:

I'm not sure blaming us is the right way to go about handling this. If you scan the threads, you'll see weirder stuff than you posted. Sadly, your scenario was entirely plausible.

If you were trying to be the gamer's version of The Onion, or the Borowitz Report, you got a ways to go. Or just wait until April 1 ...

I thought it was a joke straight away. Not a funny one though...

Yoshiyahu,

Yeah, I was referring to the person that started this thread.

As others have noted, his scenario isn't out of the realm of possibility (I've seen this exact discussion come up before and that poster wasn't joking), and with his whole "you idiots, I was only joking about this!" response pretty much proves I really shouldn't be expecting much constructive output from him.

Yoshiyahu,

Yeah, I was referring to the person that started this thread.

As others have noted, his scenario isn't out of the realm of possibility (I've seen this exact discussion come up before and that poster wasn't joking), and with his whole "you idiots, I was only joking about this!" response pretty much proves I really shouldn't be expecting much constructive output from him.

For the record, I never called anyone an idiot. In my previous post, I was trying to suggest that I was at fault.