In the extension of the FaD BG "Lure of the Lost" they have an area below the main temple called The Vaults which, per the book "...were intended for the housing and rehabilitation of Jedi who had begun to fall to the dark side, as well as for the containment of those who had fully succumbed."

I am thinking that I need to put one of my PC's in some place like The Vaults to try and redeem him because if he goes back to their home base and their mentor (a Jedi who got away from Order 66) senses that he is Dark, then she will detain him and try to do something about it. I don't know exactly what can be done to bring him back forcibly, especially while he is being held against his will but I would think that she would either throw him out or take him prisoner until he can be turned.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what could be done besides meditation to help him return from the Dark side faster than one roll per session? I thought that if a PC does multiple good deeds that would save lives or something then they can roll a D12 or D20 depending on the extent of the good that came from their actions...beyond that I am not sure what I can do with him.

Longer backstory:

In my campaign I have a PC who has definitely "fully succumbed" to the Dark side and part of our PC/GM agreement for his character to not be killed off or converted to an NPC was that he would actively try to redeem himself. The reasoning behind this was that the entire group was Light side, their mentor was a hidden Jedi who escaped from Order 66, and if they stayed Dark then it would cause conflict in the group and could lead to PC vs PC fighting...which I really didn't want to deal with.

We made a plan to have him try to redeem himself and he said he would actively try to not do dark deeds to earn conflict so he had a better chance of gaining morality. However even after explaining that lack of bad deeds does not automatically equal that you are being "good" it just means you are being less of a Richard. He is upset because he thought he would have a higher morality by now but he keeps staying under 10 because he makes bad decisions that earn conflict and then tries to argue with me that it shouldn't, even though it is clearly spelled out in the conflict table.

At this point it's getting frustrating that he isn't actively trying to do anything good, he is not doing as many bad things and now he is thinking about buying into Force Unleash to use Force Lightning and he won't get rid of a Sith "holocron-like" artifact that keeps talking to him...he is going against our initial player-GM agreement contract that we would keep this a Light side campaign and if you fell then you would actively try to redeem yourself. I am just getting frustrated and I already talked to him out of game but it doesn't appear to be working, he either isn't comprehending what "selfless acts of good" actually means or he just doesn't care enough to modify his playstyle and wants to continue to push my buttons because he likes playing a Dark side character.

Have you brought up the plan that you made with him?

I mean obviously he's allowed to play a PC how he wants (Player Agency 101) but if he wants to back out of the agreement he made, then he should actually tell you as much.

It sound like you're giving him opportunities at redemption, but he's not taking them. It could just be that in the heat of the moment he continually makes bad choices. Are you warning him about the Conflict before he takes the action? Because that's how it is supposed to work RAW.

Or perhaps he just doesn't see a way out. If he's given up on redemption (as a player) and you don't want a dark sider in your campaign, you could work out a suitable PC exit with him. Maybe a betrayal of the group where he joins the enemy (he's evil, after all!), or maybe he leaves to study the mysteries of the dark side and comes back later as a villainous NPC.

I have never done a rehabilitation off-screen, but I did do a fall to the dark side off-screen (planned) when a player was on an extended vacation and absent for a few sessions.

I have brought up the agreement we made at the beginning of the campaign and he is fully aware of it, he has also been given multiple opportunities for redemption but instead always chooses the easy way out aka Dark side.

I do tell the PC's if an action they take causes destruction/death/etc. then that will incur conflict for them but he always grumbles about it regardless of how many he is given. He has mentioned off-hand in a group chat we all have going that he thinks his character is beyond redemption so he might as well ride it out as long as he can. The problem I have with that is that he will cause inter-party conflict, possible fighting, and other drama which we don't need.

His character is very skilled at the lightsaber so he can do a lot of damage if he wants and I don't want him to take out another PC because he crits them multiple times then kills them. At this point I am trying to work out a suitable exit strategy to either imprison or exile his PC so that he can turn into an NPC, or kill him off because he is not even trying to redeem himself anymore.

(I don't want to get into any arguments with other GM's that I am taking away player agency by not allowing Dark side users in my campaign...this was decided between all the players and myself before we started this campaign over a year ago and it was agreed upon by all.)

Yeah, a specific social contact (like "I agree to work towards redemption") trumps generalities (like player agency).

At this point, your player should be willing to work with you to exit his character, either permanently or on a temporary basis (if you can work out some way for him to be gone). He has breached your agreement, plain and simple, and it sounds like you are being more than fair about it.

The statement "ride it out as long as I can" troubles me, since characters that expect to die imminently (and players that expect their character to die) can be unpredictable.

Whatever you're going to do, I'd do it quick go to your player with a plan to get his input, and then enact it ASAP.

Do you have a recurring nemesis? Maybe the PC is in secret correspondence with that nemesis, or secretly wants to join them, and will do so at the earliest opportunity, after stealing some info, cash, or equipment from the PCs.

I think I am at that point...I was thinking about what I could do to try and redeem his character by detaining him but I think it's probably pointless now. Retiring his character and having him build a new one would probably be the best bet.

If you have someone breach a player/GM contract and have them create a new character, would you give them the same amount of XP they had with their old character, give them the average XP of the group, or the same as the person with the lowest XP??

Same XP as their old character. You're already retiring his character, so IMO there's no further need for any punitive measures.

I'm a little concerned that the player is the issue, not the character. It seems likely that the player will simply take his next character down the same path. Gaining morality is so easy in Force and Destiny that unless you want to drop it you shouldn't lose morality ever or should be able to recoup quickly. It seems that he wants to play dark side and is only giving lip service to the ideas of redemption. If I was in a game with four or five other people and everyone entered into a contract about playing light side and I wanted to play the game, I'd have to say I'd likely agree. Even if deep down I wanted to play dark side. Now, I'm mature and skilled enough to play against what I prefer, but not everyone is. Maybe he wants to play dark side and only agreed with y'all's contract because he couldn't play otherwise. A lot of people will agree to an ultimatum given about something they want to do. This is why ultimatum's are a death sentence in a relationship.

It sounds a bit like you and the other players may have given an ultimatum, perhaps not, it just seems that way. So I'd go to the player alone and ask if he wants to play a Dark Sider and only agreed not to at first because he felt he had to agree just to allowed to play. And then tell him its okay if he does want to play dark side; talk it out honestly. Ask him if he makes a new character if he's going to drag them to the dark as well. Consider even telling him he can play more dark leaning, a dark gray character instead of black or white but he just has to be smart about it, find balance.

A player can play a dark sider working with light siders. The Dark Side isn't stupid, Count Dooku worked with people (many of whom were very good people) all the time. A dark character is just working with the others for a more selfish reason. A dark player working with the light might have a long term goal to take over the Empire, or simply gaining power because he hates feeling weak. Too many people play evil (or dark side in this case) as stupid murder hobos, but that's just being dumb yourself. I once played an Lawful Evil character in DnD who worked for years with a group of Lawful Good/Neutral players to overthrow a king, his brother, who was more evil than him. After taking out his brother he instilled himself as the ruler, but still went on adventures with his friends, because evil people can have friends. The idea is, "I hate everyone, and everyone is my tool and worthless... except you guys, you guys are my friends, and anyone who crosses or hurts my friends will face all my evil wrath." Also don't forget that a dark side character can love and trust people he knows, in fact they may even be better at loving others than a Jedi because they don't try and suppress emotion.

If you take nothing from my post, please take this at least: NEVER give your players an ultimatum ( aka, a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relations ). Either they will take it and not mean it (which will result in resentment), or they will walk away and you may miss out on having an awesome player at the table. You can give character's ultimatums, but never give them to players.

Followup time!

So I sat down and had a chat with my friend and told him my reasoning for retiring his character. Luckily he agreed and he was not too upset, the main issue he had was when we discussed creating a new character was to not select a fighting based specialization so we could try to deter future issues like this going forward.

After a bit of explaining and convincing he was able to see that the reason why he kept falling to the Dark side was due to his combat and the violence that he created from being a combat-focused PC. This time around he will be a Healer and wants to buy into Niman Disciple or Arbiter (after the sourcebook comes out for Consulars) as a second specialization but he will try to actively try and solve problems with words and non-violent actions first.

It's quite the 180 from what I have seen so I am still not sure he will be able to RP that type of character just yet, but it was his idea to play it that way so I am hoping he is turning over a new leaf!

We will be providing an exit for his character in 2 weeks during our next session and then introduce the new one very shortly afterwards. I am looking forward to seeing how all of this plays out!