The Bonsai of Death - RPG War Stories
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- Опубликовано: 15 июн 2023
- Recounting the Cyberpunk game when the Player Characters were a group of kids who decided to have a skateboard race through a Night City mallplex and the moment it went from playful antics to a body count.
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#Cyberpunk2020 #TTRPG #cyberpunk 
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Players screwing around is often more deadly than anything the villain could plot
That is so true, once my players screwed up all my campaign plans by burning down a fourth of Westgate (the poorer part) with a bar fight. A couple of botches and bad decisions left the entire tavern drenched in booze and some smart player used a fire cantrip to distract the guards that were coming so the PCs wouldn't be thrown in jail for the night. There were hundreds of dead and my players weren't evil or anything, they were just a bit bored and thought a tavern brawl would be fun.
Good aligment players don't react well to accidentally burning down the orphanage BTW.
@@loke6664
My players started a Civil War with Garden Furniture.
This checks out.
And unexpectedly time consuming. That's the dark side of letting the players go wild. Before you know it, it'll be 2:00am and you realized that, plotwise, you've gotten nothing done. Nothing wrong with that by itself. Fun time isn't wasted time, after all. Just saying, something to keep in mind as a DM.
My biggest ever plot derailment was when a player decided to have his summoner call up his bound demon and had it take the entire party to hell.
"dude you popped your murder cherry with a bonsai tree!" that really is such a player thing to happen and say.
That story is actually relatable, cos as a kid I threw a potato, over my shoulder, from the 4th story balcony, and hit a person right in a head, thank god everything went fine, no crit damage
You almost popped your murder cherry with a potato.
Now we know why Mr. Miyagi liked Bonsai trees so much.
It wasn't a peaceful hobby; he was manufacturing weapons of war. 😅
Underrated comment.
Ah, Todd, always pushing the edges of the universe to be bigger.
Some universes are just too small
My own version of this story is the CRITICAL MOOSE (caps required). I was running one of my earliest Pathfinder campaigns, back when virtual tabletops were only just becoming a thing and I had no idea how to make digital maps, so I used a map I found online. That map had a dead, half-eaten moose on the ground around a camp, so I included it in the description of the goblin camp the PCs were attacking.
A couple of rounds into a fight with a particularly annoying goblin shaman, one of the players decided they'd had enough, picked up the moose corpse (I figured that since most of the meat had been cut out it'd be at least movable), and pile-drove the whole thing horns-first into the goblin shaman. I asked for an attack roll, they rolled a crit, so I decided I'd let them use the moose's gore attack instead of an improvised weapon, in addition to the crit damage. I don't remember the exact damage they dealt, but I do remember that it was enough to kill the goblin from full twice over. To this day, the CRITICAL MOOSE is remembered and venerated in my discord server.
*F A T A L I T Y !*
Mind you, moose -bites- gores can be pretty nasty.
@@slayer0235 We apologize for the fault in our subtitles.
That’s amazing 😂
In fairness to Seth, shouldn't the gifted Bonzai tree be sourced only from a mall kiosk?
Also come in a broken (repaired), stained pot.
It should be on the 14th anniversary. Just to drive the nail straight through the board.
@@adahnliegl740brutal! I like it 😂
I love how the hook horror is deep Seth lore.
The Seth Skorkowski lore currents run deep.
If you ever want to do a deep dive, retrospective on this campaign I'd be here to watch it. It sounds very interesting and I'd like to know how it progressed and finally ended.
I wholeheartedly second this!
Third
Hello Seth, Lime, and today I have A departure from my ongoing tale to give you a similar incident.
The time my players started a Civil War with Garden Furniture, or "When There's Gnomore Room in hell."
This was in my Cyber-Fantasy game in one of my houseruled to hell and back systems
(think Shadowrun; but then immediately stop, and think of Cyberpunk if it took place in a typical fantasy world.)
My players were essentially the state-approved Mafia, meant to corral the seedier parts of the city of Dragonhawk, because the Big Bosses in the Capital figured 'if we can't beat the gangs; we might as well join them' and started using certain gangs, including the players' gang
(The Dragonhawk Eastside Spoon Bandits... long story.
Yes there is a Westside Spoon Bandits; and an Eastside Spoon Bandits from a different city.) To make less-than-legal moves to support the common citizenry (and of course, in return gave them 'salvage rights' on the other Gangs.)
So the Spoon Bandits are invited to a party at the Mayor's house, but Senator Pelpiper, their main benefactor, gives one of them a job to find a tiny hidden safe full of incriminating evidence on the Mayor.
While everyone else is enjoying the party, Networking, Slandering old nemeses, running side hustles on the other partygoers and generally just having a good time, that player sneaks out the back door towards the Mayor's pool, where he's hidden the Safe in the Filter.
Unfortunately, that player gets caught by prominent Gnome Businessman Tomathy Mayne.
Tomathy Mayne is incorruptible to anything that she can offer; (in fairness her attempts to buy or bully Tomathy were... pathetic. Terrible pitch, Worse Rolls.)
So, since they were disarmed at the door she reaches for the nearest thing that can be used as a weapon and tries to use it to knock Tomathy out. She grabs a Lawn chair and Unfortunately, because she was an 8ft tall Elf with tons of cybernetic muscle enhancements and rolled a crit to the head, she did so much damage that Tomathy was instantly killed, his skull splattered on this cheap folding lawn chair and his body launched into the pool.
Out comes his wife, Marble Mayne, looking for him, She runs into the Player Character, Diplomacy fails and She once again tries to improvise a weapon.
This time it was a little fountain water feature, and once again the Dice condemn the Mayne family.
Crit number 2.
Marble Mayne has a much lower HP pool than her husband, and it's similar damage, She's utterly obliterated like a Fly on a windshield.
Rather than try to slip back into the party and back *to* the party, she hops his fence and splits with the damning evidence in hand.
The rest of the party didn't want to get caught being anywhere near this issue when the mayor invited them, so they decide to split too when the Maynes are discovered.
And since this was after the Mr Brightside Incident, (different story, maybe next time) we had the 'Sessions since we last started a War' counter, and I reset it to 0 as soon as they left that party.
The Gnome population of Dragonhawk were so angry that a prominent pair of Gnomes were killed by *Lawn Furniture* ('An offensive allusion to Garden Gnomes') at a party with a *corrupt* mayor where they should have been safe.
There are mass strikes and Riots from Gnomes, Halflings and Dwarves across the city, then the Goblins join in, and it becomes a Civil War on the streets, with the Gnomes and their other allies going into Open Rebellion against the City Government. In order to Scapegoat the Corrupt Mayor and protect themselves from suspicion in the Mayne's deaths, they join this revolution, and the Federal Government decides to cut Dragonhawk's losses and help the rebels oust the current City Government.
I usually don't take time to comment, but I love your channel and have followed it about three years now. I've read (listened to) several of your books as well You are among my favourite youtube creators. Thanks for all your content!
Thank you very much.
RIP bonzai plant, we little knew ye.
Spent half a year going through the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4e Starter Set, and every couple sessions I'd give the players time to go off and set up contacts and pursue their own goals, occasionally joining each other on little self-made adventures. Including: smuggling wine and fighting off the grape marshals, swindling a hammered noble at cards, recovering a wrecked ship from a troll cave, and eventually gping on a six month realtime trek to rescue a noble's missing syrup-trader son.
You’ve talked about your gutter punk game before but any chance you could do a write up about it like a module? I know a lot of it would be based on the actions of the characters and grows from there but I’m thinking more how you deal with chargen, how often their stats get raised and by how much. Some advice on how to get the most out of using a small section of the city, etc. If that makes any sense 😂
Came here to say exactly this.
Yes please
Im planning to run a similar campaign, ever since I heard the first War Story about it, so yeah, more details would be awesome!
Yes!
One must be careful in how they asked for delivery of a shrubbery. Ni!
You should definetly do a series of videos about this campaign. Probably the coolest adventure idea I've ever heard of.
Love it. The War Stories are always great. Hell, all of Seth's videos are great
Nice work on those scream sheets, they look fantastic
(Also, nice acting from Tod. The way his face did a 180 from glee to shock after the results were determined was spot on)
The Bonsai of Death? I hear that this tale used to be bigger; but Seth cut it short.
😂
That is the kind of stuff i love!
You're right about the screamsheets. I have written several newspaper / screamsheets for my shadowrun sessions from 2019 on.
It was always a nice addition to tell the players the meta story for what happened, or how their behavior impacted the whole story.
Also the reduction of the players 'freedom' to a few blocks or a neighbourhood gives them a lot of memorable moments.
in one of my campaigns, they were asked to help a priest from a catholic church to protect some kids, that were threatened to drift down on the whole drug adict road.
so i had them come up with some ideas, and one of the guys then had them run a youth basketball team in game.
and so i had to give them the news on how those basketball kids fared between adventures/session and what other teams they've beaten and stuff.
first they were bad... and then they went to train them... then the first victories...
it kind of became a running gag to ask what the score was at the start of a session/new adventure, since now they were invested.
the kids didn't make it to the top spot in the 'neiighbourhood league' by the end of the campaign but they were not last any more .
a few years later in the next campaign (after playing some dnd and star wars) 2 players had become professionals on the cities team, just as memberberries - was a nice addition and a good remember that we played in a persistend universe where their actions had consequences, so i never had to deal with any murder hobos
They're back, love it! Your war stories are the really gems of this channel, so much entertainment and inspiration! By the way, you got me at "this story had a moral to it" not being "don't kill kids" but rather "act intuitevly".
"I could go on for hours and hours about this campaign" please do!
Few things add to a campaign like an in-game news report that players can read and possess tbh. It's an excellent way of giving life, plot hooks and so on to the game world, and makes your players' PCs feel part of it when their escapades are reported on.
I am a simple man. I see a Skorkowsky Story, I rejoice
Refereed my first Cyberpunk 2020 game 2 days ago and it was awesome. Everyone had a blast!
Never would have gotten into it if it wasn't for your videos, like this one, providing inspiration. So thank you! Keep em coming
This was absolutely awesome! Especially the scream sheets. Just amazing!
You know, what is really interesting that this is very close to what the lead designer of the "Deus Ex" franchise said he wanted to do for years.
Make an RPG within a neighborhood and just that neighborhood. I am pretty sure the Yakuza series has been doing for years now but it is awesome to see in a TTRPG
Seth I’d be happy to listen to you go on and in about this campaign for hours because it sounds awesome. I hope we hear more from this campaign.
I love your war stories. I love hearing people talk about their games, but you really enhance the experience with the dramatic recreations :-)
I sometimes forget it is one man playing all these characters.
I am glad to know that I'm not the only one who does stuff for my TTRPG campaigns while at work
It had been long enough I had forgotten the “do not drink coffee while watching a War Story video” lesson… 😂
These remind me so much of the best times with my old gaming group from 20-30 years ago… amazing. 🎉
Your Cyberpunk 2020 stories are the BEST!
That moral ending reminded me of an 80s cartoon.
Can't believe I missed the best RUclips series ever, Seth Skorkowski's RPG War Stories
The accidental death of a bystander during a prank gone bad reminds me of the beginning of 1996 "Sleepers". Great movie about unforeseen consequences.
Found your channel the other day (picked up CoC as my first game to gm) and bienged all of your table top war stories yesterday, lamenting that A) there were so few and B) the last one was almost a year ago. I mustve succeeded my luck roll this morning lol
_Every_ time you do one of these, I forget that you're even playing the other three (hell, my brain doesn't even recognise GM Seth as a separate character too)
Suffice to say, I bloody love this series
Your Screamsheets are awesome! "Scott Brown Petitions For Stricter Squatting Laws" 🤣 I have "news crawls" along the bottom of a screen (as in, I have Tickr running on my machine and it will pull from a text file I created and display it where I want it) - but my PCs have yet to have their antics make the crawl...
Few things give me more joy than your Cyberpunk 2020/RED warstories, thanks to you I have the 2020 corebook and the Night City Sourcebook for my gaming group
I used to skate quite a lot and the number of injuries that happen when you decide to give it just one more try is unreal. Admittedly none of them are usually bonsai related but it seems going for just one more hour can do the same!
This reminded me of a horse race in one of our games. GM prompted it on a whim and improvised it. Riders tried to get to the wreath and get back to the finish line with it one way or another. My character rode four different horses and once there were 3 competitors on the same horse. I won the race by leaping from horse to horse, grabbing the wreath from the rider, and then jumping off over the finish line to escape the rider's countermeasures. Unfortunately, at least one other competitor rode over me at the moment of my victory.
Worth it.
I would watch endless episodes detailing every part of this gutterpunk campaign
Anyone else pause and enlarge the video every time a scream sheet pops up so they can read it?
Story time with Uncle Seth, yay!
I love this kind of video. Makes me wanna play cyberpunk using a format like that. I'll pitch it to my gaming group. WIll use realtors and bonsai kiosks.
Such a cool story. 100% agree that the most memorable moments are those that are unplanned for. My most recent was the players entering a building in "Treasure Island" (our name for the Night City CBD post-blast) to find it occupied by cannibal cyber pirates. From one of the balconies are partially deconstructed full borgs hanging from chains to deter intruders. The players asked if any of the 'borgs were still operational. I went with it, and they eventually hacked into its comms suite to gather information. As the were exfiltrating they decided to bring the 'borg with them, and began the process of rebuilding them with help from an NPC. In summary, the best part of a proper RPG is when the narrative overcomes the mechanics to allow for interesting and unexpected plot twists. Looking forward to more of these 2020 war stories!
I absolutely agree with the "moral" of the story. Yes, all those stories can't be reached without at least some groundwork behind them (as in this example we already had location set up in the world), but the improvisation part is the best when it comes to the most epic scenes.
This is such an intriguing concept for a campaign and if you decided to do like a War Stories series on the highlights of it and tips for running something like that I’m here for it. I don’t think it gets any more cyberpunk then that
Love the war story videos! It reminds me that RPGs are the only game where players are playing their own games at the table- the DM is usually just a referee
But did Hot Sauce get renamed to Bonsai?
No. He was called 'Deez' by everyone after an incident where he tried to do a 'deez nuts' joke, flash his nuts, hop on is board, and flee a security guard (at the same mallplex a couple games earlier) but fumbled his roll and ended up face-planting with his pants around his ankles. One of the Plastiks (a mallplex gang) videoed the incident, posted it online, and everyone started calling him Deez after that, much to Hot Sauce's dismay.
@@SSkorkowsky perfect
@@SSkorkowsky xD
Always a good day when Seth posts a new video
Wow. I wish I had a group that’d use maps, handouts, and minis. To me it seems like it’d be so cool.
Yeah that’s a pretty believable consequence of throwing a potted plant off a 4th story balcony
Before watching this I just want to say: Bonsai of Death sounds like an 80s movie title or a cool band name.
Wow a new lighting!!! Love it
I was just rewatching old war stories today for the 10th time and didn't even realise this is a new video. What a great surprise
Stumbled across this again and I still love it. Letting the players take the lead can be so much fun!
Please Seth, I need a series of videos going over the campaign from start to end.
I NEED IT!
God I'd love to hear a recap of tbis entire campaing it sounds so cool
I love these. Thanks for posting.
I may have told this story already but one of the best times we had in a moment on the side was in camp.
Our party had stopped to rest for the night and my cleric decided to go fishing. He ended up catching a fish but it was a giant fish that first swallowed my line, then my character. The rest of the party came to my rescue, literally (sorta) pulling my character from the jaws of death.
Love these. It made my day to see a new one in my feed!
“killed by a single kick to the rectum.”
Never have I ever heard such a fascinating phrase.
Red Forman would be proud
Another great video, Sir. Thanks!
Great video as always! I love these war stories.
HELL YES. Seth, I love these videos the most
Lol. So, very first session we EVER played in Eberron, my wife was a changeling soulknife spec'd toward stealth. Essentially a psionic thief. So we get on an airship to go "do the thing" (i don't even remember what "the thing" was anymore, lol, this was 2006) and the GM asks the deadly question "so, everyone is settling in for the night, what are you doing" lol. Of course, she goes snooping around and found the captain's quarters. Well, turns out someone had killed the captain (this was supposed to be part of our hook) and she found his body. Instead of alerting the guards, she started poking around his room and found a chest. The GM was OBVIOUSLY not expecting this, but she was like "is it locked?" "Yes, the lock looks pretty sturdy (DC30 lock)" "ok. Does he have the key on him?" "No, it strikes you as odd, but you assume it might have been what the killer took, but you interupted" "ok. I want to try and pick it. I have a 5 in lockpicking (or whatever the 3.5 skill was)" "sure, make the roll" "i want to spend an action point, that gives me a d6 to add right?" "Yep" "20 and 6" "you got a 31? At level 1?" "Yep, did i open it?" "Lol, yeah, yeah you did"
Turns out that the captain had been involved with the Emerald Claw but wanted out. We had his journal, plus his Wheel of Wind and Water (let us pilot the airship without the Mark of Storms). She took the captain's face, dumped his body overboard, and we had an airship at level 1, lol. She ended up keeping that persona for the whole game, visiting his wife and kids, fighting off assassins and debt collectors, omg. It was hilarious
I just love your war stories videos.
RPG War Stories are the absolute best. I've been looking forward to another one of these and this was very much worth the wait. Thanks for the creative and fun storytelling!
I get the "not leaving the neighborhood" small setting vibe. I've been running a six year plus Traveller campaign on Myth-Weavers all in the Tanith system, and mostly on the world of Tanith itself.
I spy with my little eye a Blade Runner RPG starter Kit on the 'esteem' level shelf (you know, the one at the top on the left that started with only CoC books 6 years ago, but then got Cyberpunk Red and the Alien RPG starter sets added too...). @SSkorkowsky Will we be seeing a Blade Runner RPG review sometime soon? I hope it being given such a esteemed location makes that a likely outcome. My group and I had a lot of fun with it.
Ive been working and ive missed most your videos, well more to watch.
Yay, new war stories!!!! You always produce great content, but these are by far my favourite!
Coffe and a seth video, what a good day to start a day. 😄
Agreed!
Ummmmm....... what?
@@danacoleman4007 it's 10 AM here
Thanks for the English subtitles, it makes the video easier to watch by translating it into Spanish. (Google Translate)
Good Story.
Love you Seth, you’re my favorite d&d content creator on the Citadel! ❤
Your war stories are always great. We need more!
The screamsheets makes me think of something I did for a star wars game where prior to session I'd write up a summary of things that happened the previous week and present it like the intro announcer for the Clone Wars show. Occasionally I'd pass it to a player for them to do the bit.
I'm totally imagining Seth putting his mic in the dryer for the echo in the first minute.
This story is amazingly awesome! Thank you, Seth!
Nice. I've written for journals of all the games I've run or played in since 1990. Since I've recorded all my games since 2008, they've gotten quite involved. I've also been doing newspaper front pages for the Down Darker Trails Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh games.
God I love your videos. This is exactly the kinda thing that makes campaigns memorable for life. Thanks, uncle Seth.
I'm imagining a toontown sort of death sequence where the kid's head disappears into their torso and now they just have a potted plant perched between their shoulder blades as a replacement.
And I could listen to your campaign setting for hours too! Ever thought about doing a longer video about it? The whole gang environment yiu guys cragted sounds super interesting!
Great story! I really love these videos!
the setup is looking great!!!
Seth, these are amazing, please give us more.
Thanks again for another war story. These show how fun games can be!
I love those newspapers. My bro tried doing something similar to that for a Necromunda campaign he once ran that included adverts for a Necromunda Fried Rat restaurant (finger-lickin' tolerable). For a recent birthday pressie I made him a scenery piece of the venue in case he ran another campaign.
Alright new war story video! Glad to see more dude
In my current game (D&D) the local count commissioned a broadsheet (newspaper, basically) named the Clarion Call that collects the goings-on in his county...the players love seeing the reports of their handywork being in them.
I died at "aww brother you killed a kid."
Those newspapers are amazing, you are the GM from heaven
Incredible. In fairness you have to post the once and future scream sheets where your audience can peruse them!
Reminds me of agroing every cop in prague by throwing a printer out of a window in Deus Ex
What is it about Prague and windows? Defenestration is way too common there.
@@samurguy9906 - Olde Bohemian Tradition, defenestration. Especially regarding politicians.
Such a compelling narrative and delivery. 5/5 stars
Man!! Your setup looks crisp!! Vrey nice!
So far, the most memorable thing in my current campaign I'm running that is my own "A Song of Ice and Fire", which I've named A Campaign of Dice and Minis, is when one PC married to the king she doesn't like called another PC that is a Dhampir in while the king was asleep to drain the life force out of him and age him some years. It's the more adult humor that went with the whole thing that made it so funny and memorable however. 😂
And that’s why hit locations should be in your game system.
War stories are always the most fun thing to share. My group’s had 2 summoned bears win the final fight for us to me killing a dragon that was flying away from a scripted fight by just barely hitting it with a thrown war pick at the edge of my throwing range.
Pretty funny stuff. Some of the most hilarious laughs I have ever had have come as the result of people goofing off during a game session. We could have each other rolling on the floor just by bringing up something stupid that made no sense to anyone else. The most telling part for me is that bit about how this race idea came about at the END of a seven hour session. Since we all got jobs, and then got old, I can get friends together for more than 3-4 hours before someone has to go pick up a kid, run an errand or take their medications.
Halfway through the video and this just sounds like the most fun ever.