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As far as Cyberpunk, that depends. I am far more familiar with 2022 than I am with Red. I spent years playing 2020. There's a lot of books to go with it. However Cyberpunk 2020 is far from perfect. We used a massive fan hack called Interlock Unlimited just to fix the major issues during our last few years of playing. Cyberpunk Red is probably the way you want to go. It's the newest and fixed many of the problems that Cyberpunk 2020 had. There is very little supporting books for it, so far, but R. Talsorian has said there will be some coming soon. As far as my feelings toward it, I haven't really made up my mind about Cyberpunk Red yet. I haven't run it (outside of the Starter Set) but have played in a few games. I like many of the changes, and I dislike several others. While Combat rules have been greatly simplified, allowing for faster combats, in many ways they over-simplified them. Much of what made us fall in love with the Cyberpunk 2020 weapons and combat mechanics are gone now. Some of the rules I find dumb (There is no Partial Cover. Hunkering behind a dumpster is no different than standing completely out in the open. The shotgun rules are clearly made by someone who has no idea how shotguns work, etc.) Much of the world rules have been streamlined down to the point of bland. In Cyberpunk 2020 there were dozens of pistols. Each with their own ammo capacity, concealability, Ponus/Penalty to hit, and damage based off their calibur. They had brand names and model names and imaged of this gun or that. We used to have debates about which calibur was the best, much like how people debate 9mm vs .45. We developed brand loyalties to certain made-up brands of weapons and cyber and fashion. Cyberpunk Red streamlined all that away. Now it's just Small, Medium, Heavy Autopistols. If you want to know what brand you can hunt for a small table near the back that is a list of names and manufacturers of Medium Autopistol and you can choose. They're all the same. So the two big things that made me fall in love with Cyberpunk 2020 and play hundreds of hours of it were the Combat and the world-emersion from the brands and style. Those are no longer there in Red. However.... and I cannot stress this enough.... I'm terribly biased. As I said, we've played several campaigns and hundreds of hours of the old edition. I honestly don't know how many of my complaints about Cyberpunk Red are actual complaints about the game, of simply me being an old grognard who can't accept that there was an edition change. There have been significant improvements for several potions of the game. I love many of the changes. So until I have enough playtime with Red under my belt, I'm going to remain undecided about my overall feelings, until I can be sure that my opinion is truly about what Cyberpunk Red is, wersus what Cyberpunk Red isn't.

The version of Traveller you want is the Mongoose 2022 Update.

I've assumed that the latest version of Traveller is the one to get, as that's the one that you used an image of in this video. =)

Chefda

Also, your video reminded me that I want to get the Traveller and Cyberpunk rulebooks, so I've asked for them for my birthday, but I'm not sure whether to get Cyberpunk 2020 or Cyberpunk Red. Would I be right in thinking that you'd recommend 2020 over Red? If so, why?

Chefda

I found it through a bunch of Google Image searches. Unfortunately, I can't post a copy of the original in the comments here because Patreon doesn't allow comment images. Sent you a DM.

Where'd you find the thumbnail image for this video? It looks really cool.

JVR

Excellent advice, per usual, and the opening skit is one of your funniest in a while. For games other than Call of Cthulhu I've been ripping off "The Dirty Dozen" as an opener for 25 years now. What I like about that is that it gives a reason for the characters to work together even if they don't necessarily like each other at first.

That's probably the hardest thing to try and get through to a student about, that it doesn't need to be perfect the first time you write it. People who can do that are very few and far between. I'm always telling them that there is information you need to know, and then there's information the reader needs to know. It's just what you said in one of your DM mistakes videos, players (and readers) don't want the extensive backstory, the want stuff to happen.

One of the best pieces of advice I got early on with writing is to simply start and write your way to the intro. You might be 8-9 pages in before you get to it, and it hurts to then delete those 8-9 pages, but it sure beats sitting there for weeks, or forever, staring at the keyboard and trying to summon that perfect story opener on the very first try. I always considered myself pretty good with story openings, but even with Ashes of Onyx, after writing 4 novels, dozens of short stories, going through workshops and beta-readers and even my own agent, my editor shredded my original opening and circled a line in the 3rd or 4th paragraph "Kate needed a fix" with a note saying that was the opening line, and by god she was 100% correct. I barely remember what I originally had there. It fell in to the Not Memorable, but at least it wasn't in the Memorable For Sucking, category.

There aren't many subjects left to be re-covered (at least the good subjects), but one that will return in a much larger video is The 13th Warrior. My original video took it for granted that people understood what a Theme Game was. That led to a lot of confusion and getting a lot of hate. So I plan to make a full video about What Theme Games are, and in that cover the 13th Warrior, which is what we get when one player refuses to join in the agreed-on theme.

Gah! I meant to hit Reply to your last message, but hit Delete beside it by mistake. Not much. The Powder Keg gets angry at the game and the dice. They miss a Skill Check and they flip out. The badguy hits them, or hits them for significant damage, and they flip out. They're not as mad with the people around the table as they are with the game and dice. Rage Monsters just get pissed at everything, be it the game, but also the other players. Player doesn't want to follow their plan, they flip out. Player eats the last of the chips, they flip out. The game might set them off, but the players around the table are also fair game.

Thank you very much, I appreciate the level of detail in your answer! =D Do you think that any of the other points from the deleted videos will resurface in future videos?

Chefda

Those are seriously cool dice, I'll save the video though for weekend relaxation. Thank you for all your hard work!

Dinker

I lile this video. It follows a lot of the same advice I give students when they are writing. The while idea that it doesn't matter exactly how your story starts, but that it starts. Whatever gets them off into the actual story is what matters.

Nothing should have been removed recently. I removed a couple early videos back in May of 2020 (5 Worst characters, 5 bad players, GM Secrets). Part of it was the quality of them was just awful. The other was I didn't articulate my points that well. It just came off wrong, and I never liked that. It's one of the big reasons I barely do List Videos anymore. So I took them down. Many of the points from those old videos have returned in more-fleshed-out manners in later videos, such as the One-Trick Pony and Painfully Average from the 5 Worst Characters vid were better explained in the recent Skill Versus Class-Based Games video.

Hey Seth, I noticed that one or two of your videos have disappeared from your channel, are you updating them a la The RPG Social Contract, or are they gone for good?

Chefda