Hey, thanks so much for this detailed feedback! I really appreciate you taking the time to write all this up.
First, think you for reminding me I need to update the random skills table to remove my “cute” reference skills and replace them with something actually useful.
Undefined skills do have that danger of being so flexible everything feels too easy. It’s hard to split the difference between “interesting specificity” and keeping things fast and flexible enough that you don’t get bogged down making decisions during character creation. It might be dialed a bit too far towards flexibility currently, especially because the tables I usually playtest with tend to spend them as often on jokes as on useful skills.
The stress system is another one that I’m not sure is dialed in properly. I honestly don’t engage with it in every Meteor game I run, just ones that are intended to focus on stress and horror. When I have used it, I felt the pacing went okay, but it’s so heavily dependent on the scenario, dice rolls, and GM calls that it could go in a lot of ways. If nothing else it would probably benefit from expanded GM guidance to help with dialing it in to the proper pace at a given table. My intent is sort of a slow simmer until it suddenly boils over in a dramatic explosion, but that transition might be too sudden.
Glad it went well overall and everyone had fun though! This is good feedback and will give me things to chew on as I start digging back into the design of Meteor.