Spence

Hmmm....
I've never played an RPG at a con that didn't use pre-gens. 
 
I know all of the games I run do.
 
 

Yeah I'm gonna say "not enough information."  It could be as simple as "dive for cover" penalty levels.

What is the concept behind this defense? What are the sfx?
 
A proper power build can't exist without knowing the concept being modeled.

Here are some that I've run frequently.
 
Click through for the full game write-ups.
 
 
 
HERO System Muppet fantasy.
 

 
 
HERO System cerealpunk.
 

 
Dresden Files (Fate System) monster-hunter team-up.
 

 
 
 
The old Marvel "FASERIP" system.
 

 
 
 

I always went with the definition of Barbarian being "uncivilized" with civilized being defined as permanent settlements, cities and technology.
 
This of course makes the scale sliding. 

I always went with the definition of Barbarian being "uncivilized" with civilized being defined as permanent settlements, cities and technology.
 
This of course makes the scale sliding. 

I found out who made the original sheet.  They lost their original Hero Profile but their new one is mbaer99

Ah;  Sorry-  more specifically:
 
What changes in game and build,parameters when selecting one over the other.  What allowances should be made to character creation costs and budgeting if you pick one method over the other.  How selecting the structure od your skills affects the feel,and playability of the game; what are upside / downside of choosing one over the other, (and again, given the genre book format, I would be happy to see many these in genre books as "we have chosen this sort of skill structure as it helps to convey X about the setting, etc) and perhaps most importantly, why should or shouldnt I do both?  Let one guy have six skills related to electrical,engineering and,one guy have "genius gadget inventor?"
 
And like you, it is not some,sort,of,battle I want to,fight over, but it seems glaringly,absence in a rules,set with "when a power with advantage x meets a power with advantage Y, then this situation means Z."
 

 

Heh, heh, heh, heh...he said spear...heh, heh, heh heh.

Well SS2 wasn't supposed to be a well plotted movie.  It was more like a Rowan Atkinson skit extended into a movie length. 
 
Plot holes a mile wide and a lot of "just because" logic. 
 
 
Nope, SS2 was not a movie to be watched in anything resembling a serious manner and arguing it wasn't serious enough is kind of like arguing that not all the costumes and armor used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail were period accurate. Why???

I only caught a few Black Adder episodes here and there.  I find...yeah, it can work, but it's also easy to go overboard.  And that's when it's done *well*.  I don't trust anyone to do it now;  the fundamental style of comedy has changed.  I also don't trust a modern American cast to do it right.
 
And the scene that Spence has hidden?  OK, so the target market is 10-12 year old boys...physical or mental age, mind.  

Oh, we can blame those. However they do fit for D.I. and F.H. I think it was the Amalgamation into Champions that was possibly the problem. Too much Realism into the Superhero Genre? Maybe?
 

Oh and about skills bloat. Shouldn’t we blame games like Fantasy Hero and Danger International? I mean it was the the Heroic level games that introduced all those skills! 😁

Sure.
 In the D&D Context, it is about how the various races in the 2014 Players Handbook have  Pluses and minuses to various stats based on the race the player chooses.  Humans don't modify their stats, but get two Feats.  Other races just get one Feat, but have adjustments to their stats. It also sets the general alignment charts for Non- Player Races, and Monsters. Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was the first attempt to remove that, by allowing all races to be modified, and also not bound by the alignment table. As such they want to remove the meta of choosing the best race for the classes, so that anyone can be a druid, or an Artificer, or a Ranger.  The New book is trying to push things further, by making things more P.C.  Recent Adventures like Candlekeep Mysteries, and the new one about the Magic School, are very much about relationships, rather than combat. The Magic School one, even had a Prom.

Source:
https://www.polygon.com/22883750/dnd-monsters-of-the-multiverse-6e?fbclid=IwAR3_OnWWq6mrnJg3qYhaIWon4Am5uJW_FyQJkENXks0AsMCgqVHdZrSCx_U
That Bloat isn't just skills. It's also some powers in 6th Edition, and other powers simplification was just awkward, like "Barrier".

If you want to see another good example of character specification bloat, compare the write-up for Mechanon from 1e Champions to the write-up for Mechanon from 6e Champions. You can see the incremental growth of the bloat with each edition of the game. And while I would probably agree with the opinion that 1e Mechanon is a bit under-specified, I feel that all sanity left the building by the time of 6e.

I get what Steve Long was going for: here's everything you'll ever need for any conceivable kind of game.  Fine, its the Big Book of Hero that has all the stuff, maybe you want to play a Gambler Hero game where people need those gambling skills, sure.

But that should be reflected in genre books and campaign settings: fewer skills listed because fewer are needed for this setting.

Yeah, when I was working on the Island of Dr Destroyer, I pulled up the 6th edition build of the Doc and its like 3 pages of skills.  EVERY science conceivable he has at 18-.  I get that you want to be completist and all that but... really?  Does he really need Molecular Biology and Biology and Virology and Biological Experimenter and Biological Conservation and Biology... you get the idea.  Just... say he's a scientist with Inventor and that's good enough.  How big must Reed Richards' character sheet be?  (or, in the MCU, Tony Stark, super genius expert better than all others in every possible field).

It's been documented:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637580991
 

Thoughts on D&D
I don't consider D&D as being "broken" at all. 
Well, except for 4th edition. 
That was definitionally broken garbage that should burn in the eternity of RPG hell .   
But back to D&D as a whole.  I may no longer enjoy it as much, but I don't think it is broken.   Like other games I do not enjoy playing (D&D 3.8 aka Pathfinder, Fate etc), they are not "broken" because they achieve what they are trying to.  They may be too restricted or too loose for my gaming style, but that doesn't mean they are broken.
The current D&D game mechanics are one of D&D's better version IMO.  Still not a candle to Hero, 2D20, CoC, GUMSHOE.  But a good rule set none the less and fun to play. 
Of course the company is in full bore self destruction mode.  But hey, the ramifications of it are something for the next 5-8 years. 
 
Thoughts on Skills
I have always thought that the ultra excessive depth of the Hero skill system as portrayed by 5thR and 6th were far too much to be useful in an actual game. 
But!
Yes but.
It is an excellent system to tailor a specific skill system for a specific game/campaign.
In my supers games I tend to stay on the upped tiers.  Such as Average Category for Knowledge and Field or maybe Discipline for Sciences.  In my super games the Superscientist is just that.  A Superscientist.  Engineering - check.  This is SUPER adventure in a SUPER world and the SUPERscientist is just that.  They don't need to buy every possible subtitle that can be considered engineering because the are a SUPERscientist.
 
For Fantasy Hero games I usually select a narrow list of campaign titled skills that resemble the ones you would see in D&D that the players pick from.   Later after they have played a bit and have a grasp of Hero as a game I open the game to further customization.  But I never ever ever turn players loose with the Hero Skill system un-throttled.   It is far too easy to get lost in the minutia and wind up spending half your points on irrelevant and needed sub-specialties.  Kind of like a modern degree post 90's.  20% general knowledge/skills, 30% professionally relevant knowledge/skills, 50% ludicrously irreverent fraudulent horse-sh*t, all at a premium price.  But that is another topic of non-discussion.
 

Hey, I really liked the first Thor movie. Most of the New Mexico parts didn't do a lot for me, but the stuff set in Asgard struck me as very cool.

In addition I would argue that Hero (any version) needs guidance/limits. 
Hero the game system gives the players and GM's unlimited ability to build stuff. 
To an RPG player from virtually any other system and any new to RPG beginners, unlimited options breaks the game for them.  There is a thing called option overload.
 
A set of guidelines or "rules" defining how things are bought and various limits would give the new player a definitive starting point.  A reference to base decisions on. 
Once they get the hang of it, then they can easily ignore them and build their own world. 
 
 
 
 
 

I am a completionist and a collecta'holic so I have pretty much everything available in PDF and hard-copies of everything 3rd through 6th.  I have most of 1st and 2nd, but there are some holes I can't fill. 
 
For me I had the most fun with 4th, but have actually played more 5th, well...5thR hybrid .
 
While I can't really point at exactly the reason I never was able to enjoy 6th.  Too many game traits that I found very useful and comfortable were dropped.  I am not opening the great debate again, but one of the changes was the loss of figured stats.  That and other changes fundamentally changed the "feel" and "approach" of playing the game for me.  A change I could never get past. 
 
Objectively, there is very little difference in the play of various versions of the game.   Most of the differences in the versions aimed at the build rules, or at least the ones that stand out to me.
 
Right now I am concentrating on using 5thR.  I was able to load up on many 5th edition books including 6 copies each of the 5thR Character Creation Handbook,  Combat Handbook and the Resource Kit.  This means that we are not shackled to share one or two rules books during character creation or during play.   Of course I have recently located two like new 5thR core rulebooks bringing me up to 6 there too.  I only have 2 Sidekick Revised.  I'd like to find enough for a full set of 6, but not having any luck.
 
6 is my magic number.  I find my sweet spot for running a game is 3-5 players.  So 6 copies means everyone, including me, can have a book during play. 
 
I don't run a table if there are devices at it.  Through all the excuses all device means is that we will be continually wasting time because of distractions. From texting to typing "something important" into the laptop. 

I trust DC to make a good superhero movie much like Corwin of Amber trusts his family.
 
Which is to say, not at all.
 

It's impossible to remake something that doesn't exist.