[larsdangly]

A major design difference that transcends just the overall complexity is the fact that GURPS lets you trade everything against everything, including both positive and negative departures from the 'default case' human. So, if I am contemplating how high my ST score or battleaxe skill can get, I can consider raising them in exchange for taking on a fear or spiders or innumeracy or something. In TFT your 'trade space' is tightly constrained - ST can only be traded for DX or IQ (and visa versa), within narrow limits when characters are first defined. And the 'trade spaces' associated with talents and gear and so forth have a similar balance in effective outcomes, and narrow ranges of things that can be trade for each other. With the exception of leaving a stat low at character creation, there also aren't any really negative things you can trade for different positive things. This makes it much easier to play 'build a bear' in GURPS to create characters who are exceptionally effective at one thing (usually fighting), whereas if you try that **** in TFT it is pretty hard to change your overall dangerousness in combat or survivability on adventures just by design.