Opinion: Do GURPS game masters put more work into their campaigns

[Dusqune]

I have played mainly two RPG's: GURPS and D&D

I started out on D&D. When I was into that (3.5*), I had everything memorized, and if the plot called for an npc with a given set of powers, I could quite literally run them without making any of the stats and then afterwards (if the npc became a regular) I could make the character sheet and stay fairly true to the power I represented them as having within the game. This is because D&D has a level system, and a lvl 5 character is roughly equivalent to another lvl 5 character (assuming we're not comparing warriors and wizards, here--apples to apples, oranges to oranges).

As someone who did immensely love spending days upon days coming up with my own campaign world(s), I loved GURPS from the moment I picked up the 3rd edition book and glanced through it. So much flexibility! So many choices! No restriction to the level system! It was amazing for me.

At the same time, what was my greatest draw (the no lvl system) was also my greatest weakness. Even now, when I'm ~75%-ish familiar with core GURPS rules just off the top of my head with no references, it is extremely easy to make a character as needed. However, I have so much difficulty gauging their combat prowess in relation to the PC's, because GURPS isn't built like that. You could have a 500pt character that loses every time to a housecat, simply because they took combat-disadvantages and non-combat advantages! Other than literally making someone with similar combat skill levels and stats to the PC, tweaking up or down to change difficulty, I have no baseline for how to make an 'even encounter.'

D&D had charts for this (where if you broke it down, sqrt(2) became your favorite number (you know you're a math nerd when...)) but there are absolutely no hard and fast rules for combat effectiveness in gurps. Generally, my combats fall on either extreme of "The PC's pwn the bad guys and save the day like superman" or "GM intervention Deus Ex Machina is required to keep PC's from a fate worse than death."

In preparation? D&D and gurps seem about equal. I can chose to prepare or not prepare with either, and they turn out relatively similar. On the one hand, D&D has reliable power levels. On the other, GURPS is immensely easy to tweak mid-battle (e.g., oh, the 'thug' is beating up the PC's with no problem? Disadvantage affecting a not yet used mechanic suddenly gained.) In-play, D&D is less work (for me) than GURPS.

I still love gurps much more than D&D.

*4e D&D was like the worst of both worlds. You had PC level and npc level and then you had this innate assuption that PC's were 10x as strong as npc's, even in a 'balanced' fight, and you can't improvise any character because the rules are so freakishly complex and different from any game I have ever seen... *regrets paying money for 4e books*