Coming back to GURPS... and I could really use a hand.

[whswhs]

I think my advice is going to differ from some of what you've already been given. It may or may not work for you. It's how I run (and occasionally play) GURPS, and it works for me.

* I decide what genre I want to run, and use only the books and the rules that are essential to that genre.

* In particular, I limit character creation options to fit the genre and to fit my intentions. In a mundane campaign, I don't let players take any powers or any form of magic—nor, usually, any cinematic skills. If it's not martial arts focused, I may not allow techniques, and I certainly don't use any of the complex options in GURPS Martial Arts, or any styles. If it's fantasy, I decide what system of magic to use and stick with it. Even if it's supers, which can be pretty kitchen sink, I decide what power modifiers are allowed.

* I don't myself use occupational templates, or provide them to my players, even though I commonly include them in my books. My approach to designing a character is to choose a central theme, and decide on a few traits that embody that theme, and then build outward from that. For example, when I created La Gata Encantada, I started out with "a Hispanic high school girl with incredible speed, but in the idiom of Spider-man rather than of the Flash." That gave me DX and Per 19, Basic Speed and Basic Move 12, and Enhanced Time Sense—which together gave her Dodge-16 (Dodge-17 for an acrobatic dodge). Then I started looking for things that would fit with these: DX-based skills and defaults; Enhanced Move and Super Jump; Daredevil; Impulsiveness and Odious Personal Habit (Can't sit still); Increased Consumption, Skinny, and a minor addiction to chocolate; once-a-year Catholic . . . I didn't give her traits simply because they would be useful; I chose them to fit her theme.

* When my players are creating characters, I have them submita first draft to me. Then I go over them and check the point costs, the correctness of the arithmetic, and the inclusion of required prerequisite traits, and have players fix anything that's a problem; and I suggest traits that would logically go with the character's background, or that could be cool complements to what they already have, and invite the players to take them. No character is played until I've approved the final character sheet.

* A useful trick is to give every character 5 unassigned points at the outset for things they could logically have, but that the player and I both overlooked.

* When I'm running combat, I tend to use a fairly simple version of the rules. I don't use the formal rules for tactical grids, for example. On the other hand, I do use hit locations, because I like the added realism; but I tend to offer the players the option of choosing to aim at the torso (center of mass) at no penalty, and avoiding random rolls for hit location. I only use complex combat options on the rare occasions when I'm running a campaign that's not merely action-focused but martial arts-focused.

* I don't try to rush my players through scenes, even combat scenes. I characteristically ask, "What do you do?" and then, if necessary, figure out how to translate the answer into game mechanics. I want the player to be thinking about the character as a person who's in an imagined situation, more than about the tactical situation—though of course their character may be a tactician who WOULD think about the tactical situation, and that's fine.

There's a story that Isaac Newton was asked how he came up with his ideas, and he answered diu noctuque incubando: by brooding on them day and night. I do a lot of that. It may look as if I'm doing things casually, but that casualness rests on a platform of very noncasual preparation. GURPS will support that approach well, if it suits you.