When I do my quick-and-dirty B/X monster conversions from old-school games such as Basic Fantasy, I will assign them a hits value based on my conversions, give them a base damage value based on hit dice, and then for most everything else, combat skills, special attacks, defenses, and other powers - I will just assign the monster a simple wildcard "bang skill" that is a catch-all skill roll for anything the beast is likely to do.
These are explained in the GURPS Basic Set Characters book (B175), and they are meant to group together like skills for a simpler game. An example is the skill Detective! in the game, which groups together all specific skills in their area, such as the ones a detective is likely to know.
So, in this case, a goblin gets the Goblin! skill, and a giant spider gets the Giant Spider! skill. If my goblin needs to make an attack roll, be sneaky, disengage, set a trap, hide, or do sneaky and stabbing, I would use the Goblin! skill. For my giant spider, that skill covers ambushes, hiding, wall crawling, web throwing, entanglement in spider webs, spider poison, scampering away, grappling, seeing in the dark, sensing movement, and spinning webs around a grappled character.
The critical part of this second case is that the wildcard skill covers "monster superpowers" that a monster should naturally have. Want to resist the spider poison? Opposed HT roll (Contests, B375) versus the bang skill, or you take the damage or effect. Web entanglement? Opposed ST roll versus the bang skill.
You can even use the Margin of Victory (B375) as a modifier to the effect roll, such as a spider poison being death on a loss difference of 6 or greater, damage for a failure of 3-5, nausea on a failure of 1-2, and no damage for any success.
I typically set this skill to 11+ the monster's hit die rating in B/X rules. That is a good baseline, and some "zero hit die" monsters, such as goblins, will just default to an 11-minus roll for everything.
If a power needs an exceptional modifier, let's say my Giant Spider! skill is at a 12-, I could modify STR-based rolls by a +4 (to the skill level) if I want that spider to be stronger in terms of grappling and STR-based checks. These one-off modifiers are easier to track than a complete design, and they add a little extra flavor to the monsters beyond just assigning a bulk skill level for everything. I could throw in a +2 skill level to web-based rolls if this type of spider is primarily known for its web-spinning and throwing powers.
More hit dice? That is going to be a higher base skill level and a more brutal monster to fight. Please remember that parry and dodge ratings are exceptional and should be rated in the usual GURPS manner (see my B/X conversion page), or else the fights will quickly become frustrating as high-level monsters will always be able to dodge and parry any attack coming their way.
One to three special case modifiers are enough to give any monster a custom feeling that avoids it from being too generic. If a monster is really good at flying, give it a bonus there, and so on. You can also add penalties, such as making an unintelligent monster, like an ogre, penalize its IQ-based rolls, perception, and other areas where you want it to be weaker. This makes ogres that are easily tricked, or ones you can try to sneak by while they are sleeping.
For the effect value, I will calculate a base damage or effect die roll based on the hit dice, but otherwise, most results can be figured out using opposed skill rolls, like "spiderweb strength versus character ST."
The best part about wildcard monster skills is that they can be used for mobster thugs in a 1920s Noir game, alien creatures in a science fiction game, enemy soldiers in a WW2 game, planar creatures in a plane-walking campaign, robots in a steampunk game, armored clone troopers in a space opera game, zombies in a post-apocalyptic horror game, orcs in a fantasy game, or any monster or enemy for other setting or world imaginable.
I can even rate "non-monster" things, like traps or automated gun turrets with a similar system, as long as an opposed skill roll can be used to defeat it, there is no reason a puzzle, computer security, or a lock can't be given a wildcard skill. The characters make an opposed roll to beat it. This differs from the GURPS way of doing things by rating tasks with a difficulty modifier (easy, hard, etc.), but it gets us to the same place just as easily (and maybe with an extra die roll for the opposed side).
I do not need a massive bestiary for every world I visit, and this makes GURPS a faster and easier game to run for any genre than games that require huge monster books, such as D&D. While large, detailed bestiaries are nice and an invaluable resource (thank you to our devoted fans and community members who pour hours into these and generously share them), GURPS gives us the tools to "wing it" when those resources are not available, or we just need to have something quickly and off-the-cuff.
GURPS becomes very easy to run with the tools the game gives us; all we need to do is figure out creative ways to apply them to our games.
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