Deadly, quick combat makes everyone think twice before starting one. We lost that from old D&D and AD&D, and the whole "combat is fun" thing came in with Wizards and D&D 3.0. In BX and old-school games, you avoided combat. In modern games, "combat is fun," and they encourage fighting and conflict. The consequences of death and injury are purposefully diminished. You can sleep off a shotgun blast to the face in 5E and be fine the next day.
Every game Wizards have made overemphasizes combat. They treat D&D combat like a Magic: The Gathering battle. They preach balance, and that encounters are some sort of engineered, predetermined script. Adventures and combat are not events that happen in a sandbox; they are balanced, curated, pre-chewed, and carefully engineered "experience."
We never left the predetermined string of carefully balanced encounters in D&D 4E; they just hid them better. They say, "everybody wins" as a design goal. The role of the 5E DM is not the old-school neutral referee; it is that of a tour guide heading towards a prescribed outcome.
Some play 5E like a sandbox game, and it is not engineered to be played that way. It confuses the game's original intent and balance. D&D 5E is not a sim. It is a tabletop video game. If you played D&D 4E, you understand the encounter structure and adventure flow they intended in 5E.
GURPS? A sim. You don't have CR or encounter balancing here. A lucky shot can kill. Combat is dangerous. The game doesn't care about balance beyond relative skill levels and avoiding pitting 500-point enemies against beginning characters. Still, that could happen. The world is a sandbox.
GURPS is closer to roleplaying simulation science.
Old D&D was a sandbox, but with curation in the rules around "dungeon level," with deeper levels meaning more challenge. Adventure level was an extension of the concept.
D&D 3 to 5 introduces the concepts of balanced encounters, challenge ratings, and planned resource depletion. It is a completely different game, more of a curated experience and sequence of balanced encounters meant to have a range of likely outcomes.
You don't balance a GURPS world and adventure other than "saying what is there." Even in BX, you do have a certain level of balancing in that if an adventure is "for levels 1-3," you pick monsters that fit that level range. D&D has always taken balance into account, and there is even a concept of "dungeon levels" and what is found on each level, with lower levels featuring higher-level threats.
In GURPS, a dozen soldiers here, these stats, deal with them as you would in a simulator. Ten orcs in the fort, a dozen goblins, and groups of 2-3 goblins get put on patrol at random intervals. Four dire wolves in cages that get set free if an alarm is raised. Balance? I can globally adjust their average skill level to make it more or less difficult, and adjust armor and weapons. I can also adjust their reactions, making them a trained force versus one who is inexperienced
Consequences are easier in GURPS and are cleanly supported in the system. Clear out an Orc warband fort? You are all getting a hunted disadvantage for the next few months, until they are all dead or you are. They will come after you for that. Actions have consequences. This makes my job as a referee easier. That hunted disadvantage goes on all their character sheets. I don't have to keep it in my referee's notes. If a character switches parties, they are still hunted, even though their companions may not be.
I like combat that feels like it matters, serious, deadly, and "let's think about it" decisions rather than someone players can jump into without thinking first.
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