1 [caption]: New character generation...
1 Kyros: Terminally Ill! 100 extra character points! I'll take that!
1 Alvissa: Ooh! Me too!
1 Lambert: And me!
1 Draak: Draak like!
1 Mordekai: Yeah!
2 GM: {annoyed} You can't all take Terminally Ill!
3 Lambert: Why not?
4 GM: This is a one-shot adventure...

2012-04-19 Rerun commentary: GURPS 3rd Edition (of which the shown rulebook is part of) included this disadvantage: Terminally Ill. It meant your character would die at some point in the near future, where "near" was anything up to 2 years away. If your death was that far off, it was worth -50 character points, death within a year was -75 points, and death within a month was worth a whopping -100 points. These amounts of disadvantage points meant you could build a much more powerful character, as "compensation" for having your days numbered.

The problem of course arose that many campaigns never last 2 years of in-game time, and one-off adventures rarely last as long as a month. So if you flexed the rules a bit (ignoring the overriding dictum that "if it doesn't come up in play and actually disadvantage you, it's not worth points") you could get an über-character and not pay any consequences.

GURPS 4th Edition very sensibly added an explicit note to Terminally Ill, stating very clearly that it should be outright disallowed in short campaigns.