System for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

[Amaril]

I never thought of this before, but it could be really fun to do a game in this setting. Anyone have any suggestions for a system where you can see the marvels of the universe for less than 30 Altairian dollars a day?

Normally I'd think FATE, but in this case, I don't think even that's open-ended or off the wall enough.

[Yora]

Maybe Risus?

[Amaril]

Maybe Risus?

What's that? Never heard of it

[Yora]

RISUS!
....

[Airk]

What's that? Never heard of it

Behold, the power of the INTERNET!

It's a pretty decent choice, but it's a super barebones system. I guess the question, as usual, becomes, "What do you want your game to be about?" Risus caters fairly well to using offbeat 'cliches' to interact with things, and when you get down to it, I wouldn't want to try to 'stat' an HHG character in any sort of vaguely traditional way.

I don't know any scifi systems that catalyze the ridiculous though, so I don't have a better suggestion.

[Amaril]

Behold, the power of the INTERNET!

I'm on my school's wifi, which is absolute garbage--I have to reconnect like four times just to get on here

[ImaWallaby]

Paranoia would fit the ridiculousness of HHG pretty well.

[Airk]

Paranoia would fit the ridiculousness of HHG pretty well.

I dunno; I don't even think they're the right kind of humor, and paranoia has WAY too many close setting associations for it to work, IMHO.

[Eldan]

How would you ever translate HHGttG into a system, actually? By Adams' own words, the books are about random stuff happening, often for no reason. Unless you write more random tables than Gygax ever did, I'm not sure how you'd do it.

[Airk]

How would you ever translate HHGttG into a system, actually? By Adams' own words, the books are about random stuff happening, often for no reason. Unless you write more random tables than Gygax ever did, I'm not sure how you'd do it.

Obviously you'd just make up a lot of random stuff. :P

Might be easier if it's a game system that affords the players some authorial control, however.

[obryn]

A custom playset for Fiasco?

[Gildedragon]

One could just calvinball it... with lots of tables made by everyone, and a madlibs book/narrative setup

[Grod_The_Giant]

A custom playset for Fiasco?

That's kind of an appealing idea, yeah.

I'm going to do something that's maybe a little bit poor form and suggest something that's... not just homebrew, but my homebrew. I normally feel bad about tooting my own horn, but in this case... you want a rules-light system where you can just make stuff up randomly? Where the characters are defined, but the setting can change from moment to moment? Where you can invent whatever without worrying about how to mechanically represent it? That's pretty much what I wrote STaRS to do.

[Airk]

A custom playset for Fiasco?

I think this is the best idea so far, but it'd be a bunch of work. x.x

[GuesssWho]

One could just calvinball it... with lots of tables made by everyone, and a madlibs book/narrative setup

Calvinballing FTW.

[Arbane]

Marvin, RISUS version:
Robot: 3
Brain the Size of a Planet: 3
I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed: 4.

[Kane0]

I'm thinking of something like The Stanley Parable for some reason...

[toapat]

It could also work with Spelljammer. and GURPs

There really isnt a system that cant do The Galaxy (Except for Paranoia and that one about timetravel), its just that we dont really have enough information to add the Galaxy into a setting as more then like, 4-5 planets of Hats. The only complete world seen is Magrathea really.

[EccentricCircle]

I ran a Hitchhikers game a year or so ago using a fairly basic home brew system.
Everyone had four Stats: Intelligence, Strength, Dexterity and Personality determining the number of dice they rolled for skill checks, and then a number of traits that could add more dice to a roll if they could justify that it fit.
If the roll went well then the trait used would dictate why they had succeeded, if it didn't go so well then their traits would determine how it backfired horribly on them.

They then had a stack of improbability points which they could spend to exert narrative control over the setting by making really improbable things happen. However these also involve a check linked to a relevant stat and trait, so can also backfire horribly.

Example from the game, one character had a trait whereby he knew a lot of people. So when dragged onto the bridge of a star ship he spent a point to say he knew someone on the crew. The roll didn't pan out, and one of his other traits was "Serial Bigamist". So the person he knew on the crew turned out to be one of his wives.

Depending on how a roll went they would either get out of a bizarre situation by the skin of their teeth or end up in an even more bizarre situation as a result of trying to manipulate the situation.

[Plerumque]

Donjon is an interesting one as far as giving the players narrative control goes. One of my favorite systems, but I don't know how well it'd work for a Hitchhiker's game. It would be interesting in any case.

[Rosstin]

I would either use FATE or Calvinball.

I've never played FATE, just read the books. But from what I've read it looked like it would be appropriate, assuming the right attitude from the players.

More importantly, what would be the "goal" of the campaign? (And don't tell me it wouldn't have some kind of goal, even Hitchhiker had things happening and motivations and whatnot, even if they were "Arthur Dent needs to get laid" or "Beeblebrox is a twit who really wants that black ship" or "Get off the planet before it explodes")