Is that it's so damn BIG!

As a GM my biggest 'successes' have come from using a smaller play area, like a city. I once wrote up London as an In Nomine setting (it got put onto a fan site years ago). Feng Shui uses Hong Kong as a default and gives a decent overview in the corebook. Superhero games likewise feature an urban sandbox.

40k is big. Even if you based everything in a given city or hive you'd still be talking a setting the size of an entire continent quite possibly, with a population that dwarfs our own planet! Not only that but there are a dozen different environments and everything is on a grand scale; that's the charm of the setting - turn everything up to 41. Big cathedrals, big starships, big hives, big big big!

This is not helped by FFG not really doing much in respect of an actual gazetteer, certainly not for DH (they sort of do in places) and not for Black Crusade (at least not yet). As someone trying to write adventures this is proving a big problem for me. I find that I don't want to skimp on setting elements - descriptions and details - but the scale and diversity do seem to force that. Is there a solution here?

Basically, just ignore everything beyond the bit of the sandbox your game in set in. Even though the universe is vast, travel across it is incredibly slow and restricted.

The 40k game I was in we never left the ship we were on (which admittedly was the size of New York), hell we never dropped out of Warpspace.

I would say start real small and then expand. Not helpful really but there it is. I mostly play Dark Heresy so it's easy to keep the game very contained.

... is that you whine about it too fucking much?

Quote from: J Arcane;550172... is that you whine about it too fucking much?

Ever have anything useful to add?

Just shut the fuck up and roll some dice already.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;549985Is that it's so damn BIG!

As a GM my biggest 'successes' have come from using a smaller play area, like a city. I once wrote up London as an In Nomine setting (it got put onto a fan site years ago). Feng Shui uses Hong Kong as a default and gives a decent overview in the corebook. Superhero games likewise feature an urban sandbox.

Me too. I think the secret is, as Marleycat mentions, to go bottom-up rather than top-down. That's how I've been going about things lately, even for my relatively circumscribed urban fantasy games. Try seeing how much weirdness you can squeeze in a city block, then the surrounding neighborhood, and then go about fleshing out (albeit more sparsely) the rest of the city.

Sometimes I can start with a few overarching ideas (e.g. "the Planetary Consortium is ruled by a Senate" or "the vampire Prince of Boston is an art-loving Daeva Invictus") and use them to flesh out local details ("the despot who rules Tau Ceti III appointed his idiotic, drug-addled son Senator and he's been duped by the Cult of Endless Light", "the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is Elysium and the Keeper was the Prince's mysteriously disappeared childe").

BTW, I have a huge GM's block when it comes to supers, which I see as a fundamentally reactive medium/genre, and I'd love to know how you go about setting up a superhero sandbox.

Quote from: J Arcane;550172... is that you whine about it too fucking much?

I know, it's a threadcrap. But I LOLed.

Even though you're talking about a FFG game and not FATE, I think here the Aspects idea could be useful if you're getting stuck with scale.  For example, look up Insufficient Metal's starmap and space station maps for his SBA campaign.  The Aspect tags are great for giving you a "high concept" of the various solar systems, planets, or sections of a Hive.  It's basically similar to what Butcher was talking about, but maybe thinking of it in different terms (like putting aspects in Dark Heresy) might kick something loose.

Quote from: CRKrueger;550285Even though you're talking about a FFG game and not FATE, I think here the Aspects idea could be useful if you're getting stuck with scale.  For example, look up Insufficient Metal's starmap and space station maps for his SBA campaign.  The Aspect tags are great for giving you a "high concept" of the various solar systems, planets, or sections of a Hive.  It's basically similar to what Butcher was talking about, but maybe thinking of it in different terms (like putting aspects in Dark Heresy) might kick something loose.

I really, really wish I could get FATE to work for me. Abstract systems make it so much easier to handle large-scale stuff. I've been looking into a system for a Revelation Space-like game and SBA has the right tools to pull off everything from Ultras and Conjoiner augmentation to star-destroying weaponry.

Quote from: The Butcher;550283Me too. I think the secret is, as Marleycat mentions, to go bottom-up rather than top-down. That's how I've been going about things lately, even for my relatively circumscribed urban fantasy games. Try seeing how much weirdness you can squeeze in a city block, then the surrounding neighborhood, and then go about fleshing out (albeit more sparsely) the rest of the city.

Sometimes I can start with a few overarching ideas (e.g. "the Planetary Consortium is ruled by a Senate" or "the vampire Prince of Boston is an art-loving Daeva Invictus") and use them to flesh out local details ("the despot who rules Tau Ceti III appointed his idiotic, drug-addled son Senator and he's been duped by the Cult of Endless Light", "the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is Elysium and the Keeper was the Prince's mysteriously disappeared childe").

BTW, I have a huge GM's block when it comes to supers, which I see as a fundamentally reactive medium/genre, and I'd love to know how you go about setting up a superhero sandbox.



I know, it's a threadcrap. But I LOLed.

I'm so glad you're more literate than myself, or at least better able to type your thoughts out.  I keep forgetting I run a MtAw game and this is the basic Bible for how to run any "big universe game" my bad, I apologize.

When I'm on this I'm on this site I get hyperfocused on Dnd and start forgetting there are other games with different playstyles I like for those games, just not for Dnd.

There is no reason for Inquisitors to be hopping from system to system across the galaxy, especially at low levels where they are just acolytes.

Make up a low population planet with a few communities and drop the PCs with the knowledge they are on their own for 12 months before the next ship will arrive.

Remember that 40k isn't all about Man vs. Demon, but all sorts of other dangerous corruption to the souls of Man.

Quote from: jadrax;550012Basically, just ignore everything beyond the bit of the sandbox your game in set in. Even though the universe is vast, travel across it is incredibly slow and restricted.

The 40k game I was in we never left the ship we were on (which admittedly was the size of New York), hell we never dropped out of Warpspace.

all fine and good, but that wouldn't interest me.

Quote from: J Arcane;550172... is that you whine about it too fucking much?

Don't read my posts then you tedious little troll. Do you think you have the moral high ground by turning up in someone else's thread just to complain about it? Get a fucking life!

Quote from: Benoist;550244Just shut the fuck up and roll some dice already.

Rolls to change avatar everyday, succeeds