Sci-Fi Setting Scale

>>50579798
I'd say galaxy spanning, but with unexplored sectors. Something like Trek or early Stargate so the galaxy still feels huge and mysterious

This is a trick question with the proper answer being that the quest able area is largely under-developed and hugely unexplored, with a few thick asteroid fields and nebula, plus one or two Bermuda Triangles where nav equipment fears to tread.

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>Intergalactic
>> Dune

Wait, what, was this ever stated? Pre-scattering it certainly didn't seem like that at least. Though I guess with your FTL being instant jumps with no limit to their lengths described, the effective size you're dealing with would be counted in known places of interest rather than gigaparsec, so whether IX and Chapterhouse are in the same galaxy or not ends up being rather irrelevant.

As for size, single system seems to me like it lends itself mostly to much harder SciFi, but that could just being my mind throwing itself into transfer orbits and the absurd scope of terraforming here.

On the other end of the scale, I don't think I've ever seen it add something to a setting to go past a single galaxy. They're not exactly small, cramped things.

>>50579798
It all depends on the style. Interplanetary is very good for a lot of things. Distance between planets is vast and with no FTL travel times will make those distances more prominent. You can fit all sorts of stories in such setting from near future to highly advanced distant future where interstellar travel can still take years if not generations, isolating solar systems into their own pockets.

Galaxy spanning really goes best for settings with empires clashing, where individual worlds and their cultures are reduced to statistics and it's often the culture of the ruling empire that matters. Good also for dashing tales of space rogues sailing the sea of stars with empire(s) as the backdrop. Low tech, no FTL setting might not work so well, since it's hard to keep planets and systems in line if you cannot respond to uprisings and hostilities. Then again, sufficiently advanced civilization who live for ages and have stasis technology, could probably run such empires, because decades nor even centuries of travel might not be that much of a problem to them.

Never heard Dune to be Intergalactic. Pretty sure the "Known Universe" just refers to the region of space people have actually visited and explored, not just looked at through a telescope.

Don't personally really know any settings that have active intergalactic stuff (not just set in another galaxy, but travel and interaction between galaxies). That probably goes so far beyond even empires that the rulers are more like gods. I guess the big problem with such as setting is that what would another galaxy offer ours doesn't? Unless the makeup of reality is vastly different, just about all the possibilities for life, worlds, etc. should be available in our galaxy as well.

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>>50579798
If you're doing something in hard sci-fi, then I would say Interplanetary or, at the very most, local space. A few worlds and a long journey between each of them. See The Expanse for something like that.

If you're doing something in Science Fantasy (like star wars) then it doesn't really matter. Might as well have a massive explorable universe that you can travel across in hours because fuck it, you have space magic.

Now if you're doing Soft/Moderate Sci-Fi (Star Trek) , then personally I prefer an Interstellar approach. You don't have access to the entire galaxy but you have thousands of mapped systems and a seemingly endless frontier of possibilities. New world, new civilisations, etc.

Each system has merit. I would say that most groups don't take well to hard sci-fi. It's very limiting and only really engaging for people with a grounding in it. Science Fantasy is probably the most approachable. A lot of people get into ttrpgs through DnD and using something that basically allows them to use the same characters, only in SPAAAAACE, is the easiest way to get them comfortable with their new setting.

Moderate sci-fi is a bit of a gamble. If your players like Trek, farscape, general sci-fi, etc. then they may roll with it, but the technobabble/travel restrictions that some with such a setting can be confusing and offputting to the uninitiated.

>>50579798
I like location based. Like, planetary systems that you travel locally, with portals connecting very distant places, whether its another star or another galaxy or an alternate dimension. I think it's really good for game settings, because it's discrete "worlds" to deal with, and you don't have to worry about the in between, just the points of interest.

I like interplanetary. Otherwise you end up with planets of hats or incomprehensible large numbers
> A fleet of a dozen spaceships hundreds of metres long conquered a planet
Is possible to imagine
> Armies of millions of ships dozens of kilometers long conquered a million planets
Is just an large number

>>50580478
Apprently Leto conquers "Most of the Known Universe". At least according to Wikipedia

I prefer interstellar, with most of the galaxy unexplored, only a few planets are fully colonized but many worlds are in the process of colonization. Plus plenty of places for pirates or whatever to hide.

>>50581001
>Apprently Leto conquers "Most of the Known Universe". At least according to Wikipedia

Whether or not it's the same as "Observable Universe" is a different question. I seem to remember some faction setting up colonies outside of the Known Universe.

>>50579798
You forgot Interstellar (Traveller)

>>50579798
I prefer single world/system sci-fi, never liked the whole handwaving away travel time and difficulty with FTL and shit. Feels like planets are just treated as towns you can visit and really detracts from the scale of things.

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> planatary

>>50581589
Most sci-fi authors don't understand the scale.

>>50581001
Yeah, the numbers get too high for my liking in galatic scale settings. It's hard to feel sorry when 2 billion Alderaanians die, because the galaxy has quadrillions of inhabitants. The numbers of ships and people just get too large to comprehend. Something like Eclipse Phase where the survining transhumans are counted in the hundreds of millions is much easier to digest, and when thousands of people die it feels important.

I love settings about exploration, where Humanity has only visited anywhere from dozens to hundreds of systems, and where sapient aliens are absent, rare or truly alien. The smaller number of worlds helps make them more memorable through worldbuilding or just plain old random tables. Colonized planets should in my opinion have multiple interesting locations, cultures and biomes, instead of just being the fourth "jungle planet with a spaceport" in a row where you refuel your ship on your way to an important location.

>>50581734
Thousands of people die everyday and nobody gives a fuck. A dozen get gunned down somewhere and everyone loses their shit. It's all subjective.

Hell, nobody gave two shits about Alderaan even among the good guys. Leia was only interested in the place because that's where she kept all her stuff. She wasn't terribly shocked by the destruction of an entire planet of her people after the fact.

>>50579798
Galaxy-spanning, but not the entirety of the galaxy so that there's plenty of unknown stuff.

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>microscopic

>>50579798
Interplantary is literally the best. Nothing beats having a setting take place across an entire system. Hard sci fi does this best tbqh

Galaxy is the most convenient and comprehensible limiter, although other options are acceptable.

>>50583514
>comprehensible
If you throw out relativity, sure.

>>50583681
>Not having relativistic drama based on time dilation due to NLS travel between the nearest partner worlds in a vast but utterly fragmented human empire
>Not having a galactic empire of subservient(?) AIs that run the Von-neuman probes that deconstruct star systems for raw resources to send back to fuel the construction of the megastructure of the home system

>Not having fun