Ok, so I am running a Dark Heresy (warhammer 40k rpg) in a non-inquisition based game. Which is going fine, in most all areas save one - both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader seemed to have forgotten to put one major map detail in their games...

I have no idea how far apart planets are

How long does it take to get from Sephereus Secundus to Scintilla (from any planet to any other planet for that matter)? Using the warp? Using regular non-warp travel? Is there a communications delay?

Has anyone ever tried to run a campaign where time matters? or does everyone just skip to "You arrive at planet x' ??

Its overly subjective.

Its up to the GM pretty much. Personally, I would say 1-2 months should cover a span thats seen in the maps for the game. I don't view that as the "entriety" of the subsector. If its from corner A of the subsector to corner B on the opposite side, I would say upward of 5 months. Anything cross sectors tends to be order of years. Maybe a week or two for roughly "close" planets.

I actually did run a game where time mattered, but I ran things with an odd temporal effect. Pretty much time experience in the warp was much longer than time spent in realspace. I was playing up strange conditions/warp storm effects, and using the fact that they arrived at their destination the exact moment they left as a means of causing tension.

It also had the useful side effect of allowing the party to heal and justify training while onboard the ship en route to places.

Rogue Trader pg 184 should be able to help you out a lot. While it doesn't deal with exact distances (what in the warp is ever exact anyway?), it gives good guidelines which you can work from.

When dealing with time and distance between planets, there are several major factors to consider. First and foremost is the condition of the warp between those two points. If it is turbulent with few or no stable warp routes, then the two points could be considered to be extremely far apart and dangerous to get to while two points which are connected by a calm, stable, and well travelled warp rout with little between the two can be considered to be close to one another.

Second is, for travel, whether the ship has a Navis Noblite Navigator or whether it relies strictly on charts (Chartist ship). In the case of the former, travel would be far quicker as the ship would be able to stay in the warp far longer and be able to avoid perils and hazards (like storms, calms, and coalesced unreality reefs) which would slow travel considerably. The latter case would have to drop out of warp periodically and spend time reassessing its location before jumping back in and while in the warp could get mired on all forms of warp "debris".

So, how long dose it take to get from Sepherus Secondus to Scintilla? It all depends. By default, for a ship with a navigator, I would say 1-5 days warp-side. They are two systems in the same subsector connected by a well travelled rout. Since the default time dilation in "open" warp is a factor of 12 but can go as low as a factor of 1 in the most calm and well travelled places of the warp I would put the time dilation on the Golgenna Triangle at a 3 (it's well travelled and very predictable, but the Calixus sector is still the backwater of the galaxy... those 2's and 1's should be saved for somewhere with older and more travelled routes). So, while it can take anywhere from 1 to 5 days warp-side, anywhere from 3-15 days would pass real-side. For the same question but with a ship without a navigator, I have ruled in the past for simplicities sake that it takes such ships about 10 times as long to get where they need to go (because multiplying by 10 is just fast and easy). So, for a Chartist vessel, it would take 10-50 days jumping in and out of the warp while a total of 30 - 150 days pass by in real-time.

The same trip not using the warp for any vessel (as having a navigator or not wouldn't matter) would take roughly way too damned long to matter at all except to maybe your great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandchildren who would have to pilot the vessel in to it's destination.

As communications go, yes, there is a communications delay. This is covered in Rogue Trader pg 162 under Astrotelepathy. It takes 1d5 hrs to initially send a message and then, assuming good warp conditions, takes roughly moments to cross a solar system, hours to cross a sub sector, and days to cross a sector,...

Gah, and don't forget about the Astrotelepathy table on pg 163 which gives a much clearer time table for getting those messages out bassed on distance said message needs to go complete with dice rolls. I knew I was forgetting something...

I try to use an "Age of Sail" standard for travel times in my campaign, with almost a week's warp travel to reach the next closest planet, over a month to span a Subsector, and nearly a year to circumnavigate the entire Sector. And don't forget time destortion aboard ship! RT recommends 10 days Sidereal = 1 day shipboard, but to simplify my bookkeeping, I usually go with 1 week Sidereal = 1 day shipboard.

My basic rule of thumb is Warp travel takes exactly as long as my story requires to work. I obviously take distances, local Warp conditions and any other appropriate factors into account and I like involving a bit of a random factor because this is a sea of alternate-reality raw Chaos that the ships are powering through after all!

Whenever it is not vital for the story's timing I generally use the charts in Rogue Trader. As an example, I am starting the grand finale for the Haarlock story line (re-written and expanded for Ascension!) and their initial voyage to the destination world will strangely take "approximately" 13 days, 13 hours, 13 minutes and 13 seconds.... Approximately. (Yes, they have a Magos on the team, and he is paranoid about numerology.)

Graver said:

What a freakin great response! You know, it was stupid of me to assume the distance from system to system was even possible in a characters lifetime.

Which means that warp travel is how they get from planet to planet and in that case its mostly subjective, while there are some fairly reliable dates to go by - both of which you pointed out.

Thanks to everyone, you all answered my question perfectly, cheers!

I know this may not help, but players move at the speed of plot. Itcould take them a few seconds to cross the galaxy to hundreds of years, it is as plot dictates.

Could I suggest creating a scale perhaps. FFG produce some lovely Star Charts which can be downloaded at the support page. Print in A3 and you can literally measure the distance between the systems with a ruler and calculate travel times based on x days per cm.

If you already have an example from fluff of how long between two systems use that as your guide if you wish.

e.g. 1cm = 'X' days travel with a navigator (+/- for degrees of success?), or 1cm = 'Y' days travel without a Navigator. (Obviously 'Y' will usually be greater than 'X').

While objective accuracy plays no part in a system like this, it gives you a very effective baseline from which to ensure that travel times in your campaign maintain an internal consistency in 'relative' terms. Tweak the days/cm value until you have what you need for narrative consistency or dramatic effect and you're set.

ZillaPrime said:

Totally agree with this sentiment.

This topic pops up with some regularity, and has been discussed here and here at least.

My own "research" into the matter resulted in this little chart , giving you values for the most common journeys in the sector.

I decided to add these travel charts to my little Players Datapad for easier access. No Excel required

Choose the speed of your vessel, and Bobs yer uncle. You can also specify a length in Light Years for "custom" journeys.