I made a Galactic Neighbourhood map for space-based games

[Eltab]

wouldn't it be easiest to make two jumps: one far out from the ecliptic of the (presumably spiral type, i.e. comparably 'flat') galaxy, and the second back in?

Would that that were true. There is still all the junk on the way "up" and "down" to steer around even if the trip "across" is clear. See for instance Larry Niven's story "At the Core".

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There may be junk, but surely, significantly less.

 

[mcosgrave]

People have already mention the 2300AD map, which is useful.
I treasure my copy of this National Geographic universe map which is quite cool..def a good thing to hang behind the GM in any sci-fi game
https://shop.nationalgeographic.com/product/maps/wall-maps/space-maps/the-universe-wall-map

 

[Thomas Bowman]

I think one of the dangers of trying to start a game (or fictional universe in general) in local space (er, local, relatively speaking) is that we keep learning more and more about it which kinda negates the possibility of there being habitable planets. At least ones humans could live on.

Like say, Epsilon Eridani was a popular choice to put one, because its star is close to our own. But almost certainly not from what we now know. (Not to mention its age also makes it a poor choice). Or Tau Ceti, which apparently has two planets in its habitable zone, but both likely much too big to be inhabited by humans. There seems to be a lot more Super-Earths in the galaxy than Earths

As neat as maps like this are, I think we might need to go to vaguer maps on a larger, simply so we aren't contradicted in the near future.

How about our own Solar System? We now have a picture of all nine planets:

This is the "family portrait" we didn't have that when I was a child learning about this stuff. Seems that we can have a science fiction setting within our own Solar System. We can also do a "what if"

Venus and Mars terraformed, but traditionally Mars was a dying planet, but not a dead planet.

This was the image of Mars in the popular imagination in the Early 20th century, there is some liquid water, but Mars is not the paradise terrformers want to make of it. This Mars has a thin but breathable atmosphere and network of canals.

This is what Mars looks like in my setting.

And this is what Venus looks like in my setting, in order to have these two planets, we have to imagine a different Solar System and accept these changes. Planets are big places, we don't need a lot of them to have many adventures.