Law Level Zero

[alex_greene]

What goes on in your Law Level Zero worlds? Markets for pirate booty and knockoff high tech goods? Drugs and prostitution, and the only protection being run is the protection racket of the biggest mob?

Or is it more like Haight - Ashbury at its height, before it all went grungy and cheap?

 

[phild]

I think the lack of detail on the law level scale means it can be whatever you want. It could be an entirely peaceful anarcho-syndicalist commune. it could be a lawless wildwest frontier. It could be an active warzone.

Does anyone have a more granual law level system? I remember seeing people talk about it, but I'd love to see something broken in a bit more detail. Funnily enough, I'm as interested in the Civil aspects of law as the Criminal, because there are certainly fundamental Civil law principles which significantly impact the economic environment - e.g. for trade to prosper, there needs to be legal recognition of the concept of ownership.

 

[rust]

Does anyone have a more granual law level system?

I use the one from GURPS Traveller First In, modified for my setting. The
Legal Structure sidebars, together with the Social Parameters (e.g. the
society's Pluralism, Tolerance, Aggression, etc.), make it possible to de-
scribe the legal side of a society - including the civil law - in detail.

However, if one really goes into that much detail, each society described
becomes a rather unique one, and the basic idea of a Law Level - to ma-
ke it easier to compare societies - almost gets lost.

 

[phild]

Does anyone have a more granual law level system?

However, if one really goes into that much detail, each society described
becomes a rather unique one, and the basic idea of a Law Level - to ma-
ke it easier to compare societies - almost gets lost.

I don't know, I still think you can boil it down to 3 main law levels:
1. What weapons can be carried and what's the level of police interference can we expect
2. Is there enough of a legal framework to facilitate trade?
3. What sort of items can we bring to trade?

It's nice to have the detail behind this for a full living, breathing system, but this is enough summary info to differentiate planets and to give PCs (and NPCs) an idea as to whether or not they want to go to a particular planet. Indeed, in many ways, I'd say these 3 factors are much more important that something like Government Type, although there may be a link between Government and Factor 2, above.

 

[rust]

I don't know, I still think you can boil it down to 3 main law levels:
1. What weapons can be carried and what's the level of police interference can we expect
2. Is there enough of a legal framework to facilitate trade?
3. What sort of items can we bring to trade?

While I agree in principle, the details of a society can reduce the value
even of these informations greatly.

For example, while it can be allowed for foreigners to carry all kinds of
weapons, the reactions of the locals can make this a very stupid idea,
or certain items can be imported legally, but can only be sold to locals
of a certain hereditary caste - and so on.

So, the more unique details one has for a specific society, the less va-
luable the general informations can become.

 

[phild]

So, the more unique details one has for a specific society, the less valuable the general informations can become.

This makes no sense to me. Within the current law level system, it's still entirely possible for what you describe to be the case. If I'm designing a world with which my players will interact, I'm not giving it only the UWP characteristics. That's just a guide, a starting point. A three-way law level would provide more texture to that, allowing slightly more accurate judgements to be made, but there would always be some risk of the abstraction being inaccurate in a significant way. But this is always going to be reduced with more detail.

The law level is not a reflection of how much unique detail there is on a system, it's simply a measure of how much of that unique detail is generally known through a summary listing on an Imperial database.

 

[rust]

Within the current law level system, it's still entirely possible for what you describe to be the case.

True, and this is why I do neither like nor use the Law Level system, and
instead of the UWP use a more detailed and specific entry for each pla-
net for the library of the characters' starship.

A general UWP-type information can be so misleading that no sane per-
son would publish that information alone, without adding the additional
detail necessary to prevent the general information from becoming a
misleading trap for all foreigners visiting the planet.

For example, if it is legal to carry any kind of gun on a certain planet, but
an angry religious mob will attack and kill any foreigner openly carrying a
gun, the information about the legality of the gun is a death trap.

Or, if importing crabs is perfectly legal, but offering to sell crabs to a local
merchant is a very serious insult, the simple information that importing
the crabs is legal (because no local would consider it necessary to make
a law against something "that obviously stupid") is worse than useless.

Therefore, the more detail one has designed for a specific planet, and the
more that planet's society is a unique one and different from the basic as-
sumptions behind the UWP, the less useful the UWP informations become,
up to a point where it is better to work without such a general system.

 

[CosmicGamer]

To me, law level 0 does not indicate there are no laws or law enforcement. It only indicates that there are no restrictions on weapons, drugs, technology, and so on. You may find legal brothels and drugs sold along side booze and cigarettes with energy weapons one isle over. You can still get thrown in jail for stealing or selling stolen goods and you can still get sentenced to death for committing murder.

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I have used all of these ideas.

I have also used the following:

The people on the planet are so scattered that effective weapon enforcement is impossible. Carry what you want, but be advised, so will the natives.

The NRA (or it's future equivalent) controls the government.

Just because you CAN carry any weapon, it doesn't mean you are licensed to carry anything. It's easy to get a license for that FGMP, but you have to PAY for it.

 

[hdan]

For me, Law Level 0 means no police presence and no dedicated "court" system.

Depending on the type of government and population, some things might still be technically illegal (killing, stealing, etc.), but the LL0 designation means that those laws won't be backed up by a dedicated police force.

Now, just because there are no "cops", doesn't mean that a wronged citizen won't round up some buddies with guns, or turn to the local boss to help deal with the problem. (Again, depending on the government type.)

 

[Golan2072]

IMTU, Law 0 means that there is no formal system for enforcing laws: no real police and usually no courts as well; informal systems (such as posse's of citizens hunting down a murderer or general government bodies or representatives acting as a referee) might exist. This typically exists on very low-pop worlds (usually Pop 3-) with very informal governments (usually Gov 3-) where the locals have little desire or need for formality as almost everything is handled on the personal/family level.

 

[Charakan]

For me law level 0 can mean anything from the liberalism of the Culture in Iain M Banks' novels to the violent post apocalypse type world of Mad Max.

Creative interpretation of UWP codes has always been part of the fun of refereeing traveller, take the worst places to live in the OTU thread on this forum as an example, Captain Jacks stuff on there is inspired.

Back when I was a kid playing Traveller all that mattered to me was what level of ordnance could I carry, now as a mature GM I like to mess with my players heads with UWP codes and try and suprise them with their usual predjudices of what a digit means.

 

[waylandson]

A classic example of a law level 0 world would be The Freehold of Grainne as described in Michael Z. Williams series of books.

 

[snrdg121408]

Evening Rust and the other forum members,

Here is how I've looked at the UWP and all the other Traveller profiles. The UWP is the bare bones information that one can pull from a reference book like a dictionary. To get more in depth data you have to go to an encyclopedia or maybe an atlas. For the nitty gritty a data source specifically for that planet.

However, even the most detailed database has holes in the information as a result of being out of date. When the database was published the world government was okay with foreigners carrying weapons openly. Six months later the publishing government has been replaced with a religious mob that has not updated the database.

I'm more of a gear head so I like to give more detail in a design. In fact over on SJG's JTAS Starship/Vehicle Design forum I provided some fluff that was not received well by several people commenting on the contest entries. The fluff centered on the design as being part of a task force sent out to smack down a pirate base. For the most part they liked the stuff that detailed the design.

Finally, as with everything in Traveller the amount of detail is left up the the individuals setting up the campaign or senario.

Within the current law level system, it's still entirely possible for what you describe to be the case.

True, and this is why I do neither like nor use the Law Level system, and
instead of the UWP use a more detailed and specific entry for each pla-
net for the library of the characters' starship.

A general UWP-type information can be so misleading that no sane per-
son would publish that information alone, without adding the additional
detail necessary to prevent the general information from becoming a
misleading trap for all foreigners visiting the planet.

For example, if it is legal to carry any kind of gun on a certain planet, but
an angry religious mob will attack and kill any foreigner openly carrying a
gun, the information about the legality of the gun is a death trap.

Or, if importing crabs is perfectly legal, but offering to sell crabs to a local
merchant is a very serious insult, the simple information that importing
the crabs is legal (because no local would consider it necessary to make
a law against something "that obviously stupid") is worse than useless.

Therefore, the more detail one has designed for a specific planet, and the
more that planet's society is a unique one and different from the basic as-
sumptions behind the UWP, the less useful the UWP informations become,
up to a point where it is better to work without such a general system.

 

[rust]

However, even the most detailed database has holes in the information as a result of being out of date.

This would be a very rare case in my setting, and I think it should be rare
in the Third Imperium, too.

In my setting, when a starship enters a system one of the first things the
captain does is to contact the starport (or the embassy, consulate, etc.)
to ask for up to date informations about the situation on the planet he in-
tends to visit, so under normal circumstances there could not be any sur-
prises for his crew and passengers.

Moreover, the authorities, the news agencies, the traders and many others
would use their interstellar connections and information networks to up-
date all library data as soon and as often as possible, so all library data
about planets within two weeks of travel time should rarely be older than
a month.

However, this is a another field where game design and setting logic col-
lide: UWPs are almost never updated / changed in official material, al-
though within the setting at least population size, government type and
law level would be likely to change quite often, and technology level at
least every few decades, creating a much less static universe.

 

[klingsor]

If you want it in one word Afghanistan or the tribal areas of Pakistan. There might be formal laws there but they are largely ignored. However there are very clear, strongly enforced and followed rules or codes of honour and behaviour – those of the tribe or community – such as Pashtunwali which is a perfect example:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali

So law exists but informally, not written down – and thus, very usefully, it is very, very easy for an outsider to make a mistake. Transgressing an unwritten rule that everyone knows.

Of course our own society (Britain in my case) has such rules as well with subtle (or not so subtle) variations across the regions and even age groups which could be used with Traveller though the greater difference and source of a slight unease or rather discomfort between Britain and America which have very similar cultures might be a better example. So planet X is a normal Imperial world but the players unwitting transgress the local code of behaviour there and start off some chain of events.

 

[Ishmael]

However there are very clear, strongly enforced and followed rules or codes of honour and behaviour – those of the tribe or community –

or as Mark Twain once wrote

" Laws are set in sand, but customs are set in stone. "

( okay...I don't trust my memory enough to say for sure its an exact quote, but its pretty darn close )