Starports and Law Levels

[Innskip]

I'm going to be a little vague in this post as I'm having a 5 minute time out at work and so haven't got my copy of the mainbook in front of me. :?

Looking at the definitions of Law Levels the other day I got a feeling (which could be wrong) that the last column that refers to visitors etc seemed to discourage offworlders at average LL and above, and yet felt that high level starports would attract visitors, and authorities would want this to generate revenue

I was thinking of using the base law level of a system for law encounters/weapons etc, and then modifing the level for reaction to visitors by the planets Starport type, using the Starport mod to TL (or half that) as a negative modifier. Eg. Starport A, Base Law Level 9, attitude to visitors 3 (or 6).

What do people think or am I missing something e.g. high law levels = paranoid governments?

 

[ninthcouncil]

Law Level in Traveller is a rather blunt instrument which suffers from the simplistic identification of gun control with other dimensions of state control. Furthermore, the definition has been rather expanded for Mongoose Traveller from the CT original, and the scaling doesn't work very well between the different columns. The table suffers from being presented in a compressed scale (0-9) when the possible results extend much higher, so the extreme positions are being put in at too low a value.

As an example, if we set Britain's Law Level at around 7 or even more, as its aggressive gun controls might suggest, we should also see foreign travellers being restricted to supervised official itineraries, and Chinese-style filtering of the internet.

Personally, I ignore the later columns in that table and play it by ear from a combination of Government Type, Law Level and gut feeling.

 

[Bakemono]

Law Level in Traveller is a rather blunt instrument...

My take on this is that law level is just a very broad brush where planets are painted from anarchy to most suppressive police state. While this is adequate when describing hundreds of worlds it clearly doesn't tell a full story of any of them. Personally I would just roll for a law level and then adjust it according to my whim or roll separately for each column with DM for certain columns like psionics in the Imperium.

 

[rust]

In my setting I use GURPS Traveller First In to determine the Law Level
of a planet, because it has a Legal Structure that allows for different Con-
trol Ratings for different fields of the law, for example Public Safety, Eco-
nomic Activity, Personal Freedom and Civil Law, and these ratings are not
tied to the gun control issue.
And once I have determined these basic sub-Law Levels / Control Ratings,
I introduce some "quirks" specific for my setting, to give each of the pla-
nets its individual "atmosphere".

 

[dayriff]

Remember that the Law Level table has both an X and a Y axis. The Y-axis defines the law level itself, but the X-axis defines various items that the law might (or might not!) regulate. Just because the law equals a given point on Y does not mean it applies to every point on X.

If you look at the government table, it specifically suggests which items a government might bother regulating at its highest law level. So some places might regulate information, weapons, and drugs at their law level, while other places might regulate only weapons and technology.

The column that refers to visitors may not be applicable for many planets.

 

[Alexander Cecil]

In the sector I have generated, I used the following guideline:

For any given government type, any standard contraband is enforced at law level. Columns which are not listed as contraband are enforced at law level - 1d6, with each type of contraband rolled separately.

I don't have the main book in front of me, but this means that a government who focuses on drugs and weapons with a law level of7 might enforce laws as the following:

• Drugs: Law 7
  Weapons: Law 7
  Technology: Law7 - 1d6 (roll:3) = Law 4
  Visitors: Law 7 -1d6 (roll:2) = Law 5
  Information: Law 7 - 1d6 (rol:6) = Law 1

When caught for violating a law, I use the full law level for determining penalties. This whole process give a really nice variance in laws from world to world. The PCs pretty much have to look up the local laws before going planet-side, just to make sure they will be safe (much like current international travel).

 

[Cleon the Mad]

My take is similar to Alexander Cecil's. I personally see the Law level as a rough guideline for offworlders unfamiliar with the system to follow. How accurate that might be will vary a lot between systems...and often between nations on a balkanized world. It is wise for an offworlder once his ship lands, possibly before he even leaves his ship to connect to the starport's database and find out the exact local restrictions for any goods or items he may wish to bring onto the planet, especially if he'll be leaving the Starport.

As an aside, how do people handle law level zero, especially on let's say Efate...it's TL 13, population 9 and LL 0. I do say that permits are still needed, just that the loopholes for said permits aren't huge, and one can get a permit or prescription for almost anything if done right. Otherwise, some guy landing on Efate, refueling and then blasting off the same day might not be able to buy a PGMP simply because he didn't take the time to file a request to buy one. Once he does the bureaucratic loopholes, then yes it's legal for him to buy the thing. (And having said that, the local police and military will still be NOT impressed if he decides to wander down main street with the thing, and might even break a law doing so, but the law would be related to potentially endangering the public or some threat to harm or some such, as opposed to actual ownership of said weapon. Dismantled in a crate for transport to another location, sure that's fine. Firing said weapon in self defence...well ignoring the collateral damage that would obvious happen, yes. But not just lugging it around for no good reason)