Thanks to Dick's spreadsheet, I have those... I adjusted them a bit based on Tech/Information/Travellers subsections. They're a bit stringent. Between DGP and those examples, I have a pretty good idea. The nice thing about DGP is it does a quick dive into whether the law is fair, trial rights etc.
Law Level verses Government Type
- Thread starter Timerover51
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Thanks to Dick's spreadsheet, I have those... I adjusted them a bit based on Tech/Information/Travellers subsections. They're a bit stringent. Between DGP and those examples, I have a pretty good idea. The nice thing about DGP is it does a quick dive into whether the law is fair, trial rights etc.
That's why you want to make sure that if you use MgT Category Law Levels that you keep them completely divorced from the UWP Law Level (which then becomes simply general legal strictness/intrusiveness). Otherwise, you end up with odd constraints.
HanleyTucks
SOC-11
I view things a little differently. I take the LL's list about firearms to be illustrative rather than exhaustive. For example, in modern Australia the firearms laws correspond to CT's LL9 - you can't even carry a pocketknife outside your home, and firearms at home must be locked up with ammunition stored separately. However, I do not find myself harassed by the police 1 in 6 times I leave the house, though I suppose if I engaged in Traveller-like activities of organise cargoes for ships and taking my crew through customs and so on then I might be.
I also view high LL as not necessarily indicating paperwork. High LL in a Civil Service Bureaucracy definitely means paperwork, but high LL in an Oligarchy might mean "gifts" or elaborate ceremonies and etiquette to get anything done. "On arrival to the capital, you must appear before the Duke and prostrate yourself offering a gift of 16 rhodendrons - but not 17! 17 is the number of death and will be taken as a threat or curse."
In my most recent game, the players were on a world with a Civil Service Bureaucracy but LL3. I said that all the paperwork had to be filled out, and you had to have a ticket (license) to do anything, but nobody really checked the details. For example, before he could be employed as an engineer at a shipyard, one character had to do an engineering exam - for 50Cr at the town hall, and he aced the exam and was rated Eng2 when he's actually Eng1, and they certainly didn't send off for his Naval exam transcripts. Paperwork required, but nobody really cares.
When creating worlds, sometimes the dice throw up odd results. Rather than changing the rules to give us less odd results, I prefer to think about how to make things interesting. As a real world example, Iran will stone homosexuals to death, but will give state-supported gender reassignment treatment.
Things don't always make intuitive sense in the real world, but that's what makes it interesting! Let the dice fall where they may, figure it out later.
I also view high LL as not necessarily indicating paperwork. High LL in a Civil Service Bureaucracy definitely means paperwork, but high LL in an Oligarchy might mean "gifts" or elaborate ceremonies and etiquette to get anything done. "On arrival to the capital, you must appear before the Duke and prostrate yourself offering a gift of 16 rhodendrons - but not 17! 17 is the number of death and will be taken as a threat or curse."
In my most recent game, the players were on a world with a Civil Service Bureaucracy but LL3. I said that all the paperwork had to be filled out, and you had to have a ticket (license) to do anything, but nobody really checked the details. For example, before he could be employed as an engineer at a shipyard, one character had to do an engineering exam - for 50Cr at the town hall, and he aced the exam and was rated Eng2 when he's actually Eng1, and they certainly didn't send off for his Naval exam transcripts. Paperwork required, but nobody really cares.
When creating worlds, sometimes the dice throw up odd results. Rather than changing the rules to give us less odd results, I prefer to think about how to make things interesting. As a real world example, Iran will stone homosexuals to death, but will give state-supported gender reassignment treatment.
Things don't always make intuitive sense in the real world, but that's what makes it interesting! Let the dice fall where they may, figure it out later.
This is particularly important if one is trying to "roll back" present UWP values to what they would have been in previous eras. One could simply calculate what the the 2D roll made for GOV type (hereinafter, "Gov Roll") was, as GOV+7-POP, change the population to reflect the era, then add the (Gov Roll -7) back in again. I don't think this would accurately reflect the history that yielded the Milieu 1100 UWP values, but it could be a useful shortcut. I'd probably want a center-weighted random variation on the Gov Roll for each increment of POP code rollback. This would include a chance that the Gov Roll would need to be re-rolled due to a societal shift (population-driven or otherwise).
This doesn't model governmental transitions according to political science theories -- but then, it wasn't intended to. GOV=2D-7+POP was "What's there now", and the question of "how'd it get that way?" was left to the referee if it ever came up (under the Design Only As Really Necessary paradigm).
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
The following is an example of what sort of monitoring could be placed on outworlder visitors to a planet. It is based on Czarist Russia circa the mid-1880s, following the assassination of Alexander the Second. While technically a work of fiction, the author spells out in the Preface that he is drawing on his experiences of three trips to Russia under the Czars, as well as the experiences of other people. The city that the characters are in is St. Petersburg, on the Gulf of Finland. I would say that the government of Russia at the time would be described as Type "B", a non-charismatic leader.
The book may be found on Project Gutenberg as The Boy Travellers in The Russian Empire, by Thomas W. Knox, copyright 1887. Knox has a number of travel books like that on Project Gutenberg based on his extensive world travels. These books would be handy for coming up with possible adventures for Traveller, and really good for background for Space: 1889.
The book may be found on Project Gutenberg as The Boy Travellers in The Russian Empire, by Thomas W. Knox, copyright 1887. Knox has a number of travel books like that on Project Gutenberg based on his extensive world travels. These books would be handy for coming up with possible adventures for Traveller, and really good for background for Space: 1889.
It's important to understand that Russia used internal passports; they were a party to the treaty that makes it unlawful internationally to seize an international passport of a person not under investigation for a crime; a nation can always seize its own people's passports.
Seizure of the internal passport would render one subject to immediate arrest in Imperial Russia... unless one was issued papers by the local police. It was the default identity document.
Also, I've actually handled a real 1890's Russian Empire internal passport. It specifies that only the issuee and police may be in possession... anyone else is subject to immediate arrest.
Seizure of the internal passport would render one subject to immediate arrest in Imperial Russia... unless one was issued papers by the local police. It was the default identity document.
Also, I've actually handled a real 1890's Russian Empire internal passport. It specifies that only the issuee and police may be in possession... anyone else is subject to immediate arrest.
