Law Levels questions

[tsmpaul]

Hi! I'm relatively new to the Mongoose variant of Traveller, and I'm curious about how people handle Law Levels, as it is quite different from the original version of the game.

I'm playing the original CT Spinward Marches adventures, and I just noticed that Regina - trade hub and subsector capital, and point of origin for a lot of Classic Traveller adventures/campaigns, has a law level of 9.

According to the MGT ruleset description of law level 9: All weapons are illegal, all drugs are illegal, any offworld data is illegal, anything above 1700's AD Earth technology is illegal, and no offworlders are permitted...

I'm using the ruleset to play adventures and campaigns from the original Classic Traveller, and the law levels descriptions appear to conflict: Imperials on Regina hire the party to perform a survey of the planets of the sector to see if their UWP's are correct - but offworld data is illegal at law level 9. In an adventure, a merchant comes to Regina and hires the party as crew on their ship for a journey to Rhylanor - but offworlders are not permitted on Regina?

Do all of the columns on the tech level illegal chart apply, or is it only 'pick one or more' to apply, depending on the situation?

[Trenloe]

1) if you’re running Classic Traveller adventures, then you should always keep in mind what the designers were working with and, in this case, refer to the definition of law level from the CT LBB. Back then law level primarily indicated what weapons were permissible on planet.
2) The expanded detail in Montoose Traveller (individual columns for extra details) are primarily a guideline and the actual restriction for each column can be higher/lower than that indicated in the table for a specific planet.
3) And, the most important - Remember that the UWP primarily details the main planet in the system. And that things like planetary law don’t apply to the starport. See page 178 of MGT #1. Regina has a class A star port - this is massive and most starfarers who visit "Regina" will not leave the Imperial governed star port. Hence, all of the things you mention are totally possible in the Regina system.

[tsmpaul]

Thanks for the reply! I'm really enjoying this ruleset. It's great being able to type the UWP and have explaining text appear automatically!