Re: [HoE] Templars and Anti-Templars

[Coucouvinis <deimos@tig.com.au>]

Steve Crow wrote:

> However, I'd settle for _any_ other answer as well.  But to reiterate the
> question:
>
> A newly-created Templar, as part of a starting group of players, enters a
> town of 500 relatively "good" Chosen preparing for a siege of Black Hats.
> The Marshall's adventure _is_ the group defending the town.  The Templar
> (rightly or wrongly - it is subjective) decides the town isn't worthy of
> protection.  He lacks the mystical-yet-vague ability to force all the
> "unworthy" 250 folks or so to fight anyway.  The rest of the party, out of
> altruism, payment, whatever, do help the townsfolk.
>

Firstly, if the town is full of "relatively good" Chosen, by which (I assume)
you mean that they treat people well and don't kill visitors out of hand, then
the Templar really shouldn't have too much trouble defending them. Templars,
IMHO, aren't looking for a settlement of saints to defend, they defend people
who *aren't bad* and help other people. The test of worth usually involves
disguising oneself as a mutant or a beggar or somesuch and seeing how they get
treated - if they're allowed to work for food, that's good enough - they don't
expect to walk into a town full of good samaritans.

Secondly, if the town has 500 people in it, and the Templar has 250 of them to
be unworthy for whatever reason, that still leaves 250 worthy people that the
Templar, because of his oath, cannot rightly *not* defend them. His options are
pretty much two
1)Leave the town because he can't deal with fighting alongside those he has
deemed to be unworthy, possibly allowing the 250 worthy folk to die when he
could have helped them.
2)Help the town fight off the Black Hats and save as many of the 250 worthy as
he can. A Templar played properly, should, IMHO take this option.

The example given in the flavour text of the main rulebook is of a Templar
helping an "unworthy" town get rid of a road gang - he gets the children to the
other "worthy" town to help prepare defenses, and takes the rest of the town
with him to fight the gang.

It is my strong belief that for the most part, Templars are a problem because
the players decide to make them so. Judging a town's worthiness is something
that is up to a character - Simon doesn't have strict rules for judging people.
If a player decides to play a fanatic Templar who's as harsh as Simon when it
comes to judging people, that's a character choice - it's not one forced on him
by being a Templar. The same problem can arise when playing Sykers - some
players decide to make their characters completely nihilistic, which can lead to
some party fragmentation.

Templars, IMHO, allow for some interesting roleplaying and exploration of moral
topics that might not otherwise come to light, but the way they are written,
they do not inherently break up parties. The rules are not, IMHO, as strict as
is being made out by some people - there is plenty of leeway unless the rest of
the party wants to be totally mercenary, in which case, no self-respecting
Templar would hang out with such low-lifes anyhow. ;-]

As usual, this is all IIRC and IMHO

Nick