On Judgment and the Territorial Authority

[agony]

A TA Claims officer/Tax collector (in relation to a small gold vein discovered at a town) is causing a bit of sin related to greed.  This town has been half-way completed and will be finished with the next session.  The TA Officer has not been discovered yet by the players (they latched onto a more grabby sin and spent the night dealing with that first) but we had a bit of a discussion what the Dogs authority was. 

The Dogs can certainly judge the TA member, but can they rightfully punish him without chaffing any higher up authorities of the Government?  If they say, flogged the officer, would the TA likely come down upon the Dogs and the faithful?

This certainly could prove for an interesting story developing in further towns if there are repercussions, but I am unclear over the Dogs authority relating to the Territorial Authority and my players have humbly asked what possible repercussions there could be and where there jurisdiction in fact stopped.

I know the book is purposely vague on this, so where have you come down on the issue and how has this worked in actual play in your own towns?  I'd personally like for my group to lay complete judgment upon the officer but not sure how appropriate that is.

[Vaxalon]

It hasn't come up in our towns.  The Dogs encountered a corrupt TA army captain, but they didn't pass judgement on him because he wasn't one of the Faithful.

[ffilz]

The Dogs/players may certainly pass judgement on TA NPCs. The TA NPC need not submit to the judgement without a conflict. So if they want to flog a TA officer, chances are he's going to resist, and now you have a conflict. If the dogs win, the officer is flogged. The officer may pull his gun in defense...

The GM, in future towns, may respond by creating new situations. Are the players still willing to flog a TA officer when XYZ happens (look at what they were keying on in passing judgement on the TA officer, and try related what-if scenarios, especially ones that escalate the situation).

Perhaps, having had some TA officers "abused" but the brethren (flogged etc., infringing on their authority), the next town might have a larger group of TA officers present. Perhaps they're cracking down on the brethren harder (though legitimately - or not - again, go back to what seemed to be the key to the players).

Frank

[agony]

Fred, were the players not worried when they left the town that it their judgment would not be tampered with by the TA Army Captain? 

What your players did certainly seemed reasonable, but I'm not quite sure I want to offer advice which may lean them towards ignoring the TA officer because he is out of their jurisdiction (for instance, if I make it very clear there could be repercussions they may decide to let him go) as that may seem a bit like GM fiat and disallowing them to rightfully judge him.  I'm not attempting to say that you lead your players one way or the other, but my problem seems to be arising from the fact they want the possible repercussions clearly defined and I am simply on the fence.

Frank, thanks for the advice and I had been leaning towards possibly encouraging them to pass judgment but make the possible future conflict known.  It seems this is the most reasonable option, thus they could choose to do what Fred's Dogs did or doll out the punishment as they see fit.

Hopefully, a couple people will come forward with such experience of Dogs judging TA officials and I can get an idea of where this could lead our game and how the players could respond.