Thanks Kai and Steve for your different approaches to the issue.
So Steve, you have mentioned in the last line "If you just want to change the ip of the server, you can just use a variable in the template
server {{ ntp_server }} iburst"-- > you mean that to have a single template file and in the group_vars (say /etc/ansible/group_vars/group1.yml ) have a variable
as ntp_server : 2.2.2.1 and for (/etc/ansible/group_vars/group2.yml) have a variable as ntp_server: 1.2.1.3 . and have a single template file which has the variable as
server {{ ntp_server}} iburst etc and it take it from there.. is that what you mean.