Why don't deities directly influence the world? [Archive]

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-02, 03:40 AM

It's definitely the issue of the inevitable escalation of conflict leading to the utter decimation of the material plane. Don't forget that gods aren't alone in the world. If a god chooses to directly interfere, say by destroying an entire temple and all the clergy that reside there, then his church faces retaliation from not only the god that temple was dedicated to but also from the friends and family of the fallen clergy as well as other members of the faith who see this as a travesty that cannot go unpunished.

Then you get deities calling in allied deities and their churches and before you know it the whole thing spirals into a situation where every god is roaming the world smiting his enemies while his church wages holy war on at least one front for every church that's opposed to their own. And if that's not enough destruction, imagine the collateral from the occasion of two gods coming into direct conflict with one another.

If the gods were to directly interfere in any noticeable fashion, the whole material would be reduced to nothing but smoking ruin. This is why, when they do interfere directly, the gods take only subtle actions, usually while disguised as a mortal, to nudge events in the direction they want them to go instead of trying to take direct, dramatic actions.

It's not mutual assured destruction. It's assured total destruction. The difference being that the former implies that the gods will destroy themselves or each other, which isn't necessarily true. The world will be gone, but the gods will likely survive and simply have to retreat to the outer planes.

Darius Kane

2013-01-02, 03:43 AM

Exactly. Gods are like countries with nukes. They can threaten to use them, but if they do, every other country will too. BOOM. No more world to influence.

Hirax

2013-01-02, 03:44 AM

They almost certainly do - all of them have very strong views on what they want and grant powers the divine classes to execute their will.

In addition to what Darius said, the wants and thoughts of deities are beyond the comprehension of mortals.

TuggyNE

2013-01-02, 03:45 AM

I believe that rule only applies in Greyhawk and in the Realm. If memory serves, Eberron has no such rule.

Since Eberron deities (if they even exist as such) are much vaguer, less definite, and less directly powerful than elsewhere, Eberron is not an example where this would happen.

The_Snark

2013-01-02, 04:24 AM

Since Eberron deities (if they even exist as such) are much vaguer, less definite, and less directly powerful than elsewhere, Eberron is not an example where this would happen.

Indeed. Eberron's deities are far more hands-off than the FR and Greyhawk pantheons, to the point where it's an open question as to whether they actually exist. They might be philosophical concepts rather than discrete, anthropomorphized entities. They might be completely made-up. Or they might be 50 HD outsiders who prefer to keep a low profile for some reason, but a DM who goes for this latter route will need to figure that reason out for himself, because the setting is deliberately ambiguous about the nature of the gods*.

*Generally speaking. There are exceptions and border cases; the Silver Flame and the Dreaming Dark definitely exist, though they're more like otherworldly forces of nature than traditional gods, and the ancient rakshasa rajahs might have possessed divine rank. And of course there are beings like the Undying Court and the Inspired, who are worshipped as gods but lack divine rank.

Cicciograna

2013-01-02, 05:30 AM

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-02, 05:33 AM

The_Snark

2013-01-02, 05:58 AM

My interpretation is that, in truth, they're just playing, the Clerics and worshipers being their pawns on the huge chessboard that is the Multiverse. They quite indeed influence the world, but through their pieces, not directly: what would you say if in a chess game one of the players physically stood up and knocked over with his hand his opponent's Queen or Rook? :smallbiggrin:

Aside from the issue Kelb points out, one problem with this interpretation is that it means the gods regard the multiverse as nothing more than a game—and it implies that they value the rules of that game more than they do the lives of their followers, or the principles they supposedly uphold. A compassionate god should not stand by and do nothing while his people are ravaged by war and plague just because his buddies and rivals would consider it cheating.

Sometimes having distant gods like that is OK! A setting where even the "good" gods are remote and more concerned with philosophical points than individual mortal lives could be interesting. But not all settings want to paint their gods that way. You can try to explain the problem away, but it's a tricky issue.

My second favorite solution is to limit the gods; the ban on direct interference isn't social, but metaphysical. Gods literally can't enter the Material Plane (or maybe they can, but doing so has undesirable side effects). They have to work through mortal proxies, offering spells and the occasional bit of guidance.

My favorite solution is the Eberron solution: ??? Which is to say, nobody knows why the gods don't take a direct hand in mortal affairs, only that they don't. Maybe you'll find out in-game! Probably not, though, unless it's a major theme of the campaign.

GoodbyeSoberDay

2013-01-02, 06:05 AM

TuggyNE

2013-01-02, 06:19 AM

The "It all becomes a chaotic mess" argument is fine until you think about the numerous gods of slaughter and destruction that would love it if that happened. What you actually need is a true gentlemen's agreement for a significant group of gods to team up and destroy any lone god that directly interferes.

To be fair, most Lawful entities, and some Neutral ones, as well as perhaps CG, would be upset if anyone messed with the arrangements too much. So that's about half the spectrum right there. (Also, Ao, where that's appropriate.)

Yuki Akuma

2013-01-02, 06:19 AM

If the world is destroyed, there's nowhere left for more slaughter and destruction to happen.

(Also there's the fact that the Outer Planes are formed by mortal belief, so killing all the mortals would probably be bad news for the Gods' homes.)

Andreaz

2013-01-02, 06:28 AM

It's not really defined and very setting-dependent.

In FR There's a certain overgod that slaps them around whenever they get too uppity, so they stick to a gentleman's agreement.

In Eberron the gods are vague things, unknowable and thus will never act overtly.

Tormenta's my favorite:
In Tormenta there's a gentleman's agreement enforced by an ancient pact whose effect boils to "The moment someone screws up, anyone may die".While Tormenta's 20 greater gods are far more powerful than anything FR, Eberron or anywhere else can throw at them and are able to recreate the world without major hurdles, they've grown to like the current world, and most of them embody such different and non-conflicting aspects that there isn't that much competition.
Life, Peace, Justice, Day, Night, Rebirth, Nature, Might, Elves, Oceans, War, Monsters, Trickery, Betrayal, Honor, Chaos, Humanity, Death, Knowledge, Magic.
Among those 20 there's also Dragons. There was Curiosity and there may be the Torment itself, but that's a long, long story.

ahenobarbi

2013-01-02, 06:29 AM

I recall reading that power of d&d gods comes from belief of their followers. Mostly clueless prime material followers. Because outsiders (knowing deities directly) regard them as "strong folks in charge". So letting mortals to know to much about gods would weaken them very much.

However I don't remember the source so I'm not sure how official this is :smallfrown:

Andreaz

2013-01-02, 06:48 AM

NichG

2013-01-02, 06:52 AM

There are other reasons than mutually assured destruction that could apply, but they require the concept that there is much more going on beneath the surface than is seen in any given campaign setting.

Many gods, for instance, are in the pantheons of multiple settings. One could imagine that a given deity is directly interfering in some world all the time, but that they have thousands of such worlds that require their attention. Or millions. Worse, if directly intervening in one world means that their casters are deprived of their magic in all other worlds, it can easily turn into a problem. This is more a Planescape, where clerics of a deity would actually get less powerful the further away they were from their deity's realm (e.g. the cleric of an outer planes deity would lose power by going to the elemental planes, but gain power on the outer planes).

The one that's trickier to mesh with D&D's absolute morality is that the morality of a deity is fundamentally somewhat alien. A person may say 'this being has the power to stop my suffering, why doesn't it?' but the deity may say 'without the story of how you overcame your suffering, you will be forgotten by time and the world, and in two hundred years no one will remember your name - a fate far worse than death'. Or even the very meta consideration of 'the world exists to be a stage for heroes and villains; if I step upon the stage in the mantle of a hero, I deprive mortal heroes of the chance to be heroic; I can fix everything, but at that point it is no different than recreating the world containing people who do only exactly what I want at all times, which is fundamentally a hollow existence.'

deuterio12

2013-01-02, 07:03 AM

Aside from the issue Kelb points out, one problem with this interpretation is that it means the gods regard the multiverse as nothing more than a game—and it implies that they value the rules of that game more than they do the lives of their followers, or the principles they supposedly uphold. A compassionate god should not stand by and do nothing while his people are ravaged by war and plague just because his buddies and rivals would consider it cheating.

Sometimes having distant gods like that is OK! A setting where even the "good" gods are remote and more concerned with philosophical points than individual mortal lives could be interesting. But not all settings want to paint their gods that way. You can try to explain the problem away, but it's a tricky
issue.

Remember this is D&D we're talking about. Death is not the end, far from it. Souls exist and go to other planes to become other outsiders or even return to life someday.

Anyway, a god won't stay idly while his people are ravaged. He'll send dream visions to his clerics on how to fix the problem and perhaps even send a holy artifact and some angels/demons to back them up.

My second favorite solution is to limit the gods; the ban on direct interference isn't social, but metaphysical. Gods literally can't enter the Material Plane (or maybe they can, but doing so has undesirable side effects). They have to work through mortal proxies, offering spells and the occasional bit of guidance.

That's already kinda implied in the sense that a god entering the material plane is basically painting a bullseye target on his face. Gods are at their strongest inside their personal realms, but going for a walk in the material can end in a dead god because he's at his most vulnerable. Much safer to work trough loyal minions.

SiuiS

2013-01-02, 07:06 AM

They do, constantly. And because they all have weird petty rivalries with each other, they're in deadlock.

It's also worth pointing out that ability to do something, and stron moral stance don't imply motive at all. Plenty of people have strong moral stances, and could go out and try and impose their will. That takes effort.

The gods are lazy, hedonistic and flawed.

Assuming of course the answer of "the game was designed to work without gods, which are a modular part of the system" doesn't satisfy you.

Alleran

2013-01-02, 07:47 AM

I believe that rule only applies in Greyhawk and in the Realm. If memory serves, Eberron has no such rule.
Many of the beings that could qualify as "gods" in Eberron, such as the Rakshasa Rajahs, are sealed away (for good reason).

Certified

2013-01-02, 08:32 AM

The simple answer is because it would be boring. Why send a ragtag band of adventures on a long an perilous journey with when the God Dog can simply handle it themselves? Of course this isn't a satisfactory answer in a non-meta sense.

Generally, I like to think of it as Gods do influence the mortal planes but not in direct ways. They move things subtly to avoid the attention of other gods. The reason being, like politicians, they have allies, and enemies. Too blatant an action tips their hand and kicks of repercussions in the divine or mortal planes. If God Dog is busy tending to affairs on the mortal realm then they're not tending to affairs in their own house and so God Fog does his bit to one make things worse for God Dog on the mortal plane without being noticed then sends in the troops on the divine plane whilst Dog is distracted.

Edit: By subtle, I mean thank Dog for that critical strike. Real subtle.

Ryulin18

2013-01-02, 09:51 AM

They are completely locked in a cold war style neutrality problem. They have to use their followers and clerics to do whatever they can. Because they have no control over human kind, they are not liable for their actions.

Amphetryon

2013-01-02, 09:58 AM

They do influence the world. They have Clerics.

GoddessSune

2013-01-02, 10:03 AM

There are more than thirty gods in D&D and apart from granting power to divine casters it seems as if they do nothing. Why don't these 50 HD Gods who all have very clear views on morality and can cast any spell as a free action ever directly influence the real world?

They do. Why would you think they do nothing. Both Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms both have very, very, very active gods. Eberron does not have real ''gods'', so they don't do anything.

There are two real world reasons this is not done in a typical game:

1.Many DM's want the PC's to be heroes, and to do that the world must be helpless. So that means no powerful NPCs and no active all powerful gods.

2.Many DM's are uncomfortable with the whole ''religion'' thing. They, for different reasons, don't like to ''pretend'' anything about religions or gods or such.

There is the in game reason too:

The gods can't do much without effecting way too much. It's the ripple effect: If a god tosses even a tiny pebble in the lake, it will cause dozens of ripples....many that they don't want.

My classic example, The Sandbox: Take a large sandbox(at least ten foot square). Build lots of roads, castles, towers, buildings and add in lots of miniature people and animals. Now try to move anything in the middle of the sandbox. You will need to be very, very careful to reach over and move even one miniature. Just the slight movement of your elbow can destroy a tower. It's even worse if you have to actually step into the sandbox as each step can destroy lots of things.

Another example would be making shapes out of tiny glitter on a table...and then being very careful as your slightest breath will blow them around.

Lord_Gareth

2013-01-02, 10:08 AM

I've recently done some research on this subject and now I can apply it! I'm so happy!

So, there are three kinds of divine influence if you don't count Clerics and Favored Souls: Miracles, Avatars, and the god actually up and showing up. Let's discuss these.

Miracles are probably the most common form of divine influence and can be seen happening with some frequency, if not necessarily regularity. An orc warlord wakes up with Gugnir in his grip, the death of a mighty cleric of Pelor releases a sunflash that burns away the vampire who murdered him, and of course there is the ever-famous "humanoid sacrifice in exchange for magic," introduced in the Book of Vile Darkness. Why are Miracles so common? Because they're the easiest to relate to direct spheres of divine influence, and also because many times all a god really has to do to invoke the miraculous is cast a spell. Most of the time, miracles are direct rewards given to mortals who uphold a god's portfolios, goals, or both and as such are either legally permitted (for the L or G gods who care) or easy to sneak in (for the C or E gods trying to avoid getting caught).

Avatars are the methods by which divinities give personal attention to a follower or a problem. They're much more rare than Miracles, especially since the death of an Avatar causes significant inconvenience for a deity. Still, you can find gods sending their aspects all kinds of places, for various reasons - the worshipers of Kord hold a festival every year in which the champion must wrestle an aspect of Kord himself, Imix (Prince of Evil Fire Elementals) shows up in person to bless his followers with dark power, and both Lolth and St. Cuthbert have strikingly long personal-appearance records. Avatars let a deity bring as much or as little power to bear as they wish, but also to focus their near-omniscience down to something a little more like mortal perspective so that they might more easily interact with and give personal attention to their followers. Of the three kinds of divine intervention, Avatars are the ones that suffer most from a 'Cold War' mentality; the hostile use of an Avatar is inevitably matched by one or more other Avatars appearing, which sets the entire affair back to Square 1: Forces Evenly Matched. Every now and then a god loses their cool and sends a hostile avatar (see the end to the original Temple of Elemental Evil, or the climactic sequence of Expedition to Castle Grayhawk), mostly to no real effect; either they try to sneak in a weak avatar and run the risk of getting overwhelmed by mortals, or they send a strong avatar and find their power matched by an opposing deity.

Finally, we talk about Getting Off Their Ass and Going Places. Of the three, this one is probably the absolutely least common, and went out of style so long ago that some common races were not yet extant, and the biggest reason for this is the sheer risk involved. For a god to get up and go somewhere involves, of necessity, leaving their divine domain - which means abandoning their wards and protections, leaving their Petitioners undefended, and exposing themselves to whatever hostile Powers decide to take that moment to strike. Yes, Heironious probably hates a wretched and cowardly god like Doresain with a passion - but if he goes to destroy the King of Ghouls, he also exposes himself to assault from Hextor, Erythnul, various Demon Princes (Orcus personally murdered a few gods), every Chaotic deity with an axe to grind against him and fellow Greater Powers such as Gruumsh. The risk doesn't just make such a move incredibly stupid, it borders on the morally irresponsible; the death of a god leaves their Portfolios up to grabs for whatever deity A. wants them and B. can fight off all the other ones who want them, and a Portfolio is inevitably changed for better or for worse by the god that owns it. Even for deities of Good, it's much safer and more responsible to appoint champions to act in their stead.

There we go!

GreatWyrmGold

2013-01-02, 11:28 AM

Several possibilities come to mind.

1. Formal agreement. This shouldn't require explanation, but is analogous to a formalized treaty between nations.
2. Informal agreement. This is analogous to the unspoken agreement not to cheat in chess.
3. Something more powerful is forcing them to play nice. This is analogous to teachers keeping an eye on children playing pretend at recess.
4. Natural laws actually prevent them. This is analogous to a bunch of people playing, say, Civilization together.
5. It really is a game to them. The Good gods are roleplayers, the Evil gods might be cheaters, etc. This is analogous to a game of D&D, where no one really tries to make a god-character. Unless you do, in which case the analogy tirns into an example of why it's good that such an agreement is in place.
6. Gods aren't perfect; they make mistakes. This is analogous to a leader who misses some important crisis before it's too late or whatever.
7. They're gods. Who the Hells knows what they're thinking?

123456789blaaa

2013-01-02, 01:38 PM

They do influence the world. They have Clerics.

Re: Why don't deities directly influence the world?

:smallwink:

SimonMoon6

2013-01-02, 01:51 PM

1.Many DM's want the PC's to be heroes, and to do that the world must be helpless. So that means no powerful NPCs and no active all powerful gods.

Oddly, though, the typical D&D world (in RAW) has tons of uber-powerful NPCs. Looking for a 17th level wizard to cast Wish? No problem, just head to your local rent-a-wizard. Looking for a 17th level cleric to cast True Resurrection? No problem, just head for your local church.

So, we have to come up with reasons why these god-like NPCs just don't do anything either. ("People are being killed by hordes of skeletons! Help us!" "Yeah, no, I don't want to help despite being Lawful Good. I wouldn't get any XP for fighting skeletons!")

This is part of why I don't like the default setting since the PCs really aren't the greatest heroes around... but maybe they're the least lazy.

It's also weird to me that NPC clerics who believe 100% in the cause that the PCs are fighting for still won't help the PCs without proper payment. "Yeah, I'd like to cast a spell to help you save the world... but not unless you pay!" It's like they all worship the god of capitalism.

Amphetryon

2013-01-02, 01:54 PM

:smallwink:

They grant the Clerics spells. That's a direct influence. Further explanation would likely brush against forum rules.

Arcanist

2013-01-02, 02:15 PM

Meta-rules don't care which world you're playing in.

What meta-rule states that Deities cannot influence the world? If you can, direct me to where it states that :smallsmile:

Since Eberron deities (if they even exist as such) are much vaguer, less definite, and less directly powerful than elsewhere, Eberron is not an example where this would happen.

I believe Eberron captured how the Gods should behave in a setting. They do not need to pop on down and lay waste to an entire world, unless the plot demands for it. A God should be so far up there own ass that they just don't see WHY they should influence the world. Eberron for example doesn't require that they have worshipers to feel power. They just simply need to exist (think of it as "Pre-Time of Troubles").

Many of the beings that could qualify as "gods" in Eberron, such as the Rakshasa Rajahs, are sealed away (for good reason).

That is another reason why a Deity wouldn't want to directly influence the world. Everyone hates them and wants them to die :smalltongue:

They grant the Clerics spells. That's a direct influence. Further explanation would likely brush against forum rules.

Hmm... This actually makes me thing about kinds of Influence that a Deity would be able to exert... would they be able to directly influence it (Pop on down to the Prime Material and give there High Priest a high five, before laying waste to a local Heretical church) or "Whatever the hell granting spells is" :smalltongue:

silverwolfer

2013-01-02, 02:20 PM

The realms is the wrong thing to mention as a do not list, the entire setting is one large god chess set. Folks are moving on each other all the time.

123456789blaaa

2013-01-02, 04:57 PM

They grant the Clerics spells. That's a direct influence. Further explanation would likely brush against forum rules.

Why? :smallconfused:

Anyways, I said it because you said influence the world, not directly influence. I think it was reasonable to assume that you misread the thread title.

Amphetryon

2013-01-02, 05:12 PM

Why? :smallconfused:

Anyways, I said it because you said influence the world, not directly influence. I think it was reasonable to assume that you misread the thread title.

I cannot answer "why" without examples from real-world religions, which is (you guessed it) against forum rules. As for your default assumption being that I cannot read a thread title properly before responding? That's an. . . interesting assumption.

123456789blaaa

2013-01-02, 05:17 PM

I cannot answer "why" without examples from real-world religions, which is (you guessed it) against forum rules. As for your default assumption being that I cannot read a thread title properly before responding? That's an. . . interesting assumption.

Ah okay.

It's happened before. By very intelligent people who I respect. If they do it than you can do it. Missing one word doesn't seem so inconcievable.

Scarlet-Devil

2013-01-02, 05:24 PM

This is mostly reiteration, but here's my two copper:

1.) Deities can work through agents; they have devoted mortal clergy, and the priesthood may very well have a large network of agents of their own. They also have avatars and, presumably, legions of Outsider followers who can do their work for them across the planes.

2.) Deities are transcendent beings that represent and embody natural phenomena or abstract, philosophical concepts. Why should a 'perfect', abstract entity care a whit about the goings on in some little Material Plane world, especially when death isn't the end of anything?

3.) In response to '2', one typical reason for deities caring about mortal concerns is that their existence is only allowed by the faith of their followers; when sentient beings stop worshiping, the god dies. In that scenario, a big brawl between pantheons on the material plane, which could conceivably extinguish all intelligent life on the planet, or all planets on which it takes place, would be utterly counter-productive to the gods' interests.

4.) In some settings, like the Forgotten Realms, there's an actual law (created by Ao, the overgod, in FR) that forbids deities from personally, physically interfering with the affairs of mortals.

Yeah, guess that's all I got.

Darius Kane

2013-01-02, 06:39 PM

What meta-rule states that Deities cannot influence the world?
The one that states that PCs are the heroes of the game, not audience to the NPC gods antics.
Alternatively, the one in the heart of every DM.

OracleofWuffing

2013-01-02, 06:44 PM

... They don't? But... Then who's keeping the multiverse's largest ducks from destroying everything while the PC's are out getting killed by kobolds? And who keeps making the next kleenex tissue pop up?

silverwolfer

2013-01-02, 07:08 PM

Evil gods are arround to be the hero's story plot, good gods are around to just give enough help that they can actualy do it, but to damn snobby to give them enough help to make it easy.

If you want to have fun with your relgion, go do planescape.

Lord_Gareth

2013-01-02, 07:10 PM

Arcanist

2013-01-02, 10:18 PM

The one that states that PCs are the heroes of the game, not audience to the NPC gods antics.
Alternatively, the one in the heart of every DM.

Or the meta-rules I outlined above - the ones that relate to Portfolios and the like.

Damn. I guess you can't have Divine games, because the moment you gain a Divine Rank you magically transform into an NPC meaning you have to roll up a new Divine Character for your campaign... *GASP* an Infinite Loop! :smalltongue:

@Kane: The idea that a Deity cannot interfere with the world would kind of make the Avatar ability pretty much moot.

@Gareth: You're theory actually holds some back up towards it, because logically, as a nearly immortal celestial/infernal super being you would naturally have a bucket full of enemies, both mortal and immortal (nearly).

Theres lots of reason why a Deity wouldn't interact with the world. Mystra's is that she can't maintain an Avatar or else the Weave starts falling apart, Ao's is that he really doesn't care, just like Boccob. Hell, I agree with Gareth here, the reasons why God's don't interact with the world is because they are scared of getting killed by another Deity (or in Vecna's case, afraid of losing there power).

Lord_Gareth

2013-01-02, 10:25 PM

@Gareth: You're theory actually holds some back up towards it, because logically, as a nearly immortal celestial/infernal super being you would naturally have a bucket full of enemies, both mortal and immortal (nearly).

Theres lots of reason why a Deity wouldn't interact with the world. Mystra's is that she can't maintain an Avatar or else the Weave starts falling apart, Ao's is that he really doesn't care, just like Boccob. Hell, I agree with Gareth here, the reasons why God's don't interact with the world is because they are scared of getting killed by another Deity (or in Vecna's case, afraid of losing there power).

Not just that; losing Petitioners is a big deal. If someone wrecks your divine realm and re-kills all of your dead people, you lose quite a bit of power and take a long time recovering. Petitioners are a key part of how deities evolve in power.

Darius Kane

2013-01-02, 10:42 PM

Damn. I guess you can't have Divine games, because the moment you gain a Divine Rank you magically transform into an NPC meaning you have to roll up a new Divine Character for your campaign... *GASP* an Infinite Loop!
Games with PCs as Gods are edge cases. In most games, yes, that's exactly what it means. But I didn't say that, so, no strawmen, please.

@Kane: The idea that a Deity cannot interfere with the world would kind of make the Avatar ability pretty much moot.
No, not really. Avatars aren't created solely for the purpose of sending them to mortal realms. That's what minions like Angels or Devils are for.

Greenish

2013-01-02, 10:47 PM

Avatars aren't created solely for the purpose of sending them to mortal realms.You can also play snakes & ladders with them.

Arcanist

2013-01-02, 11:16 PM

Games with PCs as Gods are edge cases. In most games, yes, that's exactly what it means. But I didn't say that, so, no strawmen, please.

This response made me giggle a little bit. You called my argument a Strawman when you're argument had absolutely no support what so ever.

I made no statement, I made no argument. I simply asked for you to cite your source that supports your argument that and I quote:

Because they're not allowed to.

No, not really. Avatars aren't created solely for the purpose of sending them to mortal realms. That's what minions like Angels or Devils are for.

Yes, Yes really. Avatars are created to allow the deity to be in two (or more) places at once. More or less, the deity can do however they please with them. this includes, it's Divine Duties or interacting with the Mortal Realm or playing Snakes and Ladders if the deity so chooses.They can do anything that they could do if they had half or less there Divine rank.

So really? There is no reason why a Deity wouldn't interact with the mortal world beyond "They simply don't want to do so". :smalltongue:

Darius Kane

2013-01-02, 11:31 PM

This response made me giggle a little bit. You called my argument a Strawman when you're argument had absolutely no support what so ever.
"PCs as Gods" was never the assumption here. And I never said that Gods can only be NPCs. So yes, it's a strawman.

I made no statement, I made no argument. I simply asked for you to cite your source that supports your argument that and I quote:
You require a quoted rule for something that doesn't have a general rule and the only rules there are are setting specific and say that they aren't allowed. You don't have to agree, but that doesn't change the fact that they simply aren't allowed. The reasons are up to individual DMs.

Yes, Yes really.
Naw.

Avatars are created to allow the deity to be in two (or more) places at once. More or less, the deity can do however they please with them. this includes, it's Divine Duties or interacting with the Mortal Realm or playing Snakes and Ladders if the deity so chooses.They can do anything that they could do if they had half or less there Divine rank.
Some more strawmen. :smallsigh: Nowhere did I say they aren't. I did read what Avatar does and nothing it or you say contradicts what I said.

afroakuma

2013-01-02, 11:46 PM

Gents, can we avoid throwing around "strawman" hereabouts? If you have no interest in agreeing with one another, go on about your business; no need to draw modly ire.

As Gareth pointed out, there are good reasons in fluff for how deities can and do intervene, as well as when and why they do and do not. Of course, DMs will apply the actions of gods for their own purposes regardless of any canonical fluff, so take that with a grain of salt.

Arcanist

2013-01-02, 11:49 PM

"PCs as Gods" was never the assumption here. And I never said that Gods can only be NPCs. So yes, it's a strawman.

...

The one that states that PCs are the heroes of the game, not audience to the NPC gods antics.
Alternatively, the one in the heart of every DM.

You require a quoted rule for something that doesn't have a general rule. You don't have to believe me, but that doesn't change the fact that they simply aren't allowed. The reasons are up to individual DMs.

It became a general rule discussion when you decided to bluntly said that they're not allowed too and exceptions were listed (Eberron). I find this even funnier because now you are directing it into the box of "DM's fiat", because by that raises an age old question "Why do the PC's adventure?" "Because the DM said so".

Another favorite joke at one of my old tables was "Why does magic work?" "Because the DM doesn't have Faiths and Panteons", BUT! That isn't the topic :smalltongue:

Naw.

Yeah Shawty~ :smalltongue:

Some more strawmen. :smallsigh: Nowhere did I say they aren't. I did read what Avatar does and nothing it or you say contradicts what I said.

If it doesn't contradict you, why care? Making reference for what a Deity could do with an Avatar which is: Whatever the hell they want.

Also, for point of reference a strawman would be me claiming "A HA! I GOT YOU, YOU SNAKE IN THE GRASS!". I never made a single claim that you were wrong. All I asked was for you to cite you source for your argument. If you just admit that it is a house rule or a DMs call then we're done here (which you've clearly done) :smallsmile:

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 12:06 AM

...
Ya. I said the the gods in my example are NPCs. So?

It became a general rule discussion when you decided to bluntly said that they're not allowed too and exceptions were listed (Eberron).
Because they're not. D&D is generally about the heroes, not the Deities.

I find this even funnier because now you are directing it into the box of "DM's fiat"
The DMs reason doesn't have to be fiat.

Arcanist

2013-01-03, 12:13 AM

Ya. I said the the gods in my example are NPCs. So?

It implies that a Deity being an NPC is the norm. I met a table that specifically uses Divine rules in place of Epic rules (21st level giving you a Divine Rank and a feat instead of access to Epic feats). A Deity can be as much of a PC as any other PC can :smallsmile:

Because they're not. D&D is generally about the heroes, not the Deities.

And the Deities can be the Heroes. Your comment implies that it is an impossibility for this to occur.

The DMs reason doesn't have to be fiat.

Well it sure as hell ain't RAW, I'll tell you that much :smalltongue:

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 12:22 AM

It implies that a Deity being an NPC is the norm.
Because.. it is. :smallconfused: Games where you play Gods are fairly rare. Just like Epic games.

I met a table that specifically uses Divine rules in place of Epic rules (21st level giving you a Divine Rank and a feat instead of access to Epic feats). A Deity can be as much of a PC as any other PC can
I... didn't say it can't. :smallconfused:

And the Deities can be the Heroes. Your comment implies that it is an impossibility for this to occur.
Uh, no, it doesn't. :smallconfused: It implies that it's sufficiently rare to not be relevant.
The above are fine examples of a strawman. You're arguing against things I didn't say, nor implied. :smallconfused: Please stop, thank you.

Arcanist

2013-01-03, 12:27 AM

Because.. it is. :smallconfused: Games where you play Gods are fairly rare. Just like Epic games.

This implies that you've played every game of 3.5 ever started :smallconfused:

I... didn't say it can't. :smallconfused:

You implied it :smallwink:

Uh, no, it doesn't. :smallconfused: It implies that it's sufficiently rare to not be relevant.

From your point of view. A point of view that is limited to playing at one (or more, but not a majority) of tables.

Just... Don't generalize. It starts needless discussions :smallsmile:FOR THE RECORD! I enjoy playing Epic games, because it... Hmm... It's just more fun to me and my friends I guess.

NichG

2013-01-03, 12:30 AM

Um, in a game where the PCs are gods then yes, they do directly intervene. That doesn't go against the meta-rule, its required by it. The game is about the players.

AuraTwilight

2013-01-03, 12:37 AM

This implies that you've played every game of 3.5 ever started

No, it only implies that they're capable of observing global trends and patterns.

And of reading rulebooks.

And acknowledging the existence of other D&D players.

Even if playing as gods were common, it would not be the norm. Most players do not play as gods. It is not the norm by any stretch of the imagination and it's not the form of play the game was designed for, nor is it the level of play that is written for by official, third party, and homebrew content by and large.

Playing as a god in the game of Dungeons and Dragons is fairly extraordinary and unusual, if only by the virtue that most people play the game as it was intended to and huge portions of the masses do not veer into the territory of massive homebrew.

I'm incredibly embarassed by the implication that 51% of D&D players roleplay as literal deities as normal playstyle.

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 12:39 AM

This implies that you've played every game of 3.5 ever started
No, it doesn't. I don't have to play in every game to see what most games are like.

You implied it
I'm fairly sure I didn't.

From your point of view. A point of view that is limited to playing at one (or more, but not a majority) of tables.

Just... Don't generalize. It starts needless discussions
I'm free to generalize if it's a reasonable and correct generalization. What makes you so sure that it's wrong? Did you play in every game of D&D ever to know that?

Acanous

2013-01-03, 01:36 AM

If trends and secondhand experience is't enough to generalize, then yes. I have played in every single game of DnD ever played that I can verify, and no, we never played as gods.

Narren

2013-01-03, 01:54 AM

I cannot answer "why" without examples from real-world religions, which is (you guessed it) against forum rules. As for your default assumption being that I cannot read a thread title properly before responding? That's an. . . interesting assumption.

I'm not seeing where real world religion plays a part, but I'm very curious. Would you PM me about it?

And it may be arguing semantics and opinion, but I would say that granting powers to a free thinking creature with the expectation that they promote your goals counts as "indirect" influence.

Just... Don't generalize. It starts needless discussions

But it shouldn't in this case. Stating that most games played do not feature PC gods is a pretty safe generalization. I could cite the many reasons why we know that, but I'm kind of tired and it's a waste of time. I very much doubt that you think a majority of D&D games feature PC gods. The needless discussion resulted from arguing against a statement that may not be scientifically proven, but is common sense.

Psyren

2013-01-03, 02:19 AM

Meta-rules don't care which world you're playing in.

Setting does play a role. For instance, Faerun has an overdeity (Ao) that enforces such things. Eberron does not, but instead takes the route that the gods may not actually exist at all - direct influence is quite simply something Eberron deities wouldn't do, assuming once again that they're even real and the prayers of clerics aren't simply being fulfilled by some cosmic answering machine somewhere.

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 02:29 AM

Well yeah, when there are actual rules then meta-rules aren't needed.

Wyntonian

2013-01-03, 02:37 AM

The justification I've been planning to use in my next campaign setting is that the gods are real. More real than a mother's love for her child, more than any empire or mountain or universal truth or natural law. They exist. Were they to intervene in the world, they would tear through our petty illusions like a rock through rice paper, no matter how benevolent they may be.

Just like every human knows that diving into a still pool of water will destroy the reflection on its surface, every god knows that if they touch the world in the slightest, they cannot keep from destroying it.

And because the gods, good and evil, cannot change the world they live in, for it too is immutably real, they settle for vying to change our world in their respective images. But they must settle for the most indirect of touches, for every time they make a move, their opponent gets one too, and the more drastic they are, the more the ripples conflict and destabilize the fabric of our world. So, they generally resort to quietly whispering to those who would listen, making quiet little adjustments that set in motion a whole string of events. With a brush of a hair, they try to cause an avalanche. And hey, sometimes it works.

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 02:45 AM

The justification I've been planning to use in my next campaign setting is that the gods are real.
In most D&D settings Gods are actually real and mortals know it (although the commoner masses know it only from mouths of clerics, heroes or planar travelers).

And because the gods, good and evil, cannot change the world they live in, for it too is immutably real, they settle for vying to change our world in their respective images.
Actually, Gods can change their own Godly Realm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#godlyRealm).

Arbane

2013-01-03, 03:10 AM

Because if the gods are solving (or creating) all the problems directly, player characters have nothing they can do.

Unless they're playing Exalted - a setting where all but the very greatest of the gods DO take a direct hand in worldly affairs, with varying degrees of power, honesty, sanity, and competence, and one of the main jobs of the titular Exalted is to smack down deities that have gotten too big for their britches.

Psyren

2013-01-03, 08:09 AM

Well yeah, when there are actual rules then meta-rules aren't needed.

What on earth is a "meta-rule?" I've never seen that term used before.

Actually, Gods can change their own Godly Realm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/divineRanksAndPowers.htm#godlyRealm).

I don't think he meant "world they live in" quite so literally there.

Because if the gods are solving (or creating) all the problems directly, player characters have nothing they can do.

Heck, you don't even need to reach godhood to cause this problem, as Faerun can attest to. Elminster and Khelben are ostensibly mortal, yet they too need contrived reasons as to why they go around hiring level 1 adventurers to do this or that.

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 08:33 AM

What on earth is a "meta-rule?" I've never seen that term used before.
Maybe I'm using a wrong word. I mean a rule that's neither mechanical nor fluff. It's not spelled out, but we know it's there. It kinda goes without saying.

Heck, you don't even need to reach godhood to cause this problem, as Faerun can attest to. Elminster and Khelben are ostensibly mortal, yet they too need contrived reasons as to why they go around hiring level 1 adventurers to do this or that.
I don't want to go into a pointless and offtopic argument, but this really grinds my gears sometimes. There's no need for contrived reasons or metagaming or anything like that. Yes, FR has many powerful characters, and yes, they do stuff, but they can't be everywhere and do every small thing. They have bigger problems to deal with, they can't know about everything, they have countless enemies who are just waiting for them to drop their guard, they are people who also want to have a little bit of rest and relaxation. Khelben created the Harpers to do even more good then he could by himself. The Silver Marches queen, what's her name, doesn't go around saving villages from kobolds, she has people for that, or ambitious heroes who will do it just for the fame. And even though those characters are powerful and some of them almost immortal, they still could get killed (permanently) or just die of old age, who will save the world then? They need to let the younglings do their thing, learn, become experienced and someday replace them. That's how life works, man. Do you do everything in your job or life, just because you can? That's a rethrical question BTW, I don't know you or your job, so maybe you do. Me personally? If someone offers to do something for me, I take the offer, that's one less thing to do myself. Of course I'll make sure that the person actually can handle that activity, maybe give a little help.
Do people have the same issues with Marvel or DC where there's thousands if not hundred thousands of heroes, some of them extremely powerful? Or are comic worlds okay because they're stories and not games? :smallconfused: Each and every one of those Epic FR characters could have his own unique reasons to not deal with every little problem out there. If all that is too contrived for you then I guess there's nothing I can say, other than that I disagree.

hymer

2013-01-03, 08:34 AM

Simple, Minister. [Meta] means "with" or "after", or sometimes "beyond" - it's from the Greek you know. [...] It depends on whether it's the accusative or the genitive: with the accusative it's 'beyond' or 'after', with the genitive it's 'with' - as in Latin where the ablative is used for words needing a sense of with to precede them.

This is quoted from memory and notes, from Sir Humphrey Appleby (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FRVvjGL2C0). About 1:00 if you want to experience it for yourself.

That aside, I mostly go the inscrutable route when I'm DM. Nobody knows what the gods do precisely or why. It's just obvious from experience and history that some acts please them and some anger them. If you please them well enough, you get boons in the form of spells and various granted powers. If you anger them sufficiently, you better have another god to shield you from divine wrath. Nobody knows for sure what happens in the hereafter, but those returning from death usually have nice things to say about it if they're nice people. Bad people don't seem to remember.

Starbuck_II

2013-01-03, 09:22 AM

Khelben created the Harpers to do even more good then he could by himself.

Harpers are scum, who get involved when they should not. I've harbored disgust with them since Buldar's gate 2 when they tried to murder my protagonist. The only good harper is a dead one. Jahiera not withstanding, she joined at a young impressionable age.

NichG

2013-01-03, 09:25 AM

I think the dissonance isn't due to the presence of very powerful figures (e.g. godlike mortals or actual deities), its due to the perceived idleness of said figures. In some sense, if you never see Elminster or Tyr or whomever just sitting around in their tower/realm/mead hall/etc, then its not a problem - one can assume that they're active doing something important, and so it doesn't induce massive disbelief. If an orc army attacks the major cities of Faerun and people run to Elminster for help, they should almost invariably find his tower vacant (or at least, he shouldn't be home). Because he's currently in Baator or Sigil or some other place, doing some thing that is roughly around his scale.

Its when you have these pseudo-retired powerful figures that it gets weird. If Elminster is always to be found in his tower, then why can't he go stop the orc hordes? If Tyr is always in his divine realm holding court, then really one imagines he could be out doing something else.

I think this is really clear when you have campaigns that get to the point that the PCs are very powerful, even deific. Rarely will the result just be 'okay, we sit around for 3 months waiting for something interesting to happen' - more likely, there's always the next thing that needs to be pursued, and downtime is only taken if its needed for crafting, shopping, or other things that directly contribute to the PCs being able to take on that next thing. A campaign about PC gods would have them being constantly threatened by Elder Evils, Far Realms beings, existential collapse, and the like. When that pressure stops, usually it means that the heroes have won and the campaign is over (or the heroes have failed, the world has ended, and the campaign is over). This usually implies that beyond that point, they can more or less shape things of their scale and below however they see fit (e.g. the Lv5 heroes can go and become mayors of their town, personally keep crime to zero, whatever, while the Lv20 heroes can go take over the world and make everyone get along if they so choose). Basically, by the time these powerful figures don't always have stuff to do, one 'side' or another has won and gets to write history.

Of course what this implies is really stark - that there are always sufficient cosmic-level threats to all existence to keep the gods busy, and there have been for as long as the gods have existed. So in the balance, there are far far more things that 'need to be dealt with' than things that 'deal with stuff', and its just that the 'deal with stuff' side has been consistently winning against the trickle of one bad thing after another.

Darius Kane

2013-01-03, 09:32 AM

Well. IIRC, Gandalf Elminster mentored for hundreds of successful and prominent heroes over the hundreds of years he lived (with the Seven Sisters being probably the most famous), so it's only fair that he can kick back and sit by the pool with a martini in one hand and a sweet piece of godly ass in the other, don't you think?

Andreaz

2013-01-03, 09:37 AM

This (http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2305) is why deities don't directly influence the world.

Annos

2013-01-03, 11:20 AM

I'm planning a Divine game were the Deities created to many Quasi-deities (or something else, haven't decided yet), and dicide to thin the herd by forcing them to fight eachother. The PC's all start a level 1 with barely anything, and all dicide to band together for survival perposis, though some might be evil. The rules of the compitition are that you can't use your divine powers in affairs involving mortals on pain of uncreation (exp. a cat can kill you but another compediter would need very powerful spells or magic items) and to achieve demigod status they must kill another compeditor. this campaign will most likely involve the evil charecter in the party snatching the first +4 weapon he/she can find and placing it right through the shoulderblades of the parties nearest sorcerer/wizard/bard :smallbiggrin:. but +4 weapons, and up, will (most likely) come in the form of an artifact of some kind that would take them into the mid levels or higher to find :smallwink:. Hopefully not too many compeditors will be killed at first level.

ScionoftheVoid

2013-01-03, 05:00 PM

I'll second the escalation and safety reasons.

Deities like Erythnul can be assumed to either have enough self-preservation to not go and wreck the world, to need their mortal followers too much to try to destroy everything, or to have a ready and endless source of amusement in their own divine realm. What's more fun for Erythnul: destroying the Material Plane once at very significant risk to himself, or staying at home with infinite legions of Outsiders to combat for all of time?

It's less debilitating and more very irritating to lose an Avatar, so deities probably take care to have their Avatars not draw too much attention to themselves, lest they attract the attention of beings that can destroy them -using them mostly for tasks they need a more direct hand in than Clerics allow and for festivals and the like as Gareth mentioned.

OrlockDelesian

2013-01-04, 12:39 AM

In my campaign, because of the Story, some of the gods where asked why they do not influence the world directly. The answer was that they could utilize by the laws of the creator, their full potential only when they were on their planes.
If they wanted to influence the world, they could send avatars but the avatars had to be as powerfull as the most powerfull mortal of the land (so no 90+hds, but up to 30-32 lvls splited among the avatars as the god wished).

killem2

2013-01-04, 10:22 AM

I think it has to do with the fact Boccob would wafflestomp almost every other god twice over.

Zale

2013-01-04, 10:34 AM

Because that wouldn't make for an interesting story.

Elderand

2013-01-05, 11:58 AM

Peoples have touched on most of the explanation, be it in setting or out of setting but no one seems to have, comprehensively, explained my favorite. Altough they came close.

To me there are 3 in setting reasons why gods don't do more that are relatively valid.

1: Gods may not actually exist. That's the situation Eberron present.

2: Cold war: if one god start doing things in the world directly, all the other gods gang up on him to kick his ass and that would lead to the end of the world. Some have argued that a god of chaos or destruction would enjoy that. I'm of the opinion that such god value his own life more than any amount of destruction such a war would cause.

3: The gods have good reasons not to. This is actually my favorite explanation. it comes from the very old immortal rules the Basic/expert/master/immortal rule set of dnd way back before even adnd.

In this situation, each god is affiliated with a sphere of reality, there are only 5 sphere and all the gods belong to one of them. The gods still have portfolios and such but the sphere is the single most important thing in a god life.
The gods have only 2 goals, technicly only one goal but two big ways to go about it. The goal is to expend the influence of their sphere. They go about it by either working directly toward that goal or by trying to augment their own power base.
Now the big way to get more influence for their sphere is to gain control of planes and make sure their sphere is dominant there.
Of course you need gods to do this, not only to influence planes, but to fight other gods. The end result is that gods need new gods all the time. Problem is, gods can't reproduce. The only way to get new gods is if a new god creature ascend to godhood. Gods can't ascend creature at will. For it to happen the creature need to be max level and do incredible deeds.

ANd now we come to the heart of the problem, in all the planes of existance, there is only of them who regularly produce new gods. And that's the material planes. Why ? Because the material plane is perfectly balanced. No sphere has more influence than any other. All the other planes are naturaly favoring one sphere and so new gods arrise from those planes only extremely rarely.

The gods know this, and that's why they don't influence the material plane. If they do, they might unbalance it. And even if they don't unbalance it, if a god went around ruling the plane and solving all the problems, no mortal would ever manage to become a god. The only way to get new god is to leave the material plane alone.

Of course a god who would influence the material plane would get tons of believers, you'd think that might be enough for some gods. If they get all the believers the other gods can't fight him, he'd have too much power.

That doesn't work. Truth be told, gods have planets full of their own believers on their own personal planes, and nothing make material plane believers special compared to those at home. Frankly, believers are not a factor at all.

So why would gods even bother to have churches on the material plane then ? Well, churches aren't there to get believers, that's a bonus, what a church on the material plane is, is a giant billboard. All the church are there so gods can get look pretty so that when a mortal will ascend to godhood, he'll already have a good idea of what gods are about so he can chose to ally himself with existing gods. That's all churches are Billboard/recruitment center. Nothing more.

SimonMoon6

2013-01-05, 02:30 PM

Here's another issue:

Many of the deities in D&D come with a mythology attached to them. For example, the Greek gods, the Norse gods, etc. Not every D&D universe has these gods, but for the ones that do... well, those myths typically have many stories about the gods interfering because that's what gods do. So, then you have to find a way to balance "Yes, the gods interfere because their myths say they do" with "No, the gods don't interfere because that would be bad for the game."

willpell

2013-01-08, 10:24 AM

The easy answer would be to assume that gods don't solve mortal problems for the same reason epic-level characters don't solve 1st-level problems. It's just not on their level. I like a lot of answers that have been floated on this thread - the more-real-than-real, the reproductive cycle, the why-would-they-care and so forth. The "cold war" scenario is by far my least favorite. I have a few exotic theories of my own written up which I'll post later.

IMC, whatever it's worth, the gods do directly influence reality quite a lot, and even the Evil ones do so for reasons they consider "good", rather than simply to amuse themselves. (Erythnul, for instance, might preach that life needs to be fragile in order for anyone to appreciate its value, and claim that the adrenaline rush of fighting for your very life against an unstoppable psychopath is the most "alive" you can ever hope to be, devoting his divine realm to giving his petitioners the opportunity to play every role in the "grand drama" of kill-and-be-killed-and-kill-some-more.) While they can counteract each other's influence, they tend to take turns rather than stalemate; there's a kind of cyclicality to the way changes ripple through the setting, prompting a backlash which leads to the temporary imposition of structures which stagnate, are corrupted, and are eventually destroyed to renew the cycle. There are bulwarks of Order and Good that never seem to fall, and they even seem to be getting steadily bigger...but advocates of Chaos and Evil claim that this is just a "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" scenario, and that the bulwark in question is "just asking for it" by insisting on continuing to exist for so long.

Deepbluediver

2013-01-08, 11:50 AM

There are more than thirty gods in D&D and apart from granting power to divine casters it seems as if they do nothing. Why don't these 50 HD Gods who all have very clear views on morality and can cast any spell as a free action ever directly influence the real world?

Haven't read the whole thread, sorry if I'm repeating here.

My explanation was that the gods originally just had a free-for-all epicly divine brawl going, but their power was so great it nearly destroyed the material plane (and possibly other planes as well).
They where stopped by a nuetrally-aligned overdiety (essentially, a super-god) who said that anyone other diety who acted directly who get a personal visit and asskicking.

Very few, if any, mortals know of the overdieties existance, since he/she/it doesn't really care about having worshippers.

Edit: The first page of posts mostly seems to be the same thing as I said, except that the gods stopped themselves instead of being told to "quit it" by a third party.
IMO, there should be some kind of outside force involved, because there are quite a few gods of death/destruction/madness who probably wouldn't mind seeing the entirety of existence go down the tubes.

Elderand

2013-01-08, 12:09 PM

IMO, there should be some kind of outside force involved, because there are quite a few gods of death/destruction/madness who probably wouldn't mind seeing the entirety of existence go down the tubes.

Actually, that would be a very stupid thing to want for any such gods

A god of death doesn't want the end of the world, he want people to keep dying. Keep being the opperating word here. What good is it to be the god of death if everything is already dead and nothing die ever again ?

Same deal for a god of destruction or madness.

Those guys have a vested interest into ensuring the safe continuation of the world.

No, the guy you really have to be afraid of is a god of order. Because nothing is more orderly than pure vacuum. And nothing mess up order more than a living creature acting on whims.

Deepbluediver

2013-01-08, 12:28 PM

Actually, that would be a very stupid thing to want for any such gods

A god of death doesn't want the end of the world, he want people to keep dying. Keep being the opperating word here. What good is it to be the god of death if everything is already dead and nothing die ever again ?

Same deal for a god of destruction or madness.

Those guys have a vested interest into ensuring the safe continuation of the world.

No, the guy you really have to be afraid of is a god of order. Because nothing is more orderly than pure vacuum. And nothing mess up order more than a living creature acting on whims.

I'm sure we can have a great long debate about what super-powerful immortal creatures would "desire", but I think I'll try head things off and say that it's probably not come to any real conclusion.

What I mean is, I can counter by saying that a god of destruction might view "destroying" everything as a way of winning the game, and if that destroys his own form then so much the better.

A god of death wants every to BE dead and STAY dead. Every time some one is born it is really just another project for his "in-box". Particularly all those PC's, who drop like flies but then get resureccted the next morning.

And the gods of madness and insanity laugh in the face of your puny "logic"!

I will concede that there is a case to be made to fear your god of order as well.

Perhaps if you don't like my third party explanation, we can go with this: the ancient war between the gods didn't boil down to "good vs. evil" or "order vs. chaos", but "destroy everything vs. don't destroy everything". The various gods and goddesses are holding the vast majority of their power in reserve because if ever given even the slightest chance, the "destroy aboslutely everything everywhere for all time" coalition is going to enact final deific armageddon.

ericgrau

2013-01-08, 01:04 PM

I've seen several reasons. Too busy with eachother. They do, it's called clerics. Cold war. Limits of influence outside their own realm.

My favorite is too busy though. They have armies of angels to worry about and higher CR fights in several other planes of existence. Just as legendary figures in the world don't have time to trample the cave of kobolds for level 1 PCs, deities don't have time to bother with lesser fights. Their lesser servants will handle those.

At epic level then it's reasonable for the PCs to start meeting deities or to be involved in conflicts that involve deities.

nedz

2013-01-08, 01:17 PM

A Couple more possible reasons

1)
They would, but something like this (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/29595737/Alpha_Strike_Asmodeous) is bound to happen.

2)
They are busy influencing things directly all of the time, but since there are an infinite number of worlds the chance of you witnessing it is vanishingly small.

Tvtyrant

2013-01-08, 02:40 PM

Because their direct presence in moral-compass land prevents incursions from the wrong direction :D

The moment Thor ditches Arborea it gets overrun by Loki or Tiamat, so he has to stay there and keep the peace. Why would you fight directly over cruddy material territory when it might lose you the much more exclusive morality land? Especially if your own godhood is tied directly to owning that real estate?

In fact the general desire of mortals to become gods is misguided; in reality most gods hate the inactivity that surviving as a god forces on them. If they leave they will likely have their godhood stolen from them, so they have to sit in paradise and hope their clerics are not distorting their message.

This was a Tvtyrant fanfic. Thanks for reading!

willpell

2013-01-09, 01:02 AM

I've decided that my official IMC answer is going to be a variant of the sandbox analogy from earlier in the thread, along with the reflection thing. The gods are such great beings that they can't act in reality in a small way, any more than a human being can perform open-heart surgery on an ant with his fingers and a normal-sized scalpel. The gods create clerics as literal microtools, to work on the level of mere mortals; if they perform divine intervention, it's likely to involve obliterating a 100-foot radius of something they think shouldn't exist, as it's hard for them to do anything less.

Twilightwyrm

2013-01-09, 01:13 AM

I believe that rule only applies in Greyhawk and in the Realm. If memory serves, Eberron has no such rule.

But then again the status of Eberron's "gods" is rather...undefined.

willpell

2013-01-09, 04:50 AM

subject42

2013-01-09, 12:04 PM

As an alternate answer, how so we know that the gods aren't constantly interfering with the setting world, every second, every minute, every hour, and every day?

A spell or action doesn't have to be "cast a meteor swarm inside the heretic's orifices".

It could just as easily be "prestidigitate a grain of sand six inches away from where it is now, which will alter tidal patterns, which will change the weather on the main continent in a way that causes a certain species of poisonous fungus to flourish while killing crops, which will cause the heretic to take up the life of an adventurer to support his family, which will cause him to enter a cave full of poisonous fungus and die horribly, along with all of his heretic friends, as well as the ones that go into the cave after him."

Gods think on a bigger scale.

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-10, 08:20 AM

As promised, several theories of mine.

"Gods do not personally meddle in the world's affairs for the same reason that a cat's owner does not bathe it with his tongue. Keeping the world running for the benefit of its owners is our job; that is why they let us live here."

"The gods are preoccupied with a battle against foes beyond our ability to imagine; we must worship them so that they may represent the sum of our beliefs, the things which we value or which we fear, as both may be a bulwark against things completely alien to our way of life."

"Worshippers in general and clerics in particular are the beloved of their deities, being groomed for special service in the afterlife - as angels in their heavenly choir, as warriors on their eternal battlefield, or even as crunchy snacks to be devoured en masse. In every case, the god does not act on the behalf of its flock, for much the reason that a parent attending their child's school play does not jump up on stage and begin acting in their place."
Highlighted for emphasis, because this is definitely a salient point for many, though probably not all, gods.

It's also worth noting that the vast majority of these theories (all in the thread, not just willpell's) are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

As an alternate answer, how so we know that the gods aren't constantly interfering with the setting world, every second, every minute, every hour, and every day?

A spell or action doesn't have to be "cast a meteor swarm inside the heretic's orifices".
This is definitely a salient point as well. The general appearance of abstaining from direct influence isn't necessarily accurate. While the direct actions of multiple deities in direct conflicts will almost certainly produce absolutely staggering collateral, the more subtle actions of a single deity taken in isolation can easily go unnoticed by all but the most observant of onlookers, ......

It could just as easily be "prestidigitate a grain of sand six inches away from where it is now, which will alter tidal patterns, which will change the weather on the main continent in a way that causes a certain species of poisonous fungus to flourish while killing crops, which will cause the heretic to take up the life of an adventurer to support his family, which will cause him to enter a cave full of poisonous fungus and die horribly, along with all of his heretic friends, as well as the ones that go into the cave after him."

Gods think on a bigger scale.

...... though it can't quite get this subtle.

In 3.5 D&D the gods have certain specific qualities that they all share and certain qualities that many of them may have that are unique to godhood, but none of them has such an all-inclusive set of abilities and awarenesses necessary to make something like the above feasible.

Even the most powerful of gods can't accurately predict what the future holds beyond 20 weeks and even that's only with regards to events that affect their portfolio.

subject42

2013-01-10, 09:14 AM

...... though it can't quite get this subtle.

In 3.5 D&D the gods have certain specific qualities that they all share and certain qualities that many of them may have that are unique to godhood, but none of them has such an all-inclusive set of abilities and awarenesses necessary to make something like the above feasible.

Even the most powerful of gods can't accurately predict what the future holds beyond 20 weeks and even that's only with regards to events that affect their portfolio.

There was some hyperbole in there, but you could probably get pretty close with sufficient divine ranks.

Nature Portfolio
Command Plants
Wizard Casting
Power Of Nature
Godly realm

Abusing the accelerated time flow of the godly realm along with spontaneous divine and arcane casting to scry/auger/commune on each grain of sand, combined with 20 weeks of foreknowledge, and the ability to nudge both crops and fungus, could likely create a high probability of the scenario I described. It wouldn't be a guarantee, but that's the risk of indirect action.

willpell

2013-01-14, 10:56 AM

In 3.5 D&D the gods have certain specific qualities that they all share and certain qualities that many of them may have that are unique to godhood, but none of them has such an all-inclusive set of abilities and awarenesses necessary to make something like the above feasible.

Even the most powerful of gods can't accurately predict what the future holds beyond 20 weeks and even that's only with regards to events that affect their portfolio.

Unless of course you throw out the idea that gods are something that can be defined by rules, as I generally prefer to. (Suffice to say that "go kill a god and take his stuff" is not a common plotline in my games.)

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-14, 01:36 PM

Unless of course you throw out the idea that gods are something that can be defined by rules, as I generally prefer to. (Suffice to say that "go kill a god and take his stuff" is not a common plotline in my games.)

That is, of course, your perogative but for the purposes of discussions like this, RAW says the gods can be statted and gives the rules to do so. They're in the SRD and open content so it makes no sense to ignore them.

willpell

2013-01-15, 05:02 AM

The same could perhaps be said for the Epic spellcasting (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/developingEpicSpells.htm) rules....

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-15, 05:24 AM

There's some truth in that.

The epic casting rules are generally disregarded because they're seen as unusably broken.

They do make it possible to do some truly ridiculous things.

We could include them in this discussion but if we did there's no reason to assume the gods wouldn't put them to use as well. They most certainly can qualify in most cases and the overall increase in collateral damage would just make the previous predictions of mutual destruction all the more accurate.

willpell

2013-01-15, 10:30 AM

:smallsigh: My point was that if it's legitimate to disregard epic spellcasting even though it's in the SRD, there's just as much reason to disregard the rules which (IMO) restrict the powers of gods to be distinctly less than godlike.

These rules are useful if you want to power-level to 40 and then go kill the gods, and if someone wants to play a game like that it's their business, but for a normal game, if you restrict the gods to the abilities Dei&Demi gives them, it takes a lot of "oomph" out of the role that they can play in a campaign setting if they remain completely off the mechanical scale. I think it comes across a bit silly to say that a god is powerless to govern events that are one day too far outside his purview, or that he fails to notice events of which he should be aware of because he only gets 13 "eyes" or whatever (ie the ability to view multiple distant locations, but only so many of them), and all the others were elsewhere at the time.

Call me old-fashioned, but even if the gods are multiple rather than singular, the words "omnipotent" and "omniscent" still seem like they ought to apply, at least if you were to take all of them as a whole. This is distinctly not the case with the Dei&Demi rules. I mean sure, we're told that Hextor and Heironeous like to get into a dust-up every now and again, so maybe their power is finite...but then again, maybe the battle between them is metaphorical. And anyway, isn't the game supposed to be about your battles, not those of the immortals?

Deadline

2013-01-15, 10:59 AM

Unless of course you throw out the idea that gods are something that can be defined by rules, as I generally prefer to. (Suffice to say that "go kill a god and take his stuff" is not a common plotline in my games.)

"Go kill a god and take his stuff" is probably not a common plotline in many games anyway, regardless of stats.

It's quite clear, at least to me, that pretty much all the D&D sources indicate that the "gods" are not omnipotent and omniscient. They are, quite simply, very powerful beings.

Take a look at the Planescape setting, which hits on this whole thing in more detail. In particular, the philosophies of the Athar and the Believers of the Source deal very specifically with the concept of divinity in the D&D multiverse.

And, when you wind up throwing that out the window and introducing omnipotent, omniscient gods, questions like "Why don't deities directly influence the world?" become very important, and very difficult to answer in any way that makes a lick of sense. You wind up having to restrict the deities in some manner (so they wind up not being all powerful or all knowing, like in your example at the top of this page) as to make it possible and sensible for the characters to be the heroes.

NichG

2013-01-15, 11:23 AM

An interesting take on omnipotent gods would be that the omnipotence/omniscience constrains the gods. When you have multiple beings that simultaneously have omnipotence and omniscience, things get complicated since you can have paradoxical conflicts. Lets now assume on top of that something like a Novikov Consistency Principle - the only universes that contain multiple omnipotences are ones in which they agree not to try to directly counter eachother. This becomes more sinister if you imagine such a principle being 'actively' enforced (e.g. if two omnipotences come into direct conflict, the universe paradoxes out of existence).

Add to that omniscience and you have a very complex sort of game theory. The gods already know how all of them will act in all situations, and much choose a compromise that allows the universe to exist. They then, as one, implement the intervention that will bring about this compromise state.
Basically, in any world with omnipotent and omniscient gods, they have already intervened. Because they're omniscient, they only needed to ever do so once in order to set the universe on the track they desired. As such, all things that happen represent this pre-agreed-upon compromise.

Or to put it another way, its not a cold war or anything nearly so active or 'mortal' in point of view. The gods were playing a game where the options were 'an imperfect world' or 'no world', and have already decided exactly what will happen to whatever degree they initially desired and were able to get the others to go along with. Bad things happen because the god of Good Things was negotiating for a certain positive event and had to trade allowing the god of Bad Things to make some people miserable.

Of course this picture is pretty bleak for the mortals.

Dr.Epic

2013-01-15, 11:25 AM

SimonMoon6

2013-01-15, 12:05 PM

Call me old-fashioned, but even if the gods are multiple rather than singular, the words "omnipotent" and "omniscent" still seem like they ought to apply, at least if you were to take all of them as a whole.

I think this is a mistake, one grounded in an ethnocentric JudeoChristian background (therefore a relatively "new-fashioned" attitude in regard to gods). The gods of classical mythology were neither omnipotent nor omniscient, not even taken as a whole. Hera, for example, generally didn't know what her cheating husband was up to most of the time.

And the gods could be killed. Osiris, for example, was tricked into a box which was sealed with lead and dropped in a river. It didn't take any kind of epic combat even to kill him. The Aztec Quetzalcoatl sets himself on fire after over-drinking, and the Japanese Izanami dies of a fever. Balder dies after being shot by a mistletoe arrow. Ishtar and Persephone die every year.

Gods are just, like, really powerful PCs. At least in classic mythology.

subject42

2013-01-15, 12:07 PM

The gods of classical mythology were neither omnipotent nor omniscient, not even taken as a whole.

Wasn't Odin explicitly omniscient? Wasn't that kind of his schtick?

ahenobarbi

2013-01-15, 12:24 PM

Hera, for example, generally didn't know what her cheating husband was up to most of the time.

I suppose the husband knew (more or less), so the pantheon as a whole knew.

Darius Kane

2013-01-15, 12:33 PM

Wasn't Odin explicitly omniscient? Wasn't that kind of his schtick?
Note the word "his".

Man on Fire

2013-01-15, 12:41 PM

"If you see two groups of kids having a fight over who gets to play in the sandpit, do you pick up a side?"

We need to remember that for gods mortals and their conflics are pretty small and nto that important.

Lord_Gareth

2013-01-15, 12:49 PM

On top of all of this, D&D has repeatedly established from even the Gygaxian days that gods can be killed, captured, or tricked - in some cases, even by mortals! Castle Grayhawk itself was a gigantic god-trap of epic proportions used to fuel the apotheosis of its master, after all. Calling the D&D gods 'omnipotent' or 'omniscient' requires throwing out decades of themes and canon.

Darius Kane

2013-01-15, 01:38 PM

"If you see two groups of kids having a fight over who gets to play in the sandpit, do you pick up a side?"
What if you're the parent of one of the kids?

Kelb_Panthera

2013-01-15, 03:56 PM

Wasn't Odin explicitly omniscient? Wasn't that kind of his schtick?

No. He traded one of his eyes to the norns (who are omnicient but not omnipotent) for knowledge of the future and magic.

Norse mythology has a rather strong degree of fatalism to it. In that arangement the gods don't interfere directly because they're too busy guarding against the frost giants and because they're a highly individualistic people. Each man (or god) is responsible for himself and his duty and that's that.

On the topic of omnicient and omnipotent gods:

The post above this one gives an interesting picture in making it such that the gods have already done all they can to interfere in the world.

If you remove the paradoxic, universe unravelling aspect then you have to consider this; being truly omnipotent means that the gods all have an equal degree of power over one another. They can't act if another god doesn't let them and, with most of the gods having someone they have a conflict with, none of them -can- act most of the time. The omnipotence cancels out into impotence. Omnicience only confounds them further since they can't even try to act with all the other gods being constantly aware of their thoughts and plans.

You simply can't have mutliple omnicient, omnipotent beings in conflict with one another -and- have them actually do anything. Either the omnicience or the omnipotence has to be incomplete.

If it's the omnipotence, then we're back to a cold war where all the gods refrain from acting because the others will just undo it or we get the gods -all- acting constantly and free will is an illusion.

If the omnicience isn't complete then we definitely have the gods constantly working and making free will a sick joke since they have no reason not to act, beyond their own moral and ethical outlook telling them not to for the good of mortals. The evil gods are constantly at work and the gods of good undo just enough of that work for mortals to have an existence they consider meaningful; and like-wise with the gods of law and chaos.

If it's both, then the SRD rules are as good a set as any.

willpell

2013-01-16, 10:39 AM

And, when you wind up throwing that out the window and introducing omnipotent, omniscient gods, questions like "Why don't deities directly influence the world?" become very important, and very difficult to answer in any way that makes a lick of sense.

I've found it reasonably doable, and have already posted several of my potential slants on the issue. What it mostly boils down to in my game - take Erythnul, the God of Slaughter. He doesn't exist to kill everything that moves himself - he exists to teach people (by various definitions) that they should kill everything that moves, and revel in the process of doing so. Obviously this puts him in sharp opposition to, say, Yondalla, who teaches that people should build happy families and thriving communities. Does that mean Erythnul bashes Yondalla's divine skull in and silences her message? No, any more than Yondalla turns him into a rosebush and silences his. They are both there to preach to the humanoid flock; they try to present their case as to why building happy communities is better than killing everything that moves and vice versa, and while they may occasionally attempt to stage a demonstration, for the most part they don't want to spoil their faithful's journey to discovering their truth. Every time a young girl sees a cute boy and imagines having his babies, that little "a-ha!" moment is a triumph for Yondalla - and every time the cute boy turns out to be a total jerkface and makes her vividly picture stabbing him to death, Erythnul wins a round. The other gods of the setting likewise all present their teachings, delivered mostly via clerics who preach and perform miracles on command, all through a distinctly human(oid, or whatever other creature type) perspective which is more meaningful to potential worshippers than a confab with the original god.

I think this is a mistake, one grounded in an ethnocentric JudeoChristian background (therefore a relatively "new-fashioned" attitude in regard to gods). .... Gods are just, like, really powerful PCs. At least in classic mythology.

Meh, we're not in the classical age anymore, we're not fumbling for quasi-consistent explanations for natural phenomena...I don't think there's any going back to that kind of perspective, and I don't feel the loss. It's a fantasy story; I'm more interested in making it suit its own logic than trying to map it to the legendry of our various ancestors.