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supergoji18
2016-10-28, 10:08 AM
I've been building a new campaign setting, and I'm trying to work out how I want the gods to work in my setting. On one hand, I like the idea of them being big cosmic superpowers that can do almost anything, but from a story standpoint that complicates things because then either the gods are so powerful they can do anything by themselves and have no need for mortals, or the gods are so powerful they couldn't care less about anything else and do absolutely nothing. I then thought about making them significantly weaker (more along the lines of superpowerful humans), but then I ran into a problem of what exactly distinguishes them from any other supernatural being. I also thought about making them just sentient cosmic forces, where they can't really interact directly but can empower people to do so. I'm not sure how I like this idea though.

Basically, I need ideas on how to handle gods. I want gods to exist in my setting, and I want them to be distinct from other supernatural superpowers like the Archdevils and Demon Lords. I want them to be powerful and awe inspiring, but also not be so active in the world that it makes adventurers and heroes useless.

Any advice?

FocusWolf413
2016-10-28, 10:16 AM
In my game, the gods don't care. They give you free will, they give you the ability to tap into everyone's innate magic, and they give you life. The rest is up to you.

Angels (good and evil) grant spells. Angels and Demons and Devils are at war. They're active. The deities just watch the show and pay the utilities.

Hunter Noventa
2016-10-28, 10:19 AM
Usually the biggest reason for Gods not interfering directly is that it pisses off the other Gods. That's why they employ mortal agents like Clerics and paladins in the first place.

The real trick with having the Gods be present and active is as you noted, not taking away from what the players can accomplish. The Gods might be supremely powerful, but are limited from interacting due to pacts of self-imposed rules, or that acting too much on the material Plane destabilizes it because of how much power they have. make some involved, dangerous rituals involved to get a God onto the Material Plane beyond spellcasting, something that takes a threat no mortals can combat save through the ritual that calls for divine intervention, that sort of thing.

Knitifine
2016-10-28, 10:27 AM
I would suggest that you have your gods be passive, or in a cold war against each other (ie, the god of civilization won't start the industrial age because that would just make the god of nature send extra hurricanes and tsunamis towards civilized areas). On the off chance the method that I have used might prove beneficial I have listed it below.

The 'gods' were originally four tribes of incredibly powerful supernatural creatures who were completely immortal except by techniques known only to each other. They engaged in a long bloody war that devastated the natural world in which mortal creatures served as their pawns. Eventually, a group of gods and mortal heroes came together to stop the rampant bloodshed, making a pact that sent the gods to their own planar paradise, only to interact with the world as called upon by mortals, and limited in that scope by the mortals own magical ability to call upon them. They can still see, watch and influence the world via messages to their followers, but they cannot directly act except through lesser agents.

Another alternative, base on a secondary group of gods in my setting...

The 'elder gods' are the four creatures who created the universe. The universe only operates how it does because of various aspects of their own being involved in the creation. These gods are so powerful that were they to genuinely fight the world would be like a glass ball precariously balanced on a stand in the middle of them, too easy and precious to knock over and destroy when one isn't watching what they're doing. Though their manifestations in the world are mighty compared to mortal terms, they are unlikely to take great actions to direct it's course due to a mutual agreement with their peers that the universe will be better and last longer with minimal interference.

Thrudd
2016-10-28, 10:34 AM
Have them remote and possibly not exactly as mortals believe them to be. More like clockmakers of the world/planes and its magic system. Clerics and druids pray to the personalities or forces their religions have taught them about, and it works, but not because those beings are actually there answering prayers: they are tapping into a system built by the real gods. The pantheon and religions of mortals are constructs of civilization, the real gods are much bigger and less understandable.

VoxRationis
2016-10-28, 11:07 AM
You could make gods heavily tied to a "home turf" sort of system. When a god is in their domain—which could be a household, a temple, or a holy place naturally attuned to them or appropriate to their purview, such as a necropolis for the god of death—they're exceptionally powerful, but they can't do much to effect their will outside of that realm. What they can do is extend a bit of that domain via a proxy who has a channel to them, i.e., a priest. Doing so has a side effect, of course, of making certain areas extremely dangerous for PCs to trespass upon, since the (evil) god that dwells there might manifest in all their glory. Such an approach might make villains survive more (since they have sanctuaries they can flee to) and make your players more cautious in how they approach a dungeon.

JeenLeen
2016-10-28, 11:43 AM
I think some of the ideas mentioned above are the most believable and have the best balance of 'gods superpowered' and 'gods do not steal the show':

1. self-imposed rules of non-interference (at least directly). As in OotS, Thor could smite the High Priest of Hel, but doing so would make Hel free to retaliate. Instead, work through visions and proxies (clerics/paladins)
and/or
2. self-imposed rules due to fragility of the world. If they were to intervene, it would disrupt the world they created. Some evil gods might not care, but they either abide due to rule #1 or because of some aspect of the world they like

-rule #1 could include not sending angels/fiends to earth, outside of summons by mortals, lest their enemies do the same. rule #2 could include a metaphysical truth that, if too many celestials/fiends/whatever are on the material plane, it starts to destabilize it somehow.


You can go with actual limits, but I think that weakens gods more than you might want (based on your opening post.) Using option 1 and/or 2 above lets the gods be powerful and fairly active, but only through indirect means. If you want the gods to be a bit more passive, you could have it set up so that their rules include that each god only has X number of direct proxies. That is, they can have a ton of clerics or others they grant spellcasting to, but they only have a limited number of people they can directly communicate with*

*outside of spells like Commune that let a spellcaster directly contact a deity or its representative



You could make gods heavily tied to a "home turf" sort of system. When a god is in their domain—which could be a household, a temple, or a holy place naturally attuned to them or appropriate to their purview, such as a necropolis for the god of death—they're exceptionally powerful, but they can't do much to effect their will outside of that realm. What they can do is extend a bit of that domain via a proxy who has a channel to them, i.e., a priest. Doing so has a side effect, of course, of making certain areas extremely dangerous for PCs to trespass upon, since the (evil) god that dwells there might manifest in all their glory. Such an approach might make villains survive more (since they have sanctuaries they can flee to) and make your players more cautious in how they approach a dungeon.

I really like this idea, especially if you'd like your gods to be present on the material plane. They could still have rules of non-interaction outside of their domain, and probably should have the power to instantly teleport to another domain spot and/or to respawn if 'killed'.

Reminds me a bit of gods in Exalted (though in that setting, PCs are generally stronger than most gods.)

BWR
2016-10-28, 11:51 AM
I like active gods but this doesn't mean they have to manifest in their full glory all the time and fling power about. The way some settings like Planescape and to a similar degree Mystara handle it is gods are active. They have plots and plans and all sorts of things going on. The problem is that this usually ends up interfering with the plans of other gods in some way, sometimes by design, sometimes by accident. Spending too much personal power doing things means you have less of a reserve should something else need your attention. Moving too far beyond your home domain increases the risk that something bad will happen there that needs your attention.

In Mystara the added excuse is that Prime Material worlds are also kind of fragile so going full power on one can easily lead to unfortunate collateral damage, and this line of thinking fits right in with PS too. Mystara has a compact among the Immortals that only avatars or intermediaries may be employed on the world, and even the worst of Immortals toe the line because everyone else will instantly gang up on them should they break the rules (or get caught doing so, at least). The Immortals of Mystara are also almost entirely composed of risen mortals, and they have their own hobbies and agenda and plans, many of which include changing or preserving the world. They are very active and devotees like clerics might very well get a vision from their patron to Go There and Do Something. The Immortals also try to be subtle and lots of their interference is interpreted as coincidence.
In short, Immortals at full power are kind of like nukes. They may have the power to force their will across but their opponents also have power to retaliate and once one starts going full power everyone else follows suit and everything ends up in ruins. Working through intermediaries of lower power is far safer for everyone and often more fun.

PhoenixPhyre
2016-10-28, 01:09 PM
In my setting (http://admiralbenbo.org) (still a work in progress) the gods have a hierarchy. This hierarchy empowers, but also constrains. I feel this gets the best sides of both the active and the passive deities.

At the top are the Four (the only deific survivors of a cataclysmic event that ended when all the other gods sacrificed themselves to stabilize reality). The Four control the Great Mechanism, a cosmic power delivery network. That's all they do. They regulate the mechanism and control where the power goes. No one worships them because they don't answer or grant spells, or otherwise care about mortals. They only care about the stability of the universe as a whole.

Since they don't want to be directly involved, they've selected 16 ascended beings (all were once mortals whose souls were strong enough to survive without a body) to serve as the overseers of reality. This group is called the Heavenly Congregation and are what mortals worship as gods. Each of these gods was given a portfolio of responsibilities as well as a share of the power of the mechanism. That's what separates gods from simply powerful beings (ie the angels and devils, etc). They can grant spells and intervene--internal politics as well as the watchful gaze of the Four prevent them from assuming direct roles. Several already tried and were cast into the abyss for trying (subsisting on the souls of their worshippers).

Below the 16 are the innumerable hosts of ascended beings, angels, devils, etc (called the Heavenly Choir). These gain power either from mortals (making contracts for shares of souls, etc) or by serving the Congregation. Their interference is limited in scope but more frequent. "Angels" and "Devils" are more political descriptors than racial ones.

One side note--none of the gods get their "fuel" from worship. They deal with mortals because mortals act as either counters/pawns/game-pieces or because the mortals advance the gods' interests. They get their power from the Great Mechanism, which in turn is fueled by growth and change in the material plane.

Second side note--my setting has no fixed alignment for anyone, including outsiders. That means the gods, angels, and devils are as apt to be good or evil, lawful or chaotic as anyone else and this can change with time and with context.

Dimers
2016-10-28, 02:46 PM
In the Black Company books there are three godlike creatures that come into play. All three are bound in place and two are magically asleep, only able to project their influence through their dreams, vaguely nudging people/forces. So while they have tremendous power, it's very slow to take effect, and it can be fought by mortal means.

Two of the three are also in a different sort of timeframe; everything in the mortal world happens much faster than they're used to. If you're sneaky, you can win a war against a Kina's forces because she doesn't even know what's happening until it's half over, and even then she can't make immediate changes.

One of the three was definitely a mortal, long ago, and the narrators of the books guess that a second was as well. So it's a deliberately blurry line between "god" and "godlike".

NRSASD
2016-10-28, 03:06 PM
Here's how I handle Gods in my setting, although they might not be of much use to you as it sounds like you want something more active.

Gods are shaped by their believers' will made manifest, and are basically superpowerful vaguely defined clouds of magical power. Clerics pay in a small amount of magical power every day through their prayers and the strength of their devotion, and in return they get to wield a fraction of the God's power briefly. Gods have many different names through many different cultures, but all the devotion is sent to the same place. Gods are not concerned with alignments, just actions, and thus a noble order of tomb guardians and a despicable assassin's guild could worship the same deity if they both served the deity's goals. Angels and Demons are the same thing, a portion of said God's power made manifest, and an angel or demon's appearance is shaped by what the worshiper expected to appear.

Stan
2016-10-28, 03:08 PM
There might be thousands of worlds/planes that worship a given god. They aren't bothered by anything less than total world destruction and, even then, it's hard for them to get that worked up about it. In this setup, deities and their underlings are like Magic Service Providers. Power flows from them but, if there is an issue that needs to be solved, their magic support sucks. Most things are left to the local frontline support, priests, who often lack the power to take care of everything. They often wind up shrugging and try to appease the aggrieved with stupid aphorisms like "Gods move in mysterious ways." which really means "I have no idea how to help, good luck trying to talk to my superior." The best you can expect is a brief response from a regional manager such as an angel.

Remedy
2016-10-28, 03:12 PM
On the rare occasions that I run D&D and don't have some sort of grand design in mind for the gods, I default to having very weak but active gods, with the main thing setting them apart from other powerful Outsiders being the ability to grant spellcasting.

I have had some more or less active/powerful gods if there's been a purpose for it. The Arbiters of Fate were both active and extremely powerful, but could only influence a very limited part of the setting. As their names suggest, they write fate, and back when they were in power there wasn't really free will. But at the time that campaign had started, the vestiges had broken the boundaries of reality and severed over 99% of existence from the weave of fate. So their power was relatively limited except in regards to those people and places that had stayed connected.

quinron
2016-10-28, 03:14 PM
My chosen tactic in my setting is giving the gods their own responsibilities. My world has two groups of gods: the greater gods who spent so much power making the world that they can barely influence it now outside of granting followers magic (thanks, Elder Scrolls) and the lesser gods who are responsible for keeping the proverbial trains running on time.

The lesser gods have interests and personalities of their own, which determine their domains, but each one is primarily responsible for arbitrating one of the eight non-neutral alignments - determining how that alignment operates and who is sent to its afterlife - and acting as wardens of the Outer Planes. They're too busy trying to maintain the balance of the entire cosmos to get involved in mortal affairs, but like any decent deity, they're perfectly willing to lavish some power on supplicants who are willing to dedicate themselves to their service. A fairly unique element of my setting is that the lesser gods don't necessarily follow the alignment they arbitrate - they welcome all worshippers of all walks of life, counseling them to follow their desires regardless of what those might be.

supergoji18
2016-10-28, 03:17 PM
I'm liking some of these ideas so far.

One problem I have about the idea of destabilizing the world is that, at least in my opinion, it makes the gods look stupid for building the world so poorly that they can't even enter it without having it blow up.

So far here is what I have in mind: gods don't enter the world directly for a variety of reasons. These include:
- fear of rival gods taking the opportunity to take over their home, or retaliate directly. So the God of Evil won't act because the God of Good could destroy his home turf while he's away, or destroy him directly.
- some gods aren't about that kind of stuff. They just want to watch the world develop and have mortals look to them as wise masters. We won't see Aphrodite enter the world directly because she doesn't really have a need to. She can spread love perfectly fine from where she is, and watch it spread on its own perfectly fine as well.
- some gods are trapped in their realms by rival gods or in remote locations by ancient heroes, so that their influence could not be felt elsewhere.
- some gods simply can't period, because they are more or less just cosmic forces with a consciousness. It would be like light or gravity trying to take physical form to fight something.
- some gods are afraid of certain objects or supernatural forces that have the potential to kill them. Gods may be supremely powerful, but even they have their weaknesses.

i'm not really going into specifics because not everything is set in stone yet for my campaign. This is all still a huge work in progress. but thank you for the advice and ideas! I hope to hear more!

KillianHawkeye
2016-10-28, 03:59 PM
I feel that going with the "mutual non-interference" or "divine cold war" approach (as others have mentioned) is the best way to use whatever existing D&D pantheons you like without having them steal the show or taking away player agency.

Basically what I do is Pelor and Kord and Hextor and everyone else all have some kind of treaty which allows them influence over certain things and the ability to empower people to certain degrees to act as their mortal agents. A god's portfolio isn't merely their area of interest in the world, it is what they've been allowed governance over as per the negotiation between all the gods.

The gods are still extremely powerful and they can still act directly, but usually only in small or subtle ways. The inherent problem is that escalation can lead to ending the treaty that keeps the overall peace between the gods. If any one of them acts too blatantly or unilaterally in the world, especially outside of their own portfolio, then others would as well. Nobody really wants to break the treaty because a war between the gods would make the Blood War look like a Sunday picnic, and none of them want to risk their own destruction or the insane devastation such a war would wreak across the multiverse. There simply isn't anything to gain that would be worth the trouble.

As a bonus, it prevents me from ever even considering the use of a deus ex machina (regardless of whether it would be in favor of the PCs or to help out one of my villains), because the gods as I interpret them would simply never do that.

BWR
2016-10-28, 04:00 PM
I'm liking some of these ideas so far.

One problem I have about the idea of destabilizing the world is that, at least in my opinion, it makes the gods look stupid for building the world so poorly that they can't even enter it without having it blow up.


It's sort of like how powerful casters end up being able to wreck everything if they want, just more so. Even that may be by design rather than incompetence.
Not to mention that in Mystara-verse the Immortals (probably) didn't create the world, most/all of them just ascended in an existing universe and starting doing stuff they wanted to. Part of it is that the Immortals aren't mystically tied to phenomena or concepts, they merely have things they like to do. You don't have a God of the Sun and whose job is to do everything sun-related, for instance, though you may have Immortals who are often associated with the sun.

Gnoman
2016-10-28, 04:02 PM
The way my pantheons tend to work is that the more powerful a god is, the more abstract their domain is, and the level of their power is determined not just by their raw strength but in how precisely a given situation matches their domain. I also have a tendency to have a lot of gods, down to extremely minor deities specific to an individual household or similar level.

For an example, say that a cleric prays for the destruction of the S.S. Minnow, and petitions to the God of the Sky to send a storm to sink it. The ship (assuming it was crewed) would fall into the portfolio of the God of Travel, the God of the Sea, the God of the Sky, the God of Ships, the God of Storms, the God of the S.S. Minnow, the God of Death, the God of Murder, and the God of Drowning. Sky is much more powerful than Storm, but Storm has a stronger connection to the storm Sky wants to send, rendering them roughly equal. Storm would have to actively allow this special storm to be sent, or at least not interfere with it. Sea is equal to Sky, but storms are less of a concern to him, so while he can weaken the storm or intensify it (as the one sending it would be happy to gain aid), he could not block it entirely. Travel is the most powerful of all, but his dominion over ships is a fairly minor part of his portfolio, so he's the least powerful in this specific scenario. Ships would be able to affect the outcome by weakening or strengthening the hull or by affecting the path the ship takes; but S.S. Minnow would be stronger than he for any opposed actions. If a sailor entered the water, Death, Murder, and Drowning would all be on equal terms, and all three would have to agree to specifically kill any sailors or passengers (which could still die, just not by direct divine will).

The other factor is that prayer and ritual are needed to bind a deity not just to the material world but to the specific individuals involved strongly enough for them to do anything. In the above example, if the crew of the ship didn't make regular offerings to the God of Ships, or failed to placate the God of the S.S. Minnow by taking proper care of the ship (including the cosmetic aspects such as sanding the deck, polishing the brass, keeping the paint touched up, etc) those gods would be unable to come to their aid when called.

Psikerlord
2016-10-28, 04:58 PM
I think if you want gods, but inactive - maybe exiled gods? You could even have one avatar evil god roaming the world maybe, ala dragonlance?

Personally I prefer no gods, no clerical magic as such - instead there is simply sorcery (inc healing etc)

Kelb_Panthera
2016-10-28, 06:09 PM
I like the gods being powerful enough to be able to overcome -most- things with minimal effort, held in check by the other gods and the inevitable destruction of the mortal realm (which they need in tact, because mortal worshipers are the source of the lion's share of their power) should they come into direct, open conflict with one another.

Churches move at the dictates of their gods and influence secular governments in those directions. The gods generally only interact with the heads of the church indirectly through signs or heralds and -occasionally- sending a sign or minion to direct an important or conveniently placed servant of the faith that isn't part of the managing hierarchy.

Hawkstar
2016-10-28, 06:15 PM
I actually like Gods as "Significantly weaker, but can grant spells and are hard to kill". What then makes them powerful is their scope (Via clerics and other divine casters - Don't be afraid to give gods a monopoly on divine power).

A wizard or dragon could easily attain a similar amount of influence over a local area - at which point they are essentially Gods themselves by the classic definition of the term. Gods do not need to be omniscient nor omnipotent. Being the biggest badass in the room that won't die of old age, and can communicate with his followers should honestly be more than enough to classify as a God. Anyone disagreeing is guilty of Hubris, and able to be smacked down by the big guy himself.

root
2016-10-28, 06:48 PM
Unless you plan to play an epic campaign where players are expected to pick fights with gods and actually win them, I'd say you should keep em very passive. The usual treaty between gods approach is a good in universe excuse.

You can always include various omens and prophetic dreams in game, tends to keep gods mysterious and appear to actually be a part of the world beyond class feature for clerics. Amp those things up if players do something that pisses them off, too, and be creative. Pelor's holy symbol would get tarnished and rusty despite all attempts to clean it, go against a nature god and wild animals will follow the party and act creepy (squirrels and birds silently watching from the tree branches and not moving, etc).

Cluedrew
2016-10-28, 09:04 PM
On Power Level: Distributed power is one solution. Gods have access to an effectively infinite pool of power, but they can only force so much of it out at a time. Divine casters are one type of channel, as are their literal avatars. They could, in theory have many avatars going at the same time, fragments of the same conciseness. There are possibilities there.

On Activity: I say, if you have gods try making them as active as possible. Because what is the difference between a passive god an a non-existent one? Some times the answer is quite a lot (Xenoblade Chronicles doesn't need its god's to do anything to effect the world) but all to often the answer is nothing.

Darth Ultron
2016-10-28, 10:08 PM
I like active, powerful gods. Though not daily divine Armageddon. Gods must be careful as they can have too much of an effect on the world. The problem is a lot like a group of people around a large miniature model of a land. The people can move things around on the edges easy enough, but anywhere else is a problem. They would have to step on the model to reach anything not on the edges, and even if they are very careful, they will still cause damage. And if they are not careful they can destroy whole sections of the miniature land. And no top of that you have to move around the other people too. And even when one of the people takes an action, like even moving a single miniature dog, they will likely knock over many others and even destroy some.

Mith
2016-10-28, 10:24 PM
For me, I would say it depends on the situation. It probably would be best to do everything by proxy.

But I like the idea of the recipient of Raise Dead have a memory of getting kicked in the ribs and a voice saying "Nap time is over. There is work for you to do."

So it depends on the feel you want to go with.

M0rdecai[QC]
2016-10-28, 10:33 PM
My world has two groups of gods: the greater gods who spent so much power making the world that they can barely influence it now outside of granting followers magic (thanks, Elder Scrolls) and the lesser gods who are responsible for keeping the proverbial trains running on time.


I too like the idea of drawing inspiration from The Elder Scrolls: the "good" gods sacrificed much of their power to create the world, and now they're sort of "bedridden" as a result. The "evil" gods are largely prevented from actively interfering with the world by a magical barrier created by the "good" gods and kept running by ancient magical constructs that dot the mortal world. Both groups can still grant spells and blessings and do other "passive" things, but it takes great effort on their part (and possibly mortal assistance) to actively interfere with the world: the "good" gods need to muster the strength to "climb out of bed" (usually more effort than it's worth) and the "evil" gods need their mortal followers to weaken the barrier keeping them out.

Bohandas
2016-10-30, 11:26 AM
On one hand, I like the idea of them being big cosmic superpowers that can do almost anything, but from a story standpoint that complicates things because then either the gods are so powerful they can do anything by themselves and have no need for mortals, or the gods are so powerful they couldn't care less about anything else and do absolutely nothing.

What if a deity's power scaled logarithmically (or by square roots) with number of followers and area of control, so that a global deity, despite being more powerful, would be less able to intervene in issues regarding their followers or their portfolio than a less powerful local demigod would

ThreadNecro5
2016-10-30, 12:21 PM
The way it works in my setting is that each deity is tied to plane, and each plane is tied to a deity (well greater deitiy). They created each other at the dawn of existence, one is an extension of the other. Each plane has its own greater deity, of the eighteen (well more like seventeen, one never appeared and its plane was walled off form the others, and its empty spot in existence was taken by a mortal ascended to the ranks of the greater deities after inventing necromancy), and several lesser deities.

When on their plane a greater deity holds absolute power, they are limited only by what they know. Lesser deities are only slightly more limited. When off of their plane a deity is only overwhelmingly powerful, the greatest of heroes and monsters can defeat a lesser deity.

What stops the gods from making mortals their absolute plaything is that, at the dawn of time, the god of nature and bloodshed decreed that any deity may use his plane to place their creations. And so, after a few failed attempt (Trolls) the god of giants created most of the giantkin races (playable ones are humans, orcs, and planetouched/equivalent).

After this the nature and bloodshed god prevents the other gods from making too big an effect on the world. Empower a cleric and a monster is lured to a civilised area, create a race of guardians and a new race of monsters is created, physically appear to save a city and a Tarrasque gets unleashed, ect. This effectively limits deities from acting as they will, they cannot oppose that god on his own turf (well, one goddess can after what I can best call an interplanar trainwreck, but otherwise no).

As for something to set the gods apart form mealy powerful outsiders, what I do is that each greater deity brings several new concepts to existence, with lesser deities reinterpreting these concepts. The god of fire IS the source of fire and if he dies so does fire, the ability to light fires, or even knowledge that fire was ever a thing even as something that could be imagined. Kill the god of winter and winter stops being a thing in the same way, and so on.

Telok
2016-10-30, 02:38 PM
Use the model of the ancient Greek gods. Lazy narcissistic buggers who didn't care about anything but their own egos, temples, and heroes/children.

Melville's Book
2016-10-30, 02:55 PM
My personal preference? Gods are spirits. Perhaps incredibly powerful spirits, but they still can't act on the physical plane. They might impact where your soul goes when you die, so they're worth worshipping, and could have lots of supernatural knowledge useful to magic-users who can interact with them... But if there's something one of them wants done on this side of the veil, one of you living guys has to do it.

veti
2016-10-30, 03:05 PM
Imagine you're a god. You live in a world created just for you. There are other gods around, but the ones you live with all see pretty much eye to eye, so they don't generally interfere with you or you with them.

There are, however, lots of gods around who don't agree with you, or you with them. They will not hesitate to act in ways that are contrary to your interests.

For as long as you're interested in the physical worlds, you're playing a huge cosmic real-time strategy game with - as many other gods who choose to participate at any one time. But, and this is important, there are many worlds. (I don't know how many. Maybe just a dozen or so, maybe an infinite number.) If you choose to focus too much of your attention on any one of those worlds, it means you take your eye off all the others.

So intervening to save a follower in one place, might mean losing a couple of million to a "natural" disaster in another. Anything that grabs your attention for more than a few minutes is a threat to your authority across the multiverse.

Gods can intervene, and when they do there's pretty much no limit to what they can do. But it takes time to do anything big, and time is the one thing they're not willing to invest.

Quertus
2016-10-30, 04:35 PM
Personally, I like the way (early?) D&D handles the gods. Gygax & Anderson Asmodeus & rainbow serpent created the planes. Individual DMs over-deities created individual crystal spheres. But the bulk of the gods - the ones who actually grant spells - are these pathetic pushovers who could easily be taken down by competent high-level parties. This encourages the gods to make mortals ascend to godhood before they get too powerful that they start killing off gods - or entire pantheons.

Gods cannot enter the prime material - in a "laws of physics" kind of way. But they can send avatars. Even so, they are limited regarding the number of things that they can pay attention to / the number of avatars that they can puppet at a time.

To make things even harder, sometimes, one deity masquerades as several, and/or is worshiped on multiple worlds. So their attention is spread really thin.

The gods being so weak has the odd effect that, when D&D players try out other systems, they often expect other games' deities to also be ridiculously weak. Several times, I've had to explain that in no way is the deity having stats in any way advantageous to the players. That is, if a mortal is attempting to oppose a deity in a way that the deity needs stats, the mortal has already lost. That often comes as quite a culture shock, let me tell you.

But, if you want your gods to be powerful without invalidating the PCs, you could start by taking a page from one of many sources, and say that they can only send weak avatars to earth, for whatever reason. Or maybe not even that! If they are, say, completely limited to their spheres of influence, the god of popping could pop bubbles, or pop balloons, but what does popping have to do with creating an avatar?

As to what differentiates the gods from other beings, IMO, it's usually that they are powered by and dependent upon faith / belief / worship / followers / whatever. Whole world dies, an Angel still is an Angel. Deity's followers get decimated, and he's a sad puppy.

Bohandas
2016-10-30, 04:41 PM
They could also mostly interact through the world through aspects.

Tvtyrant
2016-10-30, 04:45 PM
In my latest campaign setting the gods are actually the demon lords of the abyss, and are incapable of physically entering the prime. All Outsiders and Undead are blocked from entering the world by the Veil, which can only be pierced from the mortal side. Temples to the various gods often have a physical avatar residing within them, using the CR10-12 versions from the miniatures handbooks. The actual gods can't effect the world directly anymore, so they have priests and cultists who manipulate the world for them.

Dragonexx
2016-10-30, 05:59 PM
I agree with Veti above in that it's better to think of gods in sense of playing a real time strategy game like Civ or Populous or so forth. You give broad directions, and give out quests and so forth, but it's all large scale, the small scale stuff (individual fights and the details of adventures) is mostly glossed over.


In D&D the gods are, compared to the wet radish that is your character, unlimited in power. There is no amount of whupass that you could put together that would allow you to triumph over Vecna – he can cast any (or every) spell as a free action. He can cast "Kill Drogor the Dwarf Barbarian with no Save", a spell which heretofore had not even been researched by anyone – as a free action. And he knows many days in advance when he is going to be in danger and who he's going to be in danger from, so that's really not a battle you're going to win. Nevertheless, when adventurers come across a temple to Vecna, they kick everything over, they smash the idol and they steal its ruby eye. And they get away with it.

And that's because when you kick over temple to Vecna, you aren't going against Vecna in any direct sense. Vecna lives on a distant outer plane and has full control over anything that happens in his personal dominion. Anywhere else, and he's essentially playing a game of Populous. If there isn't a knight or prophet of Vecna around, Vecna really can't do much until the "end-game" scenario in which he starts throwing volcanoes around. And as soon as that starts happening, the best bet is really to try to hop on the first portal out of whatever universe you happen to be in because it's going Armageddon pretty soon. Vecna might encourage some monsters to go look you up, or lower some land in your way, but you're an adventurer – so that's pretty much what you expected out of life anyway.

Bohandas
2016-10-30, 11:14 PM
And yet Vecna, as a full deity, is the boss encounter in a published D&D adventure. (The 2e module Die Vecna Die)


As to what differentiates the gods from other beings, IMO, it's usually that they are powered by and dependent upon faith / belief / worship / followers / whatever. Whole world dies, an Angel still is an Angel. Deity's followers get decimated, and he's a sad puppy.

or a tortoise

Knitifine
2016-10-31, 02:30 AM
I will chime in again to say that I think the whole "Gods Need Prayers Badly (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly)" makes them way too weak and cuts off lots of interesting story possibilities regarding lost, forgotten, or reclusive gods.

Milo v3
2016-10-31, 03:18 AM
I have gods be active, often act on a personal level with their priesthood, and are not omni-anything.

Tvtyrant
2016-10-31, 03:55 PM
I will chime in again to say that I think the whole "Gods Need Prayers Badly (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodsNeedPrayerBadly)" makes them way too weak and cuts off lots of interesting story possibilities regarding lost, forgotten, or reclusive gods.

I don't think it has to. People have a long memory for faith, you could have a lost god who only 10 people offer prayers to who is faded but still alive. Pratchet even had gods who were kept alive by the faith of other gods.

VoxRationis
2016-10-31, 04:42 PM
I don't think it has to. People have a long memory for faith, you could have a lost god who only 10 people offer prayers to who is faded but still alive. Pratchet even had gods who were kept alive by the faith of other gods.

But that's just it: "faded but still alive" effectively removes them as potential major players in divine interactions. If a deity with 10 worshipers is just sort of barely clinging on, it makes unpopular deities (apocalypse gods, gods of killing people for no reason, etc.) difficult to sell as threats to the order of things, a threat which is the cornerstone of a lot of story arcs.

Bohandas
2016-10-31, 05:23 PM
It should be noted that generally they don't need prayers or worshippers, just belief, which is easier to garner.

It's like the Simpsons episode "Attack of the 50-foot Eyesores" where advertising mascots come to life and attack Springfield:

Lisa: If your advertising agency created all those giant characters, you must know how to stop them.
Advertising Man: Well sir, advertising is a funny thing. If people stop paying attention to it, pretty soon, it goes away.
Lisa: Like that old woman who couldn't find the beef?
Advertising Man: Exactly. If you stop paying attention to the monsters, they'll lose their powers.
Lisa: But people can't help looking at them. They're wrecking the town. (Out the window, the monsters wreck the town)

EDIT:
I think that the backstory to Warhammer 40k also has a subplot about the emperor trying, and failing, to starve the gods of power through a pervasive disinformation campaign insisting that they didn't exist

Tvtyrant
2016-10-31, 05:33 PM
But that's just it: "faded but still alive" effectively removes them as potential major players in divine interactions. If a deity with 10 worshipers is just sort of barely clinging on, it makes unpopular deities (apocalypse gods, gods of killing people for no reason, etc.) difficult to sell as threats to the order of things, a threat which is the cornerstone of a lot of story arcs.

Personally I would make it a double edged sword. Since I use an impenetrable veil between gods and reality, I would make it so a sufficiently faded god could physically cross over into reality until it has garnered enough attention to become strong enough to set itself up again. Hence why there are pharonic gods running kingdoms and Orc gods leading armies of mortals.

Stealth Marmot
2016-11-01, 12:02 PM
I've been building a new campaign setting, and I'm trying to work out how I want the gods to work in my setting. On one hand, I like the idea of them being big cosmic superpowers that can do almost anything, but from a story standpoint that complicates things because then either the gods are so powerful they can do anything by themselves and have no need for mortals, or the gods are so powerful they couldn't care less about anything else and do absolutely nothing. I then thought about making them significantly weaker (more along the lines of superpowerful humans), but then I ran into a problem of what exactly distinguishes them from any other supernatural being. I also thought about making them just sentient cosmic forces, where they can't really interact directly but can empower people to do so. I'm not sure how I like this idea though.

Basically, I need ideas on how to handle gods. I want gods to exist in my setting, and I want them to be distinct from other supernatural superpowers like the Archdevils and Demon Lords. I want them to be powerful and awe inspiring, but also not be so active in the world that it makes adventurers and heroes useless.

Any advice?

There is a wide difference between omnipotent, and powerful. Between omniscient, and having a wide gaze.

The gods may have power, but they also may not necessarily have the knowledge of where to use it, and a limit on where they can use it.

As for why they need mortals? A good example of why a god would need mortals would the gods of the Elder Scrolls series. They exist, they are powerful, but their reach is limited. They may not be able to enter the mortal realms and can only act through conduits, such as their followers.

Not to mention that gods may not have time to micromanage EVERYTHING going on. "Listen little man, I got over 1,300 requests happening RIGHT NOW, I can't be bothered to explain every little detail! Here's a cure spell, USE YOUR ME-GIVEN BRAIN TO FIGURE OUT WHERE AND HOW TO USE IT!"