How "present" are the gods in your game?

[DRD1812]

If you've got deities in your game, how do they interact with the PCs? Is there direct communication? Signs and portents? The occasional divine intervention? How do the gods affect the day-to-day of your campaign?

Comic for illustrative purposes. (http://www.handbookofheroes.com/archives/comic/cleric-vs-oracle)

[LibraryOgre]

Generally, not very.

AD&D, low level clerical spells are all faith and training. Mid-level spells are answered by servants of the deity. Only high-level spells involve direct divine communication.

[Knaight]

Religions are almost always present, important, and highly interwoven with the setting. Whether or not the gods behind said religions even exist is something I basically never actually define or tell players (I assume that it's a no, but if my players interpret it differently, well, that's not the first setting where that happened. Which would be real world Earth).

[BWR]

I run Mystara at the moment and that means the Immortals are very involved. They have tons of plots and plans going at any one time, and the PCs, as they get more powerful, become more interesting and useful to Them. I also run a lot of the old modules and adventures and the higher level ones (C and M) get Them rather intimately involved, especially something like "Talons of the Night". The players have noticed how their actions are more and more 'dictated' by the will of the Immortals, though it might be more correct to say they are becoming aware of the strings that pull them. The PCs are also on the path to Immortality, so they are even more conscious of their patrons and future allies and enemies.

So yes, the Immortals have made their presence and will known from fairly early on - what's the point of having clergy if you don't use them? Immortals have high level plots and They use any and every tool they have to advance these plots, which often means subtle direction, direct command, or orchestrating so favored toys tools pawns get put in situations where they are useful. Sometimes an Immortal will just see any old group of people who happen to in the right place at the right time and use them.

And then you have the Immortals who just like a good story. Valerias, for instance, doesn't have any greater ideals or long term plots, she just enjoys seeing passionate, dramatic love affairs. Basically, she looks upon the world and its people as a source of romance stories. When she gets involved in any way it's basically like when people write their own stories or fanfictions - she just wants to see the romance in action, and if some poor farmboy/girl has seen his/her beloved stolen away by orcs, She may just give them weapons and armor, often divinely created right in front of them, so they can go on adventure and rescue their true love.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, I tend to try to build interesting, realistic, and playable religions before I consider if the deities exist, and tend to play in worlds without direct divine intervention (of the obvious type, I have occasionally tried to run with 'you are the divine help'). I also tend to run in worlds where there is no 'arcane/divine' split for magic, all magic is magic and runs under the same rules.

On a side note, if I'm running a setting with magic-using priests I might say that different religions teach their priests different spells, but that any magician can theoretically learn any spell.

I almost never have deities directly talking with PCs. Just because of my belief that any being with that much power has very different thought processes to a human, and that conversation with one would either be utterly meaningless to a PC or would break their mind. But omens and the like are fine, if my players would ever pick up on them (they're generally too busy killing them).

[JeenLeen]

Most games I've played have the gods or god-like beings in some sort of stalemate with the evil gods. If they directly intervene, it means they are distracted from holding back evil and there's some consequence. Thus, they generally never intervene and let their higher-ranked servants take care of most things. If they do intervene, it's a huge deal (like end-of-campaign deal.)

Or you could have Exalted 2nd edition, where most of the powerful gods are too distracted playing video games to care (the "Games of Divinity") :smalltongue:

I think, in general, I prefer a low level of divine intervention but that it is possible (at least in the form of intermediaries sending messages, provided the PCs are important enough to warrant such or there's a prophecy or some such.)

[DRD1812]

I run Mystara at the moment and that means the Immortals are very involved. They have tons of plots and plans going at any one time, and the PCs, as they get more powerful, become more interesting and useful to Them.

Follow-up question: In this style, does it ever feel like the gods lose some of their mystique?

[BWR]

Follow-up question: In this style, does it ever feel like the gods lose some of their mystique?

Depends on what you mean by 'mystique'. If you want them to be distant, uninterested, unknowable, and uninvolved, then yes. If you want them to actually have an impact on the world and have long term and short term plans and goals which are PCs may get involved in but not necessarily be fully aware of the details, or even that they are the playthings of the gods in any given instance, then no.

The Immortals of Mystara are very much intimately involved in the running of the world and while your average sodbuster may not notice it, clerics do and high level characters may really notice it, especially since they can join the ranks of the gods. If you really want the mysterious Powers you have the Old Ones, which are to the gods as gods are to mortals. They are far more mysterious and inscrutable than AO or the High God.

[FreddyNoNose]

Generally, not very.

AD&D, low level clerical spells are all faith and training. Mid-level spells are answered by servants of the deity. Only high-level spells involve direct divine communication.

This pretty much sums it up.

Have PCs met any gods in my 40+ year campaign? Yes, but they generally wouldn't know that it was a god.

God calls have been answered although always how they hoped they would be answered.

This isn't very help answer to the OP.


Gods are Important and near the top of the power pyramid. For all you and the players know, they are the top.

They can do amazing things but might have some limitations put upon them. Perhaps it is not interfering with free will, or rules/agreements/laws etc. Use your imagination.

Signs and portents are iffy. Either they are heavy handed and therefore obvious, or subtle and beyond normal players abilities to notice.

Clerics of the faith are how most people in the world touch base with the god and that obviously isn't directly. Clerics can get people to do things in the name of the god and all that usual business. It also restricts those who are part of that faith.

That doesn't mean it has to be that way with every god... YMMV.

[BWR]

I asked my players about how mysterious they felt the Immortals were in my game, and the general response was they have very human motivations and actions unlike things like the Great Old Ones, so in that respect they were not mysterious. PCs and players don't always know of the plots and presence of any given Immortal, or their ultimate aims in a given scenario, so in that respect they were mysterious.
Distant and uninvolved gods weren't so much 'mysterious' as in 'fascinating' but 'mysterious' as in 'little known about them and therefor boring'.

[Amdy_vill]

when i played ad&D my dm had the gods play a directed role in the story we would often meet lesser of dimi god who we would do things for or would help us on our quest

[jojo]

Usually, even in high-fantasy settings with well-defined pantheons I make sure the gods are incredibly remote.
I make it clear that "Yes, Divine magic exists, pretty much everyone agrees on this; but, you won't be seeing Moradin or whomever until you're dead."
This leaves an element of faith and also eliminates a lot of alignment carping between players - which is important when someone wants to assert a complex belief system that they've built around a paragraph or two of fluff.
In my experience it also encourages role-playing along with creative problem solving, since it gives players confidence that I'm not going to screw with their core class abilities through GM/DM Fiat.

It's worth nothing that this is pretty much how the Gods of Greyhawk came around. Players bugged Gygax until the gods they freed got some names, then the Divine Caster player-characters were permitted to run wild with the fluff.

At higher levels I usually employ the "Contact" rule, I.E. whatever "god" provides your source of power can look like whatever you think it looks like to facilitate interactions with you.
This keeps the gods both "accessible" and "remote" at the same time, which saves me a lot of headaches.

Having said all of that, I very rarely run campaigns in published settings so this is usually well received. Over the years our table's shared campaign settings have benefited greatly from this. There's a unique, well-fluffed god for every single divine caster that's ever rolled dice in our setting and the originating PC generally gets to be carried forward as some sort of saint/patron/hero as well as whatever characters were around them getting acknowledgment as well in future campaigns.

[FreddyNoNose]

Pretty much like this:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kmvPLtawtKc

As more monsters



For my game, this would be more of a demon/false god sort of situation.

[Jay R]

The extent of their immediate presence must be proportional to the extent that the players do not know how active they are.

Divine intervention is a tool. If you use it extremely rarely, it's OK for the players to recognize it. If the gods intervene more often, the players cannot know it.

[2D8HP]

For my game, this would be more of a demon/false god sort of situation.


Yeah, I know there's precedent (Athena in The Odyssey, Hera in Jason and the Argonauts, Zeus in Clash of the Titans, et cetera), but I've never had benevolent gods in my games.

[FreddyNoNose]

Yeah, I know there's precedent (Athena in The Odyssey, Hera in Jason and the Argonauts, Zeus in Clash of the Titans, et cetera), but I've never had benevolent gods in my games.

I get that. But on the other hand, even if a demon is worshiped, it kind of is a god from a certain point of view.

[LibraryOgre]

I get that. But on the other hand, even if a demon is worshiped, it kind of is a god from a certain point of view.

Yes, but "from a certain point of view" isn't always a mechanically useful statement.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

In my games (usually), there are religions, and there are are powerful beings that may be attached to those religions (attached by the worshipers, or attached by their own designs), which may be called gods, angels, demons, or whatever - but there are no gods in the sense of omniscient, omnipotent beings.
Partly I think that's down to the influence of the BECMI D&D edition that I grew up with, which explicitly stated that was the case for their setting - probably a reaction to the moral outrage against RPGs in the 80s.

So in one of my games, you might meet the Church of Bog (for example), which includes in its heavenly host the Great Bog (creator of the multiverse, unseen, unknowable, mysterious - not necessarily real), and her cohort of Archangels (actual statted extra-planar beings of immense power) - who fight against the Evil Quelm (embodiment of sin, intangible, ever-present - not necessarily real) and its horde of Devils (actual statted extra-planar beings of immense power).

I've blogged on this topic (http://running-the-game.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/gods-what-are-they-for.html) - I think whatever choices one makes in the matter, you really have to define those choices beforehand. You may need to communicate them with the players, too - but not always. Sometimes it can help to tell the players what the ordinary folk in the street and fields think, and leave the reality behind the GM screen.

[BWR]

there are are powerful beings [...] which may be called gods, angels, demons, or whatever - but there are no gods in the sense of omniscient, omnipotent beings.


This entire mindset is a product of being raised in a society with strong roots in advanced Abrahamic religions. The normal D&D idea is far more in line with the rest of RL history - if it worshipped as a god, it is a god. Various settings may add certain other definitions to it, but omniscience and omnipotence are rarely, if ever, among those.

[MeeposFire]

For me it depends on what setting I am running.

If I am playing Eberron gods may or may not exist and so no direct interactions will be seen in the game. In that game they are very mysterious.

If I am playing a game in the Forgotten Realms gods are much more present though you still are not likely to directly interact with them but you are able to find people that have if you look around enough and evidence of their actions can be found.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

This entire mindset is a product of being raised in a society with strong roots in advanced Abrahamic religions. The normal D&D idea is far more in line with the rest of RL history - if it worshipped as a god, it is a god. Various settings may add certain other definitions to it, but omniscience and omnipotence are rarely, if ever, among those.
(My emphasis added)

The "normal D&D idea" you mention there is entirely at odds with the BECMI D&D line, which, as I already mentioned, specifically dealt with any gods that may or may not be at work in the multiverse as being unknowable entities beyond even the Immortals' experience.
With regards to RL history: most of the Indo-European deities - Germanic, Norse, Greco-Roman, Celtic - were utterly beyond mortal power to affect, which seems pretty much omnipotent to me. Indo-European mythology is full of examples of how and why it is futile to go against the gods' will.

That aside, you're totally correct. I grew up in a world where the law enforced that Christianity was taught as truth at state schools - so regardless of my current thoughts on the matter, no matter what research I've done since, I have had a strongly Abrahamic upbringing.

Despite that, in my blog, linked in my post above, I talked about the various god concepts one might choose from. My point is that one must make that choice.

But the OP's question was "How present are the gods in your game?" - so that's the question I answered.

[BWR]

(My emphasis added)

The "normal D&D idea" you mention there is entirely at odds with the BECMI D&D line, which, as I already mentioned, specifically dealt with any gods that may or may not be at work in the multiverse as being unknowable entities beyond even the Immortals' experience.
.

Except it isn't entirely at odds with the BECMI line. The Immortals are gods in any proper definition except your late Abrahamic one. They have powers, are worshipped and some at least are old as ****. There are more powerful things, sure. Doesn't mean the Immortals aren't gods.



With regards to RL history: most of the Indo-European deities - Germanic, Norse, Greco-Roman, Celtic - were utterly beyond mortal power to affect, which seems pretty much omnipotent to me. Indo-European mythology is full of examples of how and why it is futile to go against the gods' will.


More powerful than human=/= omnipotent.


But the OP's question was "How present are the gods in your game?" - so that's the question I answered.
With some very biased assumptions, which was my point.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: It is time to drop the discussion of real-world religion.

[Nifft]

When you stab a god IRL, what ha--


The Mod Wonder: It is time to drop the discussion of real-world religion.

-- uh, guess I can't finish that anecdote.


Anyway, in games I do either distant & abstract (interacts only via dreams / prophecies / omens / portends / etc.), or fully-statted and ready to roll initiative.

Either they're forever out of reach (and thus might not exist, so "having faith" demands in-character faith) -- or they're reachable, and as with anything in your reach, you can also stab them.

"The most dangerous game", and all that.

[Jay R]

Find an answer for your universe that does not get in the way of the game.

Here's the basic cosmology for a game I ran recently.

There are two gods called together The Uncreated. Separately, they are The Lord and The Lady, and nothing is known about them.

Their first children were the sun, the earth, the oceans, and the winds. These four are either the creators of our world, or the stuff of which it was created - it's not clear which. They are, of course, the essence of the four earthly elements, the embodiment of the elemental planes, and the structure of the world. There is a fifth one, representing the quintessence, but since that cannot exist on our changeable and imperfect world, he/she has no influence here.

They have an abundance of names. The Sun God, for instance, is known as Apollo, Aten, Ra, Tonatiuh, Surya, Helios and many others. Similarly, every earth goddess is known to be the true earth, born of The Lord and The Lady - even those with known other parents, or those with no parents, like Gaea. Attempts to question the logic of this are met with the sacred chant, "Hakuna heigh-ho fragilistic bibbidy chim-cheree," which has been variously translated as, "It is not wise to question these mysteries, which are beyond the knowledge of our world," or "Die, you heathen scum, die!" In practice, there is no significant difference between the two translations.

The children/creations of these four are the only gods who will answer prayers or interact with the world directly. They include all the pantheons that have ever existed.

Except Lovecraft.

The Lord and The Lady have been identified as the embodiments of Good and Evil, or Law and Chaos, or Male and Female, or Light and Darkness, or any other opposing concepts.

Wars have been fought between those who believe they represent Good and Evil, and those who insist on Law and Chaos.

Wars have been fought between those who believe The Lord and The Lady hate each other with a hatred surpassing any passion on earth, and those who believe that they love each other with a love more true than any mortal could ever know.

Wars have been fought between those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Good and The Lady is Evil, and those who know beyond all doubt that The Lord is Evil and The Lady is Good.

All of the above will be available knowledge to the players. Here is what they will not know.

No arcane or divine magic will successfully find out any fact about The Lord and The Lady. I have three answers, all completely true, and mutually incompatible.

1. The Lord is Fate, and The Lady is Luck. Neither can exist without the other, and each action in the world, from a sneeze to the fall of an empire, is a victory of one of them over the other.
2. They are Yin and Yang, and the heart of each beats in the breast of the other. They represent complementary, not opposing, forces. Each is in fact all of the universe except the other, but neither one represents any specific principle (not even male and female), and whichever one represents goodness in one situation might be the evil in another. Together, they represent wholeness and balance
3. They are the Creators - the mother and father of the world, which they birthed and/or created for some great purpose which is not yet fulfilled.

No mortal can comprehend the true nature of any god. Therefore the image, history, and culture of any god are the simple stories people tell themselves about the gods, to comfort themselves into believing they know something.

Do you believe that your god is a Norse, hammer-throwing warlike thunder god with a red beard? Then that's what you see in your visualizations, and those are the aspects that your god shows to you.

So do you create the gods by your belief, or does the god who most closely resembles your belief respond to your prayers in the form you expect, or are they merely your own hallucinations that always occur as a side effect when invoking divine magic? One wise sage, Chicxulub the Philosophical, actually asked this question. He is said to have discovered the true answer after sixty years of study, prayer, and meditation, on March 23, in the year 643.

Incidentally, the largest impact crater ever discovered is the Chicxulub crater, which appeared on March 23, in the year 643. (Many have entered this crater to explore it. None have returned.)

Oh yes, and the fifth child of The Lord and The Lady, representing the Fifth Element? It turns out that he's not the stuff of the heavens, but of the hells. His children and descendants are all the demons, devils, and daemons. His creations are the evil spirits of the underworld. No, he's not out to conquer the world or destroy it or anything of that sort. He just likes to see war, strife, and pain.

[Typewriter]

I like to incorporate gods into the game world but in such a way that the players might never know they interacted with a god or did something on the behalf of a god. What I especially like to toy around with is the absence of gods. In my current campaign world the gods have 'avatars'. Mortal bodies that are literally possessed by the will of the gods. Each god has one avatar that goes around and whose main purpose is the creation of clerics/paladins. In one of my recent campaigns one of my players was a wizard and part of his backstory was that he was a twin - his sister was anointed by the avatar of Artemis when she was born and everyone awaited Apollo to appear and bless him but Apollo never came. So a major side plot of the campaign became, "Where is the avatar of Apollo?"

[FreddyNoNose]

Yes, but "from a certain point of view" isn't always a mechanically useful statement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSOBeD1GC_Y

[FaerieGodfather]

I generally avoid involving them, where possible. I don't like games where the gods are constantly meddling, for the same reason I don't like games with high-level canon NPCs.

For my current Shroompunk game, the goal of the first episode was to get into the top of the Tower and find out what kind of secret treasure was hidden there.

The "hidden treasure" actually turned out to be an imprisoned star-god. It begged for death, and the Tortle Knight accommodated it.

The PCs have heard stories about the Emperor and the Plumber, but I don't plan on them ever coming face to face. I reckon about half the party is planning to sacrifice the Star Rod back to the stars from whence it came... but I don't know how that's actually going to shake out in play.

[lightningcat]

In my games, the gods are much like CEOs of major corperations IRL. Everyone knows who most of them are, well who some of them are anyways. The people who work for them will almost always recognize them, unless they are in diaguise. The higher up you are in the organization, the more likely you are to deal with them directly.
The PCs are only occasionally involved in anything that the gods care directly about, unless they are saving the world or if they work for a particular church, so the gods don't deal with the PCs very much.

[Nifft]

In my games, the gods are much like CEOs of major corperations IRL.

They only care about quarterly prophets.

[LibraryOgre]

They only care about quarterly prophets.

Their lower/middle management is all white collar.

:smallbiggrin:

[Nifft]

Their lower/middle management is all white collar.

They demand obedience from all but are defied by those strange hiking-boot-wearing bearded folks who live in the sealed room of bound servers, whose words are arcane phrases that cast down or raise up daemons, those aliens-amongst-us who are called Guru.

[Acanous]

Playing Numinera right now, Gods of the Fall.

All our PCs are gods.
It’s actually pretty fun, though I’m the “evil” god of treachery making my own pantheon of dark gods (dreams, destruction, trickery, goblins, shadows, and treachery) which operates independently of the.... neutral? PC pantheon (The Forge, Knowledge, The Hunt, Fire, Prophecy)

I’m hamming it up like crazy, and there’s a very notable difference in how these gods act, what strings they pull, how they favor and interact with followers, what they do in the world, and how much they throw their power around.

Also we disagree and bicker. A lot.

[galaxia]

Omniscience is fundamentally incompatible with D&D and any system that's built around the notion of accomplishment and choice.

Don't have an omniscient deity. And, yes, there can be only one of those by definition.

Omniscient deities are static.

Desire comes from limitation. Take that away and there is no motivation. Without motivation there is no sense of being.

[Pilo]

A lot, we are playing Exalted 3rd and 3 out of 5 players have cults.

In an other campaign (Amber), we created a few worlds from nothing in order to send the inhabitants of those shadow to die in a mercyless war for the my throne.

[Concrete]

In my Pathfinder games, gods rarely make a personal appearance, and direct communication almost never happens. But I do enjoy putting in signs of their approval or such whenever a divine character or believer does anything particularly impressive.

In one case, a Paladin landed the killing blow on a creature found reprehensible to her god, and in so, helped release the grip it had on a nearby village. So, as her mace struck down the giant mosquito monster, I narrated how a splash of its red ichor formed the symbol of the characters god in the air for just a split second, just long enough for her to see it.

Another character, a cleric of a god of cities, trade and civilization helped to defuse an unnecessary conflict, and argued so eloquently for a solution most beneficial for all parties that I narrated how the bystanders could swear they heard, just overlapping his words, the steady rhythm of civilization itself, and how that one sequence of his speech was preserved forever along with a mere thousand others in The First Vault, where a perfect copy of all manmade things are preserved.

[Spore]

In one world, the DM explicitly stated that the gods had left the planes. Most of the major decisions he did had reasons so I imagine this omnipotence aspect and clerics having their gods on "speed dial" certainly was a reason. Plus gods being like neglecting parents certainly offers a bigger venue for the worship of beings of the lower planes. 'Yes, your god might give you spells and what not but did she ever do to directly help you? I trade a few souls and my pacting Erinnye even gave me those nice boots. The guy she killed for them doesn't need them anymore.'*

In another setting, once my oracle got plane shift, she was basically visiting her god's home plane twice a month, usually to escape from a deadly encounter. Certain ... meetings are about to happen. With my middling level I dealt with high commanders of her hierarchy and only once met her herself. In the same setting, we astral projected ourselves (dream sequence basically) to our Paladin's god of incarceration (and fought a few Kytons representing the abuse of power over prisoners). Never saw the dude though.

Oh, and our DM made up a demi-god of commerce and trade, to replace our magic mart with something that loosely makes sense ingame. He disguised himself as a wondrous wandering merchant (The rogue entered his wagon which basically was a mobile pocket dimension and drunk a tea with the ancient gold dragon protecting the god's hoard. She's the only one to know he is a god.)

_________________________
* Not a joke, one of my PCs did this.

[Anonymouswizard]

Oh, and our DM made up a demi-god of commerce and trade, to replace our magic mart with something that loosely makes sense ingame. He disguised himself as a wondrous wandering merchant (The rogue entered his wagon which basically was a mobile pocket dimension and drunk a tea with the ancient gold dragon protecting the god's hoard. She's the only one to know he is a god.)

This is one of the things that bugs me, world elements being tailored to PCs.


Onto other topics, I've seen cases of active deities I rather like. Both Unknown Armies and The Dark Eye pull it off in different ways, and I always like settings that have the divinity of gods be questionable. Sure it's a very powerful being that grants spells, but so do the beings described as demon lords, archfey, and Great Old Ones. What's the difference between them and the gods.

On that note, one idea I've had was a 5e game using the Adventures in Middle Earth classes, plus the Cleric and the Warlock. The gods' divinity is proven rules-wise, but in-setting most people can't tell the difference between Cleric magic and Warlock magic, especially as there's a lot more of the latter running around.

[Sinewmire]

In my games, the gods are much like CEOs of major corperations IRL.

You mean they're enormously powerful and wealthy but rely entirely upon legions of underlings to support them for little in return whilst apparently managing to spend most of their time doing very little?

I don't think THAT analogy stands up very well, sir!

In my Pathfinder game the Gods make their presence and will known through messenger angels and communication spells, although they rarely do so, as the mortals who guide their churches can be trusted to guide the faithful.

If they really act contrary to their god's will, a cleric might not get any spells the next day - it's borrowed power.

[Knaight]

You mean they're enormously powerful and wealthy but rely entirely upon legions of underlings to support them for little in return whilst apparently managing to spend most of their time doing very little?

I don't think THAT analogy stands up very well, sir!

You say that, but if anything that portrayal makes the analogy better. The main problem is that there's no real analog for them up and vanishing on their followers after draining the institutions of all their resources, leaving the followers destitute while vanishing with huge piles of resources.

[LibraryOgre]

You say that, but if anything that portrayal makes the analogy better. The main problem is that there's no real analog for them up and vanishing on their followers after draining the institutions of all their resources, leaving the followers destitute while vanishing with huge piles of resources.

The Cataclysm. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataclysm_(Dragonlance))

[Nifft]

The Cataclysm. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataclysm_(Dragonlance))

Didn't Dragonlance almost get divine-leveraged-buyout'd after that, too?

As another example, there's the way Sol Invictus got fed up with mortals, turned his face from Creation, and retired to a small private island to play games.

Livin' off the Divin'-dends.

[Knaight]

The Cataclysm. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataclysm_(Dragonlance))


Didn't Dragonlance almost get divine-leveraged-buyout'd after that, too?

As another example, there's the way Sol Invictus got fed up with mortals, turned his face from Creation, and retired to a small private island to play games.

Livin' off the Divin'-dends.

I stand corrected.

The analogy is basically perfect.

[FunSize]

In my homebrew setting, not at all...mostly.

Gods worshipped by humans will do little more than leave omens to their priests, and only via methods that are usually not accessible to player clerics.

Most Dwarves practice Ancestor Worship, and Ancestral Spirits can manifest near their icons, but their ability to do more than talk is limited.

There's a group of ancient dragons competing to ascend to godhood, and they are definitely physically present, but aside from a few special gifts from Tiamat/Bahamut, they're just really old powerful dragons.

I've handwaived Divine magic as the result of meditation and purification rituals that anyone can do with extensive training, so even clerical magic isn't necessary proof of a god's existence.

[Digitalelf]

For the most part, the various deities, gods, and powers are never directly involved in my campaigns.

That being said...

In one of my current campaigns, I am running Planescape. And in the last adventure, the characters had to rescue an NPC directly from Hades (the realm, not the god). In order to this, they had to state their case (as to why this NPC did not belong there) directly to both Hades (the god), and to his wife Persephone. This adventure also had them interact with the god Apollo and one of his sons.

This was an "official" adventure from one of the Planescape boxed sets.

Having successfully rescued the NPC, the characters are just about to enter the city of Brightwater, which is the realm shared by three different deities from the Forgotten Realms... Though the characters probably won't be meeting, seeing, or interacting with any of them (unless they do something utterly and totally foolish). :smallamused:

[Milo v3]

Gods are pretty present in my most frequent setting, with most divine casters getting their magic under personal tutelage from their deity.

[Misereor]

If you've got deities in your game, how do they interact with the PCs? Is there direct communication? Signs and portents? The occasional divine intervention? How do the gods affect the day-to-day of your campaign?

Short version:
Indirectly.


TL:DR version:
A little preface to help understand.
I mostly stay with the Forgotten Realms. In my cosmology, the first Gods were primordials who discovered how to feed on faith energy. Sometime said faith energy was tied directly to the individual being worshipped, but later it would more often be connected to manifestations of the kind of being the Primordial being worshipped was. Eventually metaphysical principles would be the focus of faith energy, and these then became portfolios which the Gods have been squabbling over ever since. During this process, other Primordials were concerned that the nature of those with worshippers was becoming twisted, and that they were turning into something else. Add the Obyriths, and you get the Dawn War, and add other beings than primordials who discover this process and you get the younger generations of gods.

Example:

At the dawn of time, Lotas the Storm Elemental is born as early Reality takes form from the Primal Chaos. He eventually becomes big enough to be considered a Primordial.
Some time later, tiny mortals start worshipping Lotas directly, and over time he is able to tap into the faith energy this generates, making him stronger and giving him new powers.
Eventually Lotas discovers that he can claim all the faith energy connected with Storms, and he becomes much stronger. Storms are now his portfolio and he becomes a God of Storms.
Even later, an ascended Djinn is able to kill Lotas and steal his power and worshippers. Not being very original, the Djinn renames herself Talos, but is nevertheless smart enough to eventually be able to claim the entire portfolio of the idea of "Destruction" as her own.
She is not a Storm Elemental, but nevertheless keeps the portfolio of storms. The act of mortals mentally connecting storms with Talos makes it her portfolio, and eventually cause her to change sex, because her worshippers also happen to be from a male dominated culture, where storms and destruction are associated with maleness. Over the ages her manifestations will change age, height, color, and number of eyes and arms. Sometimes she even appears differently in different regions, depending on how differently her worshippers perceive her. Certain nomads call her Teylas the Sky God, while others call her Kozah the Sun god, because their idea of storms and destruction differ. If their ideas differ too much, they can eventually cause a paradox causing Talos to split into several new gods or even become an entirely new god. (Certain "pure" Primordials who didn't want to become gods, realized early on that this could cause mortals to remake Primordials in their own image, which was one reason for the Dawn War. The idea was terrifying to them.)
Talos figures out that convincing mortals to change their minds is a much more efficient way to steal portfolios and gain power than direct combat. Also, fanatic worshippers generate more faith energy (as a general rule), so certain gods encourage this in various ways, whether via Human sacrifice or overzealous Paladins.


One lesson the Gods learned from the Dawn War is that when they manifest on the Prime Material, it tends to cause too much collateral damage to things they care about (more of a tacit agreement than a rule). Even CE gods get annoyed when their worshippers die in droves and deprive them of precious faith energy. Instead they mostly rely on mortal agents.

So mostly they work through their faith hierarchies, and mostly they keep things civilized in order to keep conflicts from escalating. If nothing else, the Time of Troubles was a reminder to newer and younger Gods why things are usually done a certain way. They often grant signs, but mostly in connection with established worship of larger groups on (un)holy days (costs divine energy, dont you know). Individuals working for the faith, which may include low level adventurers, are occasionally granted bonus spells or blessings in connection with quests, buuuut it's mostly low level stuff and mostly for effect. It's much easier to get your church hierarchy to make some potions and scrolls and hand them out.

And of course there are always exceptions to the rules, though players are unlikely to encounter them unless as part of The Plot.

[Leo_0210]

For me it depends on the campaign. I've had them where the gods will have conversations with their "chosen cleric" and others where they pay them little mind unless they go against the principles of the god.

When behind the screen I tend to follow, what i consider to be, the norm. Most low level clerics will never speak to their god directly, and may never even hear from the heavenly host; however the clerics of advanced knowledge (read levels) can call upon their deities to ask for favors or even intervention as it is an outward expression of their inner faith. As they grow in power their connection/relationship to the deity grows, some to the point that they could be appointed as heralds or hosts themselves.