Quote Originally Posted by DRD1812 View Post
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:
  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.)
  6. 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.