Handling gods.

[Hyena]

Guys and gals, this is my eternal problem.
I HATE gods. Okay, let me clarify this - I hate having gods in my games, no matter if I DM or play. The problem I have with them is that...
1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.
2) If they exist, but don't act, why pray to those gods in the first place? They can't protect you, they don't hit stuff with bolts of divine retribution, and the only proof of their actual existance are clerics, who may as well be armored wizards for all people know. In fact, wizards can be revered as gods in flesh - they actually do rain fire on people and can call lightning from the sky.
3) If they don't exist, we don't have clerics, paladins, favoured souls and avengers, which sucks.

How do YOU handle gods in your games?

[Tvtyrant]

Guys and gals, this is my eternal problem.
I HATE gods. Okay, let me clarify this - I hate having gods in my games, no matter if I DM or play. The problem I have with them is that...
1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.
2) If they exist, but don't act, why pray to those gods in the first place? They can't protect you, they don't hit stuff with bolts of divine retribution, and the only proof of their actual existance are clerics, who may as well be armored wizards for all people know. In fact, wizards can be revered as gods in flesh - they actually do rain fire on people and can call lightning from the sky.
3) If they don't exist, we don't have clerics, paladins, favoured souls and avengers, which sucks.

How do YOU handle gods in your games?

In my current campaign the gods are sealed off from the world and can only affect it though their divine casting worshipers. It is an E6 campaign so there are not spells like Planeshift, and thus the actual existence of gods is in question. People who worship them get swanky powers, but you cannot talk to them and they don't appear as flaming avatars of ultimate justice.

There are quasi-deities that can be contacted by forbidden rituals found on artifact scrolls, and they offer services in return for dread sacrifices. One of them requires human sacrifices, in return for which it transforms the supplicant into a Vampire or Lich.

[Madfellow]

Scenario 1: They exist and act.
The gods do act, but most of the time it is against each other. Either they act directly against each other on the outer planes, which nobody on the material plane sees, or they act indirectly against each other through agents like outsiders or worshippers. They don't have the time or the energy to waste on puny mortal affairs, so praying for a god to smite your enemy probably won't work, hence the need to hire out adventurers instead.

Scenario 2: They exist but don't act.
People worship them for the same reason people in the real world worship--it fulfills a psychological and sociological need. Plus, the particularly devout get cool powers from their faith. People can tell the difference between divine and arcane casters by a couple of distinct markers, like the presence of armor, weapons, and holy symbols. On the other hand, some people actually DO worship wizards and sorcerers, voluntarily or otherwise.

Scenario 3: They don't exist.
In this scenario, you can still have divine casters because it specifically says in the Player's Handbook that divine casters can draw power purely from faith in their own beliefs--they don't actually need deities to grant their powers.

Scenario 4: The way I handle it.
I usually don't worry a whole lot about deities, except for how they might affect a region's geography. Which nations revere which deities, and how does their worship affect their society? I might put some thought into the deity of choice for an NPC, particularly if they're a divine caster.

Anyway, just some stuff to think about.

[Mando Knight]

The default assumption (as I understand it) is this: the gods exist, but have a complex noninterference pact with each other (and non-deities of similar power). Locked in a cosmic Cold War, they can empower representatives to enact their will, but direct intervention brings with it the threat of the conflict escalating to total war.

[Waar]

Depends on which in game religion is considered, but since there are more than one in the games i have been in the gods are obviously not omnipotent, how Active the gods are again depends on religion, but it is mostly thru empowering their devout followers and the occasional divine artifact,this is further enhanced by the fact that different religions grant different miracles/spells to their followers. The end result is a world where most people recognise the existance of gods, yet there are still some who doubt .

[BWR]

1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.

A lot of it is nuclear détante. Sure, they can nuke some guy they don't like, but chances are, there is a god who would try to stop you. Even if you got away with it, retaliation by interested parties could get out of hand. Suddenly, you're left with a smoking asteroid field that used to be a planet.
Also, you invest that much energy and effort into something like that, you weaken yourself. Then enemies will come at you personally while weakened.
In many settings, like Mystara and to a lesser extent Planescape, Powers have a non-interference pact regarding the Prime. In some cases they literally cannot manifest their entire power, and are thus restricted to avatars.

2) If they exist, but don't act, why pray to those gods in the first place? They can't protect you, they don't hit stuff with bolts of divine retribution, and the only proof of their actual existance are clerics, who may as well be armored wizards for all people know. In fact, wizards can be revered as gods in flesh - they actually do rain fire on people and can call lightning from the sky.

They do act. They give powers to clerics, send their chosen on missions to right wrongs all over the place, subtly play with mortals to advance their agenda. Just because ignorant people might not know the difference between
arcane and divine magic doesn't mean the practitioneres do not know; they are well aware of their limitations. The gods don't play adventurers anymore: they've moved beyond that. They generally don't break down the doors to the Iron City and beat up the biggest baatezu they can find. They are management. They are the high-ups in the spy game. There are minions and pawns. Some gods love their minions, some gods just think of them as useful tools.
Gods are rulers, and their job is to manage their estate. They don't have the luxury of poncing about nuking people they don't like right and left because they have to worry about the big picture. Taking out lesser enemies is what you have special forces (PCs) for.

3) If they don't exist, we don't have clerics, paladins, favoured souls and avengers, which sucks.

Take a look at the old "Complete Priest's Handbook". There are rules for running divine classes off philosophies rather than gods. In short, their dedication to a certain philosophy, a certain cause, empowers such characters rather than getting them from divine beings.

How do YOU handle gods in your games?

Gods are there. It's a part of the fabric of the game.
In settings like Dragonlance it would be almost inconceivable to divorce the gods from the world. Half the stories written about it would never occur if not for the machinations of the gods. Heck, the gods threw a damn meteor on the planet when mortals were getting uppity.
And then you have things like Forgotten Realms' Time of Troubles (less said about that the better).

There are settings, like Dark Sun, where gods don't exist. What divine casters there are either get their power from Sorcerer-Kings (advanced, nasty evil buggers) or elemental priests, which basically just worship an element.

Right now I'm running a Mystara campaign, and there are rules for advancing to Immortal (god), and even hints on how to run stories for Immortals. The setting really sets up that becoming a god is the final step in your development as a hero. Immortals exist, they have their own agenda (as my players have experienced). Some are petty, some are magnanimous, some have immediate, focused goals, some have long-term goals and don't really care about mortals one way or the other.

[Zahhak]

An additional problem is the afterlife. If you know the afterlife exists, and that which one you go to is dependent on your alignment (or in universe, your actions), why does evil exist? All of the evil afterlives in the core DND world suck balls, so everyone would seemingly be plowing through their entire lives with the sole goal in mind of getting into the best afterlife. There would seemingly be no consciously evil creatures, because being one gets you sent to Carceri, and who actually wants that? You cannot even pull the whole "there is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to take it" route, because you know what is going to happen to you if are a **** to people: The Gray Waste!

[Madfellow]

Yeah, I'd say the afterlife problem is worse than the deities one. I think most evil characters in such settings either don't believe themselves to be evil, don't believe that the evil-aligned planes are as bad as people say they are, or just don't care.

[Hyena]

Thank you, everybody, you provided really good and diverse posts.

I think most evil characters in such settings either don't believe themselves to be evil, don't believe that the evil-aligned planes are as bad as people say they are, or just don't care.

Or they don't really care if there is a specially reserved place in hell for tham or not, because they plan on living forever. Or level grind until they can learn/afford planeshift and travel to Arcadia.

[Scow2]

Guys and gals, this is my eternal problem.
I HATE gods. Okay, let me clarify this - I hate having gods in my games, no matter if I DM or play. The problem I have with them is that...
1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.

And yet, Greek Mythology is the largest source of D&D-style adventurers and high adventure until the 1920's. Try keeping your deities in line with the abilities seen and demonstrated by the Greek Gods instead of making them Omnipotent instead, to get a better scale for them. The deities in D&D aren't entirely omnipotent nor optimised for a reason.

[Hyena]

Well, I don't have a problem with greek gods, because they don't want to actually influence the world - they don't have a reason to. They are a bunch of jerks and bullies, who already have everything they want, so they don't protect anyone or punish anyone except those, who pissed them off personally.

[Glimbur]

An additional problem is the afterlife. If you know the afterlife exists, and that which one you go to is dependent on your alignment (or in universe, your actions), why does evil exist? All of the evil afterlives in the core DND world suck balls, so everyone would seemingly be plowing through their entire lives with the sole goal in mind of getting into the best afterlife. There would seemingly be no consciously evil creatures, because being one gets you sent to Carceri, and who actually wants that? You cannot even pull the whole "there is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to take it" route, because you know what is going to happen to you if are a **** to people: The Gray Waste!

[evil]Right, most chumps who go to Hell are sad forever. But not me. Within a year I'll be ruling it.[/evil]

Alternately, people are not always good at weighing long term costs appropriately. Have you ever eaten another piece of cake even though you'll get a stomach ache/are trying to lose weight? It's a similar idea.

[Fighter1000]

In my setting that I created, there is a Middle Realm, where (you guessed it) all the mortals live. The very definition of a mortal is someone who was born in the Middle Realm. Whenever any mortal (good, evil, or neutral) dies, their soul goes to an outer realm known as Tirithos, where they sleep forever (or until resurrected). There are six deities, all of whom are brothers and sisters and equal in power. These deities made a pact with each other, that none of them shall personally walk the Middle Realm, lest it be torn apart by pure power. So instead, the deities seek to control the Middle Realm using their servants. The deities can communicate across the Middle Realm's barrier, as well as power divine spells cast by clerics, paladins, etc.
But there is one way the pact can be broken: There are six Amulets, one for each deity. They are all scattered across the Middle Realm, but if someone were to gather them all together and perform a ritual ceremony, then one of the deities would be summoned to the Middle Realm.
Why do the deities care about the Middle Realm so much? Because it is the Realm most responsive to change, and most interesting of the realms.
There's really nothing more I can say on the subject.

[Slipperychicken]

1. Gods exist and act, but they're too busy enjoying themselves. They elect champions because they want to spend time enjoying their godly powers, not doing all this soul-crushing humorless work. It's the mortals world, let them clean up their own messes.

----- 1a. Gods aren't allowed to screw with mortals directly because of an agreement made so they don't fight as much.

----- 1b. Gods don't have the time. They have big important godly business to do, like making sure the rains come on time, keeping your crops plentiful, and ensuring destiny stays on track.

----- 1c. Not to mention interplanar things like conflicts, having other cosmic entities over for dinner, cleaning up too-powerful Liches, stabbing overconfident demons, keeping the Far Realms from doing too much damage, throwing surprise birthday parties for Zeus, and so on.

----- 1d. They have infinite material planes to deal with, and only so many actions. They literally can't possibly have the time to deal with your little problems.

2. Granting spells to the faithful is the help. They don't need (or want) to babysit you all day, so they just give you the tools to do your own saving.

----- 2a. Sending angels and artifacts down to help you is a step in-between "screw you" and "I'm coming down there". Things like that.

3. In D&D, they usually do exist.

[kieza]

In my setting, the world the character live on is not the only one that the gods made. When the gods finished making the world, they put measures in place to empower their worshippers, and moved on to create life elsewhere.

(Spoiler for length and weirdness)

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Actually, that's the story according to the major religions in the setting. It's accurate as far as it goes, but the truth is a bit more complicated. The "gods" are the last surviving members of the first intelligent species in the universe. Long ago (we're talking billions of years, here), this species developed advanced magic and technology, and at the pinnacle of their civilization they unlocked the deepest secrets of the soul.

Then they encountered the Far Realm. All but a tiny percentage of the population died or was warped into inhuman aberrations. Those who survived only did so by uploading their souls into what are effectively magitech computers. The uploads had enough resistance to Far Realm taint to fight back, and they defeated the main incursion--by collapsing the suns of infected systems into black holes.

There are still minor incursions going on across the universe, and even the uploads aren't invincible: they are slowly dying out as they take losses in battle. As ghosts in the machine, they cannot reproduce, and even cloning doesn't work; the uploads' magitech is intricately linked to the user's soul, and the clones have underdeveloped souls--throwbacks to their genetic ancestors--incompatible with the weapons needed to combat the Far Realm.

Unable to simply engineer reinforcements, the uploads are now seeding life on every vaguely-inhabitable world they can find. Their hope is to recreate the conditions, over millions of years, that contributed to their own evolution. If they can do this, they hope that the resulting species will have sufficiently developed souls to take up their fight.

The upload gods know that they are in a race against time; they do not have time to stay around after seeding a world to ensure that everything develops according to plan. They leave observers behind, to subtly guide mortal progress towards more desirable outcomes and maintain the experimental parameters, but based on the unfavorable results from their earliest-seeded worlds, they believe that overt intervention impairs the development of the soul structure they are looking for. Thus, they strictly limit their involvement: on the world of this setting, they are observing the impact of religion, and have given themselves the trappings of gods. Unknown to the clergy, divine magic comes not from faith or from the intervention of the gods, but from a titanic engine buried beneath the crust of the world, which hears and responds to prayers according to predefined responses.

[Kelb_Panthera]

An additional problem is the afterlife. If you know the afterlife exists, and that which one you go to is dependent on your alignment (or in universe, your actions), why does evil exist? All of the evil afterlives in the core DND world suck balls, so everyone would seemingly be plowing through their entire lives with the sole goal in mind of getting into the best afterlife. There would seemingly be no consciously evil creatures, because being one gets you sent to Carceri, and who actually wants that? You cannot even pull the whole "there is no good and evil, only power and those too weak to take it" route, because you know what is going to happen to you if are a **** to people: The Gray Waste!

Just because a select few people can travel to a place that has angels/demons and outsiders claiming to be the souls of the dead doesn't mean that what happens when you die is taken as a fact.

Forgive me for getting a bit D&D 3.5 specific here.

Neither a wizard nor cleric can even -look- into the outer planes before 7th level. Characters of these classes (at any level) make up less than 1% of the total population. Summon monster doesn't conjure up intelligent, speech-capable creatures until similar levels.

Over 99% of the population will -never- see so much as an extraplanar creature capable of saying its from one of the upper/lower planes. Actually leaving the material (not counting blinking into the ethereal) is even higher level magic.

With this in mind, now realize that wizards typically have very little interest in educating the masses and clerics have a vested interest in painting their religion in the best possible light often, especially in the case of evil churches, by deliberately denying or contradicting what's said by adherents of rival faiths.

Joe dirtfarmer will most often hear something to the effect of the evil priest, not cleric but priest, telling him the good priest is full of crap while the good priest says the same about him; neither of them having any direct knowledge of the subject but only telling you what they heard from a higher ranking priest (actually a cleric) who, depending on level, may actually be repeating what he heard from an even higher ranking priest.

Meanwhile the wizard's telling him he shouldn't listen to either of those idiotic zealots because they're as bad as politicians when it comes to putting the unmitigated truth out there.

All this adds up to the fact that Joe Dirt-farmer doesn't have any better idea what happens after he dies than anyone alive in the real world and has to take it on faith.

[Man on Fire]

Guys and gals, this is my eternal problem.
I HATE gods. Okay, let me clarify this - I hate having gods in my games, no matter if I DM or play. The problem I have with them is that...
1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.
2) If they exist, but don't act, why pray to those gods in the first place? They can't protect you, they don't hit stuff with bolts of divine retribution, and the only proof of their actual existance are clerics, who may as well be armored wizards for all people know. In fact, wizards can be revered as gods in flesh - they actually do rain fire on people and can call lightning from the sky.
3) If they don't exist, we don't have clerics, paladins, favoured souls and avengers, which sucks.

Steal from the classics:

1) Too powerful
David Eddings in Belgaraid and it's sequel had made it that two main gods of the setting must work using their pawns and servants, because are so incredibly powerful that if they would directly interfeere in the world, they would completely annihilate it, as they cannot control their own power. From perspective of gods like that going against guy like Vecna is like dropping a nuke on an ant-hill - not really worth the coraterall damage.

2) Forbidden
In Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry Weaver, lord of all gods, had forbiden for other gods to directly interfere in the matters of mortals, unless mortals shall undergo specific rituals. That involves even fighting Raknoth Marugrim, the Unraverel, god of evil so vile that he spawned his shadows over entire multiverse. In each book we had one example of this:

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In first book one of the gods cannot stop the dry season until one of the characters undergo his test, which almost gets him killed. In second book another character sacrifices himself so a godess can undo endless winter caused by Raknoth. In third book we have godess who violates this law to save man she loves and she makes it clear punishment she shall recive for this will be horrible.

Gods like this in a setting would want to help, but until specific ritual and sacrifice will be made, they could only grant spells and sometimes use their pawns.

3)Playing the long game

In Roger Zelazny's Chronolicles of Amber series Patter/Unicorn and Lorgus/Snake are two primal "gods" representing Order and Chaos, that oppose one another. They grant specific powers to lines of their descedants - ruling class of Amber and Courts of Chaos respectively - but are interested only in controlling the multiverse or rather

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The bizarre realms of shadows that exist between the dimensions

They do interfeere but only to advance their goals. guy like Vecna can murder people right and left and they wouldn't do nothing until one could see the opportunity to score a hit against another. They also won't interfeere if the threat of retribution fro mthe other one is too high, and they also have some rules and rituals they must follow.

How do YOU handle gods in your games?

In my games there are no gods, but rather 10 virtues and 10 passions. They aren't dieties, they aren't even setient, they aren't even beings. They are power of belief in some specific value over all the others, as the most important one in life. Clerics and Paladins and Oracles are powered up by accumulated belief in their value, be it Honor, Hate, Compassion or Jealousy.
While Virtues are generally what you would save to be "good" ones and Passions you would call "bad", they're representing two sides of natural order - Virtues are what makes us build the society and Passions led us to destroying it, but destruction is necessary so society won't become stagnant.

The only real traditional god is Auntie Deth and she only cares if dead stay dead and sends her servants to kill anybody who gets themselves ressurected and nobody worships her.

There is also one thing that is purerly lovecraftian in anture and big bads of the setting drain their power fro it, only they steal it because the thing is living mind trapped in dead body, and they siphon it for energy.

[Tantaburs]

In many cases Gods can't just rain fire down on evil.

Take for instance devils. In the front of the fiendish codex 2 there is a great write-up on the pact primeval. Gods are not allowed to attack the Lord's of hell in Baator or the minor devils on earth as this would be in violation of the Pact Primeval. They could attack the demon lords but that is the job of the devil's it is why they exist.

So instead of Pelor coming down to the lower plane and kicking some devil ass he empowered his clerics to fight in his stead. He gives power to Paladins to strike down evil.

It is also far safer for you to do it. Pelor is invincible he can be killed if he went and tried to eliminate the Lord's of he'll there is no guarantee that he would survive

[Alleran]

Pelor is invincible he can be killed if he went and tried to eliminate the Lord's of he'll there is no guarantee that he would survive

*coughBurningHatecough*

Anyway.

I usually treat divine interference as something where if the god did it right (which they usually do, being gods), then you're never going to realise that they did anything at all. I also treat gods themselves as not just "super-immortal-humans" but as constructs through which you perceive and define both reality and the universe. Sort of like how Feist wrote about his gods in I think the third book of the Serpentwar trilogy, or the Endless from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

That said, in one campaign I ran the players did encounter deities twice. The first time it was Bahamut, and they only realised it about three months after the fact because somebody was going back through notes and records and realised that the kindly old Odin-expy (as in, he looked like Odin does in his hat and cloak) had a dragon-shadow that looked like no dragon they'd ever had described to them. The second time it was because they were wandering through a wilderness area that nobody seemed to have ever been before, and they saw the god of travelers and explorers, always just out of the corner of their eye. Like a glimpse of something seen through the trees, but never a full look, because they were doing something that inspired his appearance to them.

[Zahhak]

[evil]Right, most chumps who go to Hell are sad forever. But not me. Within a year I'll be ruling it.[/evil]

That'll work for the insane "I'm evil because I'm evil, watch me as I bathe in the blood of babies" characters, but not the usual evil: robbers, assassins, etc.

Kelb_Panthera, I won't respond to you because my response includes references to the real world that may get me in trouble, so I'll just ignore you.

[Sajiri]

Its not a game, but in the novel I'm working on (that I might make a setting out of someday) the gods in it aren't what you'd normally expect gods to be (although mortals view them that way).

They were the first race in existence, in essence they were mortals too once, and the younger races started to worship them as the gods. To make it short...the gods decided they liked this. What should have been an older/younger sibling type relationship became a master/servant one. After a rebellion in the history with one younger race (which was defeated) the gods decided to put a 'limit' on the world (the reasons were more complicated than this, but eh). They made it so mortals lived shorter lives and were weaker, meanwhile they retreated to a seperate plane so they aren't affected by their own limit. It was a selfish reason, they wanted to remain in control (although they still do take care of the mortals) and now use their own servants (clerics) to do their business in the mortal world, since they will be severely weakened in power if they go there.

In fact, the big plot is that they're intending to wipe life and put an even stricter limit on the mortals which one character knows about and wants to stop.

I dont know, just some different perspectives?

[Falconer]

I handle gods in the style of Eberron--divine magic definitely exists, but gods themselves (and the nature of those gods) are a lot more open for debate. Strictly speaking, divine magic may well be exactly the same as arcane, merely expressed and used through meditation and willpower rather than through knowledge. The ambiguity allows for a lot more versatility in terms of setting and storytelling, if you ask me, both in terms of individual characters (good clerics of evil sects, evil clerics of good sects, etc.) and the kinds of religion that exist in a given setting--which I feel is an often-neglected aspect of world building.

[NichG]

Often there aren't really any gods in my campaigns, and divine magic is refluffed somehow. That said, I do occasionally run Planescape, in which case I handle the gods in the following way:

The multiverse is freaking big, and most gods have worshippers in multiple spheres. So Pelor doesn't save everyone on some prime world because he is constantly busy saving everyone on some other prime world. Or more likely, he's busy acting as the big powersource for a million clerics and so on, and if he were to leave his divine realm suddenly that magic would weaken on a scale similar to the Time of Troubles in Faerun. So he stays at home to avoid causing that kind of problem, and reaches out with his Proxies, who are powerful enough in their own stead to turn the tides of nation-scale events, as he needs to. Of course, he can only have a certain number of Proxies at a given time.

Beyond that, many of the smaller gods have very very specific interests and are busy aggressively defending those interests on the Planes, leaving the Prime to do whatever it will. Blildolpoolp, goddess of the sahaugin, is for example more interested in hiding from the mind flayer deity Ilsensine who she is convinced is trying to destroy her than in striding forth and drowing a few coastal cities. Ilsensine meanwhile is more interested in selfishly consuming knowledge. And its really the better tactic, since generally speaking when you do something big and flashy there's a dozen people who want to stop you and come by to give you a bad day.

At the same time, I tend to give gods big 'weak spots' that can be exploited by players or clever NPCs when I run them. The Sea Dragon King of the East auto-fails sense motive checks against flattery. Vecna is incapable of telling a person something they do not already know, and must accept a gift of knowledge he does not possess in exchange for sparing a person. Shar will refuse to manifest in a place without at least one natural shadow. Olidammara must allow a person to succeed if they attempt to trick him to the best of their ability, but will always perform a trick of his own choosing in return.

The idea here is, the gods are amplifications of ideas rather than just high-powered entities, and therefore exemplify both the upsides and fallacies of that idea. Furthermore, they have some degree of humanity in their personalities and make flawed decisions like anyone else (e.g. I interpret deific levels of mental stats mechanically rather than as dictates of some sort of perfected decision making. Vecna has a super-high Int, but it only serves him when he chooses to leverage it, which leaves him blind spots that can be exploited).

[Drakevarg]

My setting does gods in a number of different ways. There's the "True Gods," i.e., the sentient will of the various planes, but they're just so damn BIG that they scarcely notice mortals, and for the purposes of mortals they might as well not be self-aware, since it takes at LEAST a global-scale event to even get them to twitch.

Then there's the cultural gods, half of whom may very well be figures of folklore and not actually exist. Mostly objects of superstition that the common folk pray to for good fortune. Not as evidently functional as asking the local mage for help, but also less likely to set you on fire or bring down cosmic horrors from a poorly cast spell.

Finally there's the gods-in-all-but-name. Usually elder dragons, eldritch horrors, elemental spirits, old giants... powerful enough to find mortals little more than toys. Some of them might be cultural gods, others are just powerful beings that hang out in the cosmos somewhere. Their effect on the universe is... scattered, at best. Very few feel like playing with peasants, and the ones that do are rarely up to anything pleasant. Most exist on the fringes of the universe, dealing with problems much, much bigger than what mortals could make sense of.

[JusticeZero]

[evil]Right, most chumps who go to Hell are sad forever. But not me. Within a year I'll be ruling it.[/evil]

Alternately, the evil afterlives aren't actually unpleasant to people of the right mindset. I don't think it's strictly necessary that they be horrible and torturous places. Or it may be that specific gods can reserve specific afterlifes for their followers - so the evil gods can create a cushy little paradise for their dedicated followers.

[Jay R]

1) If gods exist and act, why we have adventurers, anyway? It's not like gods can't rain fire on Vecna or protect their holy city with a impenetrable wall. It's only logical for them to do so - in fact, in IRL mythology (like ancient greek one) gods actually do stuff like that, but they don't in the games, because the story is about mortals, not about gods.

Huh? Can you name *any* polytheistic mythology that doesn't also have heroes? Certainly the Greek gods were involved in (and started) the Trojan War, but it's still mostly about Achilleus, Oddysseus, Paris, Hector, and the other human heroes.

2) If they exist, but don't act, why pray to those gods in the first place?

Why by a lottery ticket if you know you will never win? Because there's a huge difference between "You will never win" and "you will rarely win". Similarly, there is a huge difference between "they exist, but don't act" and "they exist, but rarely act". Reasons for praying include:
1. To give them just praise.
2. Because they may or may not act.
3. Because you DON'T KNOW what causes disease.
4. Because they *do* act - at the very least, they give clerics spells.
5. Because they will only react once, when you die, to judge you.
etc.

How do YOU handle gods in your games?

As little as possible. There will be no divine intervention. No divine retribution except for paladins. Prayer might work, if I think it's an incredibly exceptional circumstance (which last came up in a game in 1977).

[Slipperychicken]

Prayer might work, if I think it's an incredibly exceptional circumstance (which last came up in a game in 1977).

The only people authorized to ask favors of the gods are 17th level Clerics, and even they burn XP for anything more powerful than an 8th level spell.

Even with spells, they only get a 100gp co-pay on material components.

And the deity can still turn them down for it.

[Jay R]

Prayer might work, if I think it's an incredibly exceptional circumstance (which last came up in a game in 1977).

The only people authorized to ask favors of the gods are 17th level Clerics, and even they burn XP for anything more powerful than an 8th level spell.

Even with spells, they only get a 100gp copay on costly material components.

And the deity can turn them down for it.

If you think it through carefully, you will realize that when I made that ruling in 1977, I was not able to look up the d20 source document on the Internet.

In fact, there's more than one version of D&D, and they aren't all controlled by the same rules. This was original D&D, which left all such decisions up to the DM.

In fact, the player who had his character pray to Diana to restore the PC's virginity had written a 30-line poem in proper dactylic hexameter like Homer used, which scanned correctly, used Diana's proper epithets and correct classical Greek cultural references, followed the Greek culture, prayed to the moon goddess under the full moon, and offered a correct sacrifice. Two lines of the poem were in Attic Greek (like Homer). He then rolled a 12 on a 2d6 reaction roll. That's the only time I allowed a divine intervention.

[Mr Beer]

In fact, the player who had his character pray to Diana to restore the PC's virginity had written a 30-line poem in proper dactylic hexameter like Homer used, which scanned correctly, used Diana's proper epithets and correct classical Greek cultural references, followed the Greek culture, prayed to the moon goddess under the full moon, and offered a correct sacrifice. Two lines of the poem were in Attic Greek (like Homer). He then rolled a 12 on a 2d6 reaction roll. That's the only time I allowed a divine intervention.

Seems fair to allow it under those circumstances. Would you have OK'd it if they had rolled an 11?

[Alleran]

In fact, the player who had his character pray to Diana to restore the PC's virginity had written a 30-line poem in proper dactylic hexameter like Homer used, which scanned correctly, used Diana's proper epithets and correct classical Greek cultural references, followed the Greek culture, prayed to the moon goddess under the full moon, and offered a correct sacrifice. Two lines of the poem were in Attic Greek (like Homer). He then rolled a 12 on a 2d6 reaction roll. That's the only time I allowed a divine intervention.

You mean Artemis.

Also, I like your player. I wish mine would do something that complex.