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  1. - Top - End - #31
    Librarian in the Playground Moderator
     
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    They only care about quarterly prophets.
    Their lower/middle management is all white collar.

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  2. - Top - End - #32
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    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.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.
    "You want to see how a Human dies? at ramming speed."

  4. - Top - End - #34
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

  6. - Top - End - #36
    Orc in the Playground
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

  7. - Top - End - #37
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.)

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

  8. - Top - End - #38
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sporeegg View Post
    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.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Zelphas View Post
    So here I am, trapped in my laboratory, trying to create a Mechabeast that's powerful enough to take down the howling horde outside my door, but also won't join them once it realizes what I've done...twentieth time's the charm, right?
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    How about a Jovian Uplift stuck in a Case morph? it makes so little sense.

  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Sinewmire View Post
    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.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

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  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Knaight View Post
    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.
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  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    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.

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hall View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Nifft View Post
    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.
    I would really like to see a game made by Obryn, Kurald Galain, and Knaight from these forums.

    I'm not joking one bit. I would buy the hell out of that.
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  14. - Top - End - #44
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    GnomeWizardGuy

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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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).
    Last edited by Digitalelf; 2018-08-09 at 03:03 PM.
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    Gods are pretty present in my most frequent setting, with most divine casters getting their magic under personal tutelage from their deity.
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  17. - Top - End - #47
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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.
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  18. - Top - End - #48
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    OldWizardGuy

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    Default Re: How "present" are the gods in your game?

    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.

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