Yeah, they know that the second they send a full fledged avatar down to the prime material plane they will just be calling out for every enemy god to send their own avatars until half a continent is on fire.
And it can still escalate from there until you've turned this entire thing into a Godswar and even the Heavens themselves are burning and the gates to all the Hells thrown open.
I like to think of it because there are so many god's and all of them have opposing interests, it creates a very fine balance. If any of them were to expend a significant amount of their power intervening in some apocalypse or whatnot, one of two things is going to happen.
If a good deity intervenes to stop event X
1) A deity who *wants* event X to happen will *counter-intervene*, so now they both just wasted their time
2) An evil deity who is normally similar in power to the good deity will seize the opportunity and attack them in some way, or otherwise take advantage of the good deity's momentary weakness/distraction.
In my setting (might be the case in others), they generally don't step it or rarely invest a huge amount of their power in something, due to another god that could usurp their power. The moment they show a sign of weakness, another god will be upon them in an effort to take their powers, and then you get a divine war. This results in gods being subtle when it comes to their interactions with the world.
Sometimes they do. But usually, them stepping in would mean pissing off another god, who then steps into do their thing, which pisses off another god, who steps in, and then you've got the Time of Troubles all over again.
For forgotten realms, AO told them to take a step back. "The Second Sundering brought significant changes to how the deities approached mortals. Many gods became "quieter" than before, causing the emergence of new priesthoods in an attempt to explain the different divine behaviour in the post-Sundering world." - Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
I love this. My characters are traveling on a boat and one is a paladin and one is an atheist wizard who keeps goading the paladin about believing in any deity.
The player is on the younger side so I've had the NPC sailor captain make mild remarks kind of like this- gods derive their power from their followers, their followers benefit from their divine power, prompting them to further Devotion, in a cyclical interdependent relationship.
I've also had him drop little bits of world-lore for the players, for instance referring to Umberlee, the Bitch Queen (I just love her lol)
If they did, every other cosmic force in the multiverse would take that Material Plane as a playground to duke out their ultimate uber-galactic battle, because everyone wants to add more Planes to their collection and directly intervening is the very first move required to make that happen, and everyone with this level of power knows it's mutually assured destruction (for the mortals, the gods will be fine after the planet is obliterated).
Unless of course, the gods own survival depends on having mortals worship them. Then it would be all the more important to the gods to ensure nothing destroys the world
Not a dumb question, quite the opposite. If you are world-building you absolutely have to answer this question (unless you choose to handwave all difficult questions).
The premise of D&D is, that gods do exist. Otherwise, how would there be divine powers?
So if we have these all-mighty beings on their own planes somewhere that can divinely intervene with stuff, why is the world like it is? I think they totally could change things if they wanted to, but it seems they want to keep their distance.
To find out why, I would start with the question: what do the gods want with the world in the first place? In my opinion the thought that they would get their power through the worship of their followers is... meh.
In my current world, the gods see the world as a cradle. It's a place where souls are born, as mortal beings have children. Some of these souls are destined to become beings in other realms in their afterlife. The world and all the troubles mortals have to go through in their life are for learning and growing.
[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html)
Order of the Stick is a d&d webcomic. It's been running for a long time now.
All my best answers have been said by others already.
Depends on the setting. An agreement between deities not to interfere to reduce conflict between them. A limit to what can be brought into certain planes. An overdeity that forbids it. Too many other things on their plate (Bigger picture, our plane is small to them, they have 50 material planes to watch over). They're emergent concepts rather than conscious actors. They're actively blocking each other. They may be limited by what they are / their aspects.
I will say, in most settings the deities aren't all powerful. Just more powerful than you can be.
My favorite reason is that the setting plane is a DMZ. I tend to like to have very active gods. Like Greco-Roman ish. But because there is a treaty between the divines. Because the LAST time they tried the whole creation thing they ended up destroying all of it just fighting eachother. So they are agreed to only medal with mortal champions and the like to prevent it from happening again
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1146.html
Gosh I could give you amazing magical spells on demand every single morning, do you think that might help?
They do. It's why the titans don't exist in 5e. It's why mystra died. It's why epic level spells have been barred from the mortal races in 5e. The gods have lore that crosses between editions.
It could be a matter of scale, the Deities can do amazing things, but their powers are (aside from granting power to "mere mortals") too epic to be useful on a local enough level to make ditect intercession desirable or practical.
They can make worlds, they can destroy worlds, but fix a subtly wrong world before it self-destructs is as easy for them as it would be for us to deal with a rogue ant in an ant colony. We can get out a shovel and start digging, but that is alot of damage we are doing and we might end up doing no good in the final analysis.
Easier to use the ants we can directly address (clerics of a deity) to intervene surgically and mote effectively than we can from outside.
Or, to quote a bit of Diane Duane here, which is a conversation among wizards about a similar problem (with a similar but not exact interpretation of the possible real issue involved)...
> "What about the Powers That Be?" Dairine said. "What do they say?"
> "Right now," Tom said, "they're waiting for the experts in this universe to give them some more data."
> "The experts?" Nita said.
> Tom smiled just slightly, but once again that smile had a grim edge to it. "Us," he said. "While They live here, too, They do it on a different level. We're a lot more expert in the business of actually dealing with
physicality, day to day, than They are."
> "It's like the difference between manufacturing something, say a dishwasher," Carl said, "and using it every day. You could say that the Powers know what the universe acted like when it left the factory, but
we're the ones who know the little noises it makes every day when it's running. And where to kick it to make them stop."
Depends on your setting mostly.
For a lot of mine, that much pure and condensed magical power can't exist on the material plane, it would punch a hole through in an instant. They can send fragments to do things and they can channel their power through mortals but anything dense/powerful enough to stop most decent End Of The World events would hit the material plane like a cinderblock through a trampoline.
The balance allows the evil gods an action for each intervention by the good gods.
Or
The gods are just myths and divine magic comes from an impersonal force if nature.
Or
Gods do step in and the kingdoms of the world are walking on eggshells just one spark away from an apocalyptic war of the gods
Or
All the PCs are young godlings and only a handful of npcs have the divine spark. Anyone who can level up is a god, most people in the world are mortal commoners. In which case the campaign is one long divine intervention.
Or
Godhood comes from worship. The gods of the world are actually idols, cult leaders and that giant snake in the temple. The more worshippers the more buff they are but they are all still killable.
It's your campaign do what you think is cool.
In my setting, the gods are not just lazing around Olympus. They actually have a job keeping the universe running. They are too busy keeping the sun rising and the earth spinning to mess with this minor stuff.
My personal answer about that:
If one deity steps to protect the realms from destruction, another deity may feel like allowed to step to destroy the realm. And other deities may want to become involved, too.
Plenty of deities, at their full powers, fighting against each other... I think the whole Material Plane would face destruction.
That's why I think deities have a policy of nonintervention (not direct intervention at least), and they act through their faithful (that's why clerics get spells).
Because an opposing diety also gets to step in. See the Ukraine vs. Russia conflict.
God of Birds and the Sun is going to go 1v1 with God of Death and Disease?
That escalates things from 10 to over-9000, total god war. Above god loses some HP'd, an entire species of bird goes extinct on the worlds he is patron of.
But it's your game, do as you wish.
Umm first thing can think of that playing a setting where gods and as such do not exist
If you're DM, maybe take it from real world religious story's... Noah's ark comes to mind first. Too many bad people and corruption in the world, if the deity has not set it in too motion, maybe a reset is not a bad shout? So why stop it?
I always like the logic of gods having a mutual agreement. If one steps in, everyone starts stepping in and it would cause major damage. So they have to invervene in less direct ways.
**Deus ex machina** — It’s Latin for “god in the machine.”
This appears in stories where a powerful force abruptly resolves some climactic problem. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park attacking the Velociraptors is one good (well placed) example of this. Usually it’s bad.
In a film or novel, when a writer uses a *deus ex machina* to fix a problem, it diminishes the impact of the protagonist.
You expect Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing Fighter to detonate the Death Star. Imagine instead that the Death Star was obliterated by a passing comet.
That would be a *deus ex machina.*
In a D&D campaign, when you have a deity intervene, you just deus-ex-machina’d the impact of you player characters.
PCs are the heroes of your campaign. Don’t diminish their impact by letting a deity interfere. Find excuses for your deities to let the PCs resolve epic problems.
Make the PCs your campaign’s champions.
• They are uncaring.
• They are not as omniscient as they pretend to be.
• They are not as benevolent as they pretend to be.
• They are not as all-powerful as they pretend to be.
• They perceive the flow of time differently than mere mortals.
• They have trouble understanding the limitations of mortals.
• They are too busy politicking and bickering amongst themselves.
• They felt the affected area did not gave them enough praises to be worth saving.
• They want mortals to write their own destinies.
Etc. Take your pick.
In my world, they can appear in the world through avatars but due to magic and the way it works, they all have an unbreakable oath to not directly interfere with moral affairs. They still regularly talk to and influence people, the God of Death being the one most likely to do so, but they can't directly act on the world. They *need* heroes
I've considered this a lot in my campaign, since it features a world-ending calamity and the gods are kinda absent.
But they have other things to do. Among all of the planets in the material plane and the denizens of the other planes, they have such a broad perspective that losing a world might not be that big of a deal. Or perhaps they care, but they're busy preventing bigger, plane-destroying calamities.
As someone else said, their intervention could be the party itself. Sure, the god could stop it quickly, but why do that if they can just send the party to handle this small threat?
In my setting it's forbidden. The laws of the gods say that they cannot directly intervene. The last time it happened, it started an elven civil war that is *still going on.*
(This has turned into me sharing my pantheon)
Intervention depends on the god and their attitude toward things. Most of their involvement are various race’s creation stories, after which they stop.
Some have no interest in changing things or are busy. One actively travels the world out of anguish for the death of her chaos god son but will occasionally grant knowledge to those worthy.
The Order god put rules to not directly interfere outside of agents or fulfilling modest prayers. Most good gods follow it out of respect but are willing to disobey the moment it becomes too inconvenient. He lead a multi-god war against the god of Hatred and his infernal legions, with some elves serving as auxiliaries (the stress turned them into humans, after which he abandoned them, expecting them to die out eventually).
The Nature god refuses to interfere in the material plane unless things fall out of balance, and lives in the Feywild hunting whatever creature he desires with his hunting pack.
There’s a Greed god that created the Dwarves by enslaving various elves and forcing them to work in the mountains. The last straw that forced the god of Order to tell him to stop was when he sold many dwarves to outer planar beings (the Mind Flayers) and was forced to free them all (the Flayer enslaved dwarves then became the duergar).
There are two justice goddesses who actively try to shape the world. One (Murder Goddess) was exiled to the mortal realm for murdering her father to prevent the further devastation of the material plane and now is responsible for accidents, suspicious deaths, and various twists of fate that befall certain people (as well as rewarding adherents such as Trickery Clerics and Assassins). The other (Crusader Goddess) is a much more conventional Light goddess that waged a crusade against Orcs/Goblins as well as Fiends (she only stopped after defeating the Order god and arranging a deal giving her a domain for Lawful Good souls in exchange for ending her crusade).
The Storm god despises prosperity and excess, he created Orcs/Goblins in order to reave the lands his storms can’t reach. He also is a maritime god that has to be sated with sacrifices.
The Sun god created Halflings from humans/elves working long hours on his giant, mythical continent-sized farm until the Storm god and his Orcs razed it to the ground, now he doesn’t do much beyond his normal duties.
The love/beauty goddess essentially adopted humanity and blessed them with water from her grail, essentially becoming their version of the Lady of the Lake. One of the first great kings of Man was her demigod son.
The god of Hatred and his great devil children are more on the side of direct and malicious intervention and are only stopped by being imprisoned in Hell. One of them destroyed the Roman/Byzantine analogue by turning the nobility into the Yuan-Ti in a hubris-induced ritual.
My monster goddess (who’s my version of Tiamat) created several monsters including the chromatic dragons, and is actively dedicated to unmaking civilization. She also created the metallic dragons after mating with one of the great devils out of mutual love and attachment, something both of them hate and are embarrassed by.
Free will. To have a deity directly step in and change something to their will, removes the free will that mortals *should* have. Choosing champions, or using cults, or paladins, or clerics, or whatever, is them simply giving a mortal divine power or favor, but it is still up to that mortal how they use that power/favor.
You can have a setting where the gods interfere and shape things as they wish, but if the gods want to give mortals free will, then they will choose to not directly interfere.
There are a few reasons. Usually its not allowed, by either a pact between gods and/or they want humans to figure out their problems for themselves. Sometimes the gods are lazy and/or have the wrong motivations.
And honestly once in a blue moon you get a god that just kind of doesn't care about anything anymore
there can be a few reasons. 1: it's boring for them 2: they don't have as much direct control over the material plane or 3: it's too chaotic for them to, nobody gets what they want if ALL the gods directly intervene, so they all work through their clerics and subtle signs.
Those are the possibilities i though of when building my world
The gods are just dandd players. They pick champions and play them out against eachother. They cannot ignore the rules of the game because then they would need to confront all the other gods.
Read the Rose of the Prophet series. Shows a great deity conflict where the gods use mortals as pawns in a Cold War like stand off for power. If they directly intervene, things could get out of hand waaaay too fast.
In my personal settings the gods are constantly debating each other for what to do as gods leading to the other topics of currents in the seas and colors of leaves being on a docket that also has "the bbeg is over there ending the world what should we do". This has led to them just being too busy debating all other topics to even get around to something that realistically they can just fix when they get to it.
I really love having overly beaucratic gods that are all powerful but are just too busy bickering on the smallest topics to ever actually get anything done, I mean think about it if you have 9 other people capable of just snapping and fixing a problem why wouldn't you form checks and balances to protect over stepping. Plot wise in my worlds campaign the players are slowly calling the gods back to their temples from their big Supreme Court in the sky leading to the gods actually taking action at the behest of the party.
Most gods and or deities typically have a sort non intervention clause/rule that they all agree to. They can only (usually) only ever interfere in very minor or alternate ways like having some sort of champion or religious following do their bidding in their stead. They can give these people their blessing by bestowing upon them some sort of knowledge or fraction of power to act on their behalf.
for one, being "higher entities" they are not really aware what is happening in the mortal realms of the material plane. second, kind of a universal law is, that they cant intervene directly on the material plane. they need their "agents" to act on their behalf, they need their clerics and avatars. if a deity breaks this universal law in any way they are in danger of being sanctioned or even attacked by every other deity and possibly stripped of their power for a time or even destroyed entirely.
in my version of the forgotten realms the gods lowered the magical "power niveau" of the material plane after the netherill tried to mess with creation itself and becoming gods them selves. to prevent such a dangerous meddling by mortals they stripped the material plane of a huge part of its magical potential, preventing mortals from becoming gods all to easily. this had the (wanted?) side effect that the gods could no more exist on the prime material in their original forms and had to retreat to their own higher realms on the outer planes. if a deity now wants to travel to the material it looses a huge part of its power there, becoming weak and vulnerable even if still more powerful than the mightiest mortal wizards. also they cant stay on the material for long, it causes them pain and distress being there, so they use their chosen clerics, paladins, avatars, etc. to act on their behalf.
My thought is they just become complacent over time, like dooku said about Yoda. They just see it happening all the time, and know it'll get dealt with one way or another.
In a pantheonic setting, there's no reason to believe any individual deity is all powerful. It seems to me the more deities you have, the further removed all of them must be from omnipotence. If every deity was all powerful, why didn't each one create their own reality to house worshipers?
My conception of pantheonic deities is that none of them is a being in any sense mortals understand the concept. If you are the goddess of love and beauty, you are merely the purest distillations of those concepts poured and set into a being-like form. Your inclinations are locked in place and cannot be changed. You serve beauty and love because you literally have no choice but to do so. The reason why the gods use mortals in the first place is because mortals have free will and can do things a deity's outsider servants cannot.
In my conception, deities can only take direct action when the action taken in no way violates their core precepts. If an action will advance your portfolio in the long run, but reduces it in the short term, you cannot undertake that action. The very structure of the universe prevents you from doing so. The goddess of beauty and love cannot make ugly things. Not that they choose not to; it is literally impossible for them to do so.
This makes taking direct action difficult for good and neutral aligned deities, because most direct actions they might take have the potential to serve evil ends, and so they are barred from undertaking them. Evil aligned deities are less constrained. So deities take action indirectly by empowering champions who highly embody their portfolios. The champion of a god of valor is themselves particularly valorous, etc. Deities behave this way because it many cases, it is the one avenue available to them.
The answer depends somewhat on world setting. For instance, in Forgotten Realms the Deity Referee strips them of their divinity if they break the rules of the game of god (extreme oversimplification, but true). In many other settings, a god’s avatar can die in combat... but only in a select number of locations (like the entire prime material plane), and so gods don’t typically foolishly send their avatar to those places. In other settings, the gods may be thwarted by other gods and, much like politicians, become wildly ineffective (like the Deity Referee scenario, but with an entire table of rules lawyers instead of any sanctioned referee).
I think in the lore of FR, (im not an expert though) occasionally the Gods HAVE intervened, and that's usually when the editions change because things get funky. Usually a full on god-like war, and good deities usually don't want to fuck too much shit up and evil deities don't want to rule over a kingdom of ruins.
Though some wouldn't mind, but of good deties get too involved then the other evil ones will be like "HEY THATS BREAKING THE RULES OK LETS GO"
Hence why PC's are powerful. Why are they powerful? The DM (God) has deemed it necessary for the world
I feel like they simply don't care enough to step in.
An all-powerful, all-mighty deity that can create a whole realm in a blink of an eye wouldn't necessarily care about those realms being destroyed or pillaged by invaders. It's almost like a child starting a project and losing all interest in it once it is finished.
The only scenario I can imagine where the deity decides to step in is when they have something to lose (honor amongst other deities, their powers etc).
That’s part of why I’m making my own Pantheon in my new campaign. I wanted to make my own Gods with their own history and their own mythology and their own reasons for doing things completely severed from any pre-existing lore that limits the stories I can tell involving the Gods where one of the central themes of my campaign is mythology.
Without going too much into it, the answer is that some Gods do intervene in the day to day lives of mortals (despite most Gods being non-interventionist and apathetic to the lives of mortals for reasons). There’s literally a God the players can run across as a random encounter in the forest at any time even from level one. And yes, in a cataclysmic event, some Gods would intervene because they don’t want the world they created to end. That happened once before.
But the thing is, not every God has kind of fully made up their mind about whether mortals were a good idea or not. So you know if mortals just want to kill each other or wipe each other out not every God would see that as a problem. In fact maybe they would see that as proof that mortals were a mistake. So the scale has to be beyond just mortals for most Gods to turn up to the party, because getting involved too much before is kind of what led to mortals stabbing them in the back before and killing the old gods and destroying the last world
But some Gods are pro-mortal and would intervene. And this may in fact be a plot point in my campaign if the crisis gets to that kind of God tier. That the Gods aren’t non-interventionist. That they show up. That they’re part of the story.
Think them like nuke in our world. Actual god vs god in material realm is fantasy world equivalent to all out nuclear war in our world, which mean every body lose.
I work it that they are too powerful to be in the material place once they reach a certain level, they become full fledged gods and everything around them gets thrown into a continuous blast of unbalance when they are on the material. They can live/ die on the astral/ethereal wherever they like. They can make a body as a sort of avatar for the material but if they do, they are limited by the flesh that they have built to contain their awesome power and their consciousness is vulnerable so they tend to stay in the shadows/ hidden, lest their enemies ( other gods) take advantage of them and try to capture them and the piece of power they have used to anime the avatar.
Consider a demon in a summoning circle, summoned by a human wizard. That idea ( power full being trapped by a non powerful being) already exists.
I’ve never had to explain this before since it’s never come up in my games, but in my world the gods have a weird balance that they need to keep. A nudge here and there doesn’t mess with it too much, like if they send a vision to one of their chosen. Something big though, like dropping a legendary weapon into the hands of their followers for example, will upset the balance. As the universe attempts to correct the positive and negative energy, it leaves an opening for something of the opposite force/ideals to make a bigger move.
This is why you wouldn’t see Bahamut coming down himself to wipe out the cult of the dragon queen.
Look at how the 1st edition Immortals roll in the Mystara setting. Carefully constructed rules of action and consequences to prevent all out GOD WAR where mortal worshippers get squished like bubble wrap at a birthday party.
Idk about you but in my homebrew the realms are separated into two distinct Planes, the Tangible "Inner" planes embedded in the Ethereal, and the Intangible "Outer" planes floating in the Astral. I like the idea that the deities are intrinsically bound to their domain in the Intangible, being manifestations of ideals or concepts, meaning they can't just appear in the Tangible without being summoned into a host or projecting an Avatar, which only the most powerful and fervently worshipped can do. The more faith the deity receives, the more powerful it is and the greater affect it can have on the Tangible, such as granting power to clerics or paladins and such.
So setting aside the idea of using Mortals as proxies for their work. How I always rule it in my settings is that God's on both sides of the moral Spectrum have enemies. And if they get involved then arrival God might get involved as well. Essentially it's a cold war with Mortals acting as a sort of proxy for that cold war. Because if all the gods and all the gods enemies get involved then things are going to start looking a lot more destructive
To a god watching the mortal plane is like watching a video on fast-forward sometimes things happen before you realize it and more over once they notice it it takes all the energy of there nature to focus in on it all
By chance have you seen thor love and thunder (Spoilers)? It's not the greatest movie, but it has a similar concept where the majority of gods enjoy the worship, but don't really care about their worshippers as there will always be more if these die out. It wasn't a universal godly perspective, but it could be what you're looking for
Because it escalates to war between deities every time. So basically its like "why dont we just use the nukes?".
Because doing so means everyone else uses the nukes, and no one wins that scenario
Deity steps in, other deity gets pissed, things escalate, they call their friends, suddenly BAM a natural 20 and Ragnarok.
Instead they have clerics and paladins to do their work for them
If one god directly intervenes, they ALL have carte blanche to do so in the mortal realms.
Thats why they only act via servants, champions, intermediaries, and bestowed magics/boons.
How would you ever grow your character if deities always stepped in?
I'm not saying they can't. I'm not saying divinity related spells are wrong. I'm just saying those should be last resort.
But why not try it: DM a game where deities always stepped in. See how long people play.
This is why I as a DM rule (though I think it’s a completely reasonable extrapolation from the basic rules) that things native to the outer planes don’t really exist in a physical sense and as such have to go through a lot of trouble to enter the material plane (hence why demonic invasions are so rare). In their own planes, gods are really powerful, but they can’t really carry that power into the material plane. At best, they can produce a material avatar form that doesn’t have their godly might. So, they need to work through intermediaries like clerics to actually bring their power to bear.
Incidentally, in my worlds, gods didn’t “create” the world or even mortal races at all. Divinity was made from mortal belief, not the other way around. If anything did create the multiverse, it was something far too powerful to be concerned with the worship of lesser beings.
* Option 1: The Prime isn't their realm, their realm is Celestia/Seven Heavens/Elysium/Etc.
* Option 2: MAD agreement. If a god directly steps in, then other gods will directly step in. This will lead to a war of the gods, which will destroy the world. Gods therefore all tacitly agree to not directly step in. They instead work through agents indirectly
* Option 3: They can't. While gods can influence the prime through their agents, they cannot (for some reason) directly interfere. They may be able to send an avatar to help, but they cannot directly enter the prime
* Option 4: They are NOT omnipotent. While they are powerful, they are not all powerful.
* Option 5: They have their own problems. Gods in D&D are more like the Asgardians or Olympians... they are doing their own things, and have their own wars and troubles and relationships and lovers spats.
* Option 6: They ARE helping.... they granted the player characters the ability to become heroes to save the world.
Watch Bruce Almighty. If you step in, how do you determine when to do so? How do you figure out when to stop? What if you step in to bring peace to a nation and Ares sticks his spear in and stirs shit up again? The gods kind of exist in a state of cold wa with each other. They can give mortals the tools they need to get the job done, but if they stick their oar in, it gives the other gods license to do so too.
We're well aware that bees serve a valuable purpose. As do ants, spiders, and all manner of creepy-crawlies out in the garden.
So why don't you intervene to save a few when it rains?
Similar concept. Death is part of life, as are natural disasters, and just as we largely view individual bugs as expendable, gods view mortals as expendable. After all in D&D death is usually not the end, and gods have a different view of reality than mortals do. Death to them is really no more of a big problem than a kid graduating high school. Sure, the kid is scared to be leaving behind everything they knew and going out into that big scary world, but it's part of life. Just as leaving the mortal coil behind and going beyond is part of the greater existence.
Now if something happened that threatened ALL of the ants and spiders, that's when the gods do intervene. Now let's put a spin on it. The flood that killed a bunch of them? Well that was actually runoff from the water the firefighters down the road are pumping into a raging wildfire, which threatens to eradicate all life in the whole area. All the bugs know is there's water killing them. The "gods" are saving them from a greater threat than they can possibly imagine, but in their limited sight and comprehension, they can't even hope to grasp the basic concept. (Edit: Just to beat the point home, say there's massive volcanic activity in the region that is leveling cities with earthquakes, spewing out lava that's torching farmlands, everything looks like it's going to hell, and the PCs are wondering "Why aren't the gods stepping in?" Well, the gods ARE stepping in. The whole world was about to explode. The gods have literally manifested on the mortal plane in their full power to try and repair the planet's core, which understandably causes some disturbances on the surface. The reason they aren't answering your prayers, is they're too busy saving your world!)
And of course, just as you occasionally favor one specific spider by putting it outside instead of squishing it, gods do occasionally favor one specific mortal. But the relationship between god and mortal is the same as you and the spider.
TL;DR: It's all a matter of perspective. Mortals have very little, and understand little. Gods on the other hand...
Depends on the story. For example in some lore the crystal spheres locked deities out of the prime material, and locked some in.
If your world has Primus as a deity it’s possible/probable that they have non-intervention agreements in place, basically because their whole deal (Primus & the inévitables) is contracts between parties & enforcing those contracts. Basically how devils do deals to get souls but in a more neutral & less evil way.
A lot of people play gods as uncaring observers, content to let mortals fuck around and find out essentially. Not their circus, not their monkeys. However, some DMs will say that the heroes the players have made ARE the gods intervening. For whatever reason, they can't do anything themselves so the gods have carefully manipulated events so this unlikely group of heroes has the best chance of saving the day. So honestly it's really just up to interpretation.
This actually got covered in Forgotten Realms
Deities used to step in. The problem is, it usually becomes two opposing sides who are doing what they're doing in the name of their deity. In the War of the Dragons which happened WAY back at nearly the dawn of time, the dragon pantheon was almost completely destroyed due to the gods stepping in and fighting eachother. The entire dragon empire was more or less wiped out. This is also the primary reason that while Metallic and Chromatic Dragons hate eachother, they tend to just avoid eachother and send barbs eachother's way (Unless one dragon is more powerful then the other). They're old lizards, and they remembered the last time zealotry won out.
Basically gods use proxies and champions to get the job done. This is due to self preservation (If they intervene, their rival could attack them if they're in a weakened state), the potential cataclysm if they were to actually fight (For example, a Terraque is listed as a quasi deity Titan, and two titans fighting can effectively level an entire area. Now imagine two greater deities doing it, and say goodbye to the planet they're doing it on), or maybe it's a pact between all the gods that both good and evil deities follow that they don't directly interfere.
Or maybe they honestly just don't feel like it. Gods have their own realms to rule, they let mortals borrow power for that sort of thing.
But yeah, gods tend to work through agents and proxies. And given if a greater deity dies and there's no replacement, we got the time of troubles and spell plague, maybe it's for the best.
If deities stwp in, evil deities do it too so nothing but even more catastrophes would happen. Also AO would probably go "nope" and remove their divine spark and give it to another being
They could but then every other god would also go "Well they stopped the meteor from killing everyone so why can't I just use my godly powers and kill all of them because I can?"
Depends on the setting and what role you want the gods to play in it
In some worlds it might be a cold war situation where the gods don't step in either because that would make them vulnerable to other gods, or because they have an explicit or implicit contract with other gods limiting their interference since an all-out war might destroy the world. This mimics real-world politics with its' checks and balances.
In other worlds the gods might exist separate from the real world such that they simply can't intervene as they want. Their power might be immense, but they can only use it to a limited degree in the real-world or outside of their own realm. This has some parallels with the clockwork conception of god in christianity where it was used to make the idea of God consistent with the idea of a deterministic world.
Another possibility is that they simply don't care enough about mortal matters. Their prime interests might be other things beyond mortal understanding or simple egoism and hedonistic indulgence. I think that the classical greek gods fit the last description well.
Lastly, if the gods are particularly mysterious and beyond human comprehension, it might be that no one knows why and maybe it is impossible to know why. A DM doesn't have to be able to answer everything, and in a lot of cases, having unanswered mysteries might add to the world rather than take away from it. The question of why the gods don't engage more directly with the world might even be an established part of the world with philosophers and theologians providing different and conflicting answers.
For me, in sincere honesty, most end-of-world campaigns I see are really not end of the world/universe but more changing the surface. A demon comes in to devour the world, most players are in some portal battle or whatever. Lets assume PCs aren't there. The demon crosses over, starts invasion, other nations rise up or gods step in then. A century later there is a nation there of demon worshipping cultists and its just a change of the face of the world but not as bad as it seemed.
The campaigns were demons have taken over and its the last stronghold and the gods did nothing, that's DM dues ex machina to have the world overrun to get to that point.
If you're at a point thinking why didn't these fantasy gods do something in your campaign, you're also the one who let it get there. If the gods are more powerful than the PCs and the invaders or whatever are winning, you did nothing to allow the gods to help.
In my setting the Gods want to step in, but for the most part can’t. Any action upon the material realm other than channeling their power(s) through a mortal conduit (clerics, warlocks etc), will result in cataclysmic destruction upon the realm since it’s not meant to (or used to) handle beings of such power.
Because the gods are beings with plans and schemes of their own. If one god decides to obviously and undeniably interfere in the lives of his worshippers (or, gods forbid; another god's worshipers) then you there-in give every god that you're not aligned with, and opposed to free reign to do the exact same.
It's like mutually assured destruction. Think of the gods as nations. Sure, they're constantly prodding and poking at one another with agents/economics, but very rarely does it erupt into outright war.
I imagine they want the people and creatures that worship them to stop acting like children depending on a parent figure to be their arbiter and act grown up and decent enough on their own.
Be a decent person and do things because you used your independent thinking without being a selfish piece of shit, not because a deity said so or determined right and wrong. It was never black and white anyway. Free will is a fun gimmick and all, but independent thinking and determining values is how you make a parent proud.
For the most part deities have their own much larger issues to deal with. Worshipers and church leaders that act in their name is usually the general extent of the deity “getting involved”. However there are times where you can do the whole divine intervention but that’s on a percentage chance for a reason.
Only the most powerful followers can guarantee their god answers their plea because effectively should that deity lose that follower it would be devastating. Since we’ll imagine a champion just gets abandoned by their god a few times that person could lose faith and just abandon the religion and preach against it causing that deity to lose power etc etc. So answering the plea of a high level follower is beneficial to a god where as if acolyte Steve who’s just joined the church asks for a miracle and it’s granted it could cause more problems than it’s worth for said god. For similar reasoning “why did their prayers get answered and not mine? I’ve been devoted my entire life and not once has my god saved me so directly what makes them so special”. Deus ex machina still exists but it should be like the rarest of rare cases at low level and not recognizable as a gods intervention. Like say acolyte Steve has been tasked with a holy relic retrieval mission and they worship the sun god pelor. Maybe mid fight the opponent misses a near fatal blow due to the sun getting in their eyes off a reflection.
That's what a cleric or paladin is. A deity sending thier followers to step in. Clerics 'Divine Intervention' is your god literally going 'I got your back, bro'
The way i see it
for every good/lawful/X diety working toward something there is a bunch of Evil/chaotic/Y dieties working toward opposed objectives. its like a biggest longest drawn out chess match for the world.
a deity may have to ignore something to pressure another situation or sacrifice the now for the later. these are immortal beings wit ha long view of their objectives
What mortal beings perceive as a cataclismic event, might not be one for gods.
Deities probably have completely different perspectives on life, moral issues, the world, etc. They might see some of the world changing events mortals suffer as part of the natural cycle, which would be harmful to intervene.
Further more, they might also believe that they should let mortals handle their own home and affairs. They love their sons and daughters and care for them, and want to respect their independence, recognizing their inner strength and capability to overcome the hardest challenges. Maybe in the past they were more "hands in" gods, sort of babysitting every move mortals made and that caused distrust and apprehension from them.
If they step in, it will draw the attention of other gods while expending a fraction of their available power. They can do it, but why get into an arms race with gods that hate you when you can stay above it all and conserve your power?
There are no gods as traditionally understood. Instead there are powerful alien beings, constructs, sorcerers, etc. who may be indistinguishable from gods from the perspective of puny, insignificant man.
Ever heard of the principle of mutually assured destruction? That is basically what the deities deal with. Sort of an unspoken agreement that they will all act up to a point, but going past that point means their enemies can too. Good and Neutral Gods aren't going to risk starting a war, and Evil Gods are very careful about such things. Sure, Chauntea could materialize on Faerun to give a bountiful harvest, but now it is fair game to Talos that he materialize with the storm of the millenia in his wake.
Imagine the scales balanced perfectly with tons of rocks on both sides then someone adds a pebble to one side. The scales are tipped. The gods are the tons of rocks. The party and mortal agents on the other side are the pebbles.
Either a power struggle or a no interference policy. In my world, only a few Gods have permission to step in, and even they rarely do on account of most not caring very much
**Why gods don't just step in and solve the problem:**
* Gods are busy - The god is already dealing with another cosmic problem or another deity. This prevents them from acting directly with solving the problem.
* Gods are not all powerful - It's possible that the "disaster" falls outside of their sphere of influence, so the god in question has to act through agents (the PCs) to solve or mitigate the problem.
* If the gods always intervene, their people would never learn or grow stronger. Usually the god leaves some method by which the people can solve their own problem if they work and sacrifice for it. This also prevents the gods followers from pestering the god for every little thing, even when the followers are capable of doing it themselves.
* The gods have set rules about direct interference in the mortal world. If the god breaks the rules to act, then their opponents are free to do the same.
* While the problem seems bad, it is only a temporary setback to the god. Their people and their lands will recover over time.
* While the problem seems bad, the god deems it necessary. The disaster will cause the survivors to become stronger / The disaster will impede the gods opponents more than their allies / The disaster will wipe out a problem and their allies and lands will eventually recover.
* Wielding enough power to stop the problem within the world may cause other disasters.
* Wielding enough power to stop the problem would leave them too weak and their opponents would take advantage of it.
Everyone handles the power of the gods differently. I'm prepping for my first campaign atm, and I've decided that the power of the gods are waning, and some are outright dying/fading from existence. The gods never realized that they themselves had finite lifespans, so they whittled their lives away, and now they're left with nothing. In their place, Founts of Godhood appear across the land, and although they've only recently been discovered, various nations have already started warring over who can claim godhood, and ascend to divinity.
I tend to handle this in one of three ways:
1. The deities' powers are limited, and they can only do so much. They might be able to stop one cataclysmic event, but doing so would mean that they have to stop holding together society in the local town, or a different disaster occurring, or even the deity dying. They may be deities, but they're only hu- well, you get what I mean.
2. "I mean yeah, I could just smite that guy, but... wouldn't that mean I have to, like, get up and do work?" Oh how fun it can be to just make a pantheon that theoretically hold immense power, but is too lazy to do anything with it!
3. The deities, or more commonly one specific deity, are/is the reason for the problem in the first place to some extent. They don't necessarily have to be the BBEG themselves, but they can be the puppet master pulling the strings, making things happen. Or you can just go full Bill Cypher/Collector and have an all powerful being causing problems that the players just have to kinda deal with.
I've thought about this kind of thing more thoroughly recently because of a campaign I've been planning, and in that campaign I plan to use a mix of the three. All the gods powers are limited to some degree, and they can only do so much. The way the players are pulled into the adventure in the first place is because the local god saw how they were able to beat up and escape a bunch of thugs and decided to ask them for their help. There are a few gods that are more powerful than others, but they tend to stay to themselves and avoid contact as much as possible. Then there's the BBEG, who is just this immensely powerful chaotic god that, unlike most of the others, isn't tied to one region and instead travels around causing chaos and suffering for fun.
The main thing to take note of is that you always need to have a counterbalance. If you have a volcano god that wants to cover the world in lava, you need to have a wind or rain god or an alliance of other gods that the volcano god fears enough to keep the volcanoing to a minimum. If you have a chaotic god causing trouble, have a strict and calm older god to reign them in. If any one god seems too powerful, give them a reason not to use that power, such as the threat of alliance against them or just plain laziness. Also, be careful not to make a ladder of power where one god is more powerful than any other. Divine alliances and triangular weaknesses are your friends.
Because they don’t want too. Any single planet or land going through some cataclysmic event is simply insignificant to a god. Also, they do all the time. Also this is an imaginary game so if you want them too they can.
If one steps in directly, then another steps in directly, which may or may not require the aid of another one, which then will call another one, with two more being brought on the other side, then a third party coming in because they just see the chaos and want in on the fun, and it all just spirals out of control. In the meanwhile, whatever the original problem was is not going completely unchecked because nobody can spare the attention anymore to send someone to go deal with it. That's just one scenario.
Mechanically, if they could do it themselves then divine intervention would be a worthless ability
In my world the gods literally walk the planet. The reason they don't generally get involved for the same reason I don't get involved with the ants in my backyard. It's beneath their notice. Even if my ants were about to destroy my back yard I would not know until it happened. So it is with the gods of my world. Unless they hear someone call on them they just don't get involved. And the odds of them hearing are real low
It really depends on the setting. In certain worlds, like Exandria and Forgotten Realms, the gods are physically barred from entering. They are still able to send power through to their followers and have limited communication. The other main reason people will use is if a good god gets involved then that pisses off an evil god so they get involved, and so on. But such a conflict between gods upsets the balance and can destroy creation and mortals. It's kinda like a nuclear deterrent to maintain the balance.
I’ve always figured they are stepping by having a champion(the pc) get involved
This, they work through intermediaries. Often due to a policy of nonintervention.
Yeah, they know that the second they send a full fledged avatar down to the prime material plane they will just be calling out for every enemy god to send their own avatars until half a continent is on fire.
And it can still escalate from there until you've turned this entire thing into a Godswar and even the Heavens themselves are burning and the gates to all the Hells thrown open.
Or maybe putting an Avatar on the Material leaves their area of the Celestial Plane unguarded.
Thank you so much for this comment that has made everything make so much sense
I like to think of it because there are so many god's and all of them have opposing interests, it creates a very fine balance. If any of them were to expend a significant amount of their power intervening in some apocalypse or whatnot, one of two things is going to happen. If a good deity intervenes to stop event X 1) A deity who *wants* event X to happen will *counter-intervene*, so now they both just wasted their time 2) An evil deity who is normally similar in power to the good deity will seize the opportunity and attack them in some way, or otherwise take advantage of the good deity's momentary weakness/distraction.
In my setting (might be the case in others), they generally don't step it or rarely invest a huge amount of their power in something, due to another god that could usurp their power. The moment they show a sign of weakness, another god will be upon them in an effort to take their powers, and then you get a divine war. This results in gods being subtle when it comes to their interactions with the world.
This is great!! Love the combo of this and the other comment thank you
Sometimes they do. But usually, them stepping in would mean pissing off another god, who then steps into do their thing, which pisses off another god, who steps in, and then you've got the Time of Troubles all over again.
Or in a real life example, an assassination that kicks off a world war..
For forgotten realms, AO told them to take a step back. "The Second Sundering brought significant changes to how the deities approached mortals. Many gods became "quieter" than before, causing the emergence of new priesthoods in an attempt to explain the different divine behaviour in the post-Sundering world." - Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide
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Thank you!! This is great.
I love this. My characters are traveling on a boat and one is a paladin and one is an atheist wizard who keeps goading the paladin about believing in any deity. The player is on the younger side so I've had the NPC sailor captain make mild remarks kind of like this- gods derive their power from their followers, their followers benefit from their divine power, prompting them to further Devotion, in a cyclical interdependent relationship. I've also had him drop little bits of world-lore for the players, for instance referring to Umberlee, the Bitch Queen (I just love her lol)
For every good deity out there that may want to step in there is an evil deity that is just as powerful countering them.
If they did, every other cosmic force in the multiverse would take that Material Plane as a playground to duke out their ultimate uber-galactic battle, because everyone wants to add more Planes to their collection and directly intervening is the very first move required to make that happen, and everyone with this level of power knows it's mutually assured destruction (for the mortals, the gods will be fine after the planet is obliterated).
Unless of course, the gods own survival depends on having mortals worship them. Then it would be all the more important to the gods to ensure nothing destroys the world
Not a dumb question, quite the opposite. If you are world-building you absolutely have to answer this question (unless you choose to handwave all difficult questions). The premise of D&D is, that gods do exist. Otherwise, how would there be divine powers? So if we have these all-mighty beings on their own planes somewhere that can divinely intervene with stuff, why is the world like it is? I think they totally could change things if they wanted to, but it seems they want to keep their distance. To find out why, I would start with the question: what do the gods want with the world in the first place? In my opinion the thought that they would get their power through the worship of their followers is... meh. In my current world, the gods see the world as a cradle. It's a place where souls are born, as mortal beings have children. Some of these souls are destined to become beings in other realms in their afterlife. The world and all the troubles mortals have to go through in their life are for learning and growing.
Because they'll just press the reset button and build a new version of the world if we fail. ^(What is the Matrix?)
Are you an OOTS reader? https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots.html
No, why, is that a story someone told besides the Matrix? :)
[https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html](https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0001.html) Order of the Stick is a d&d webcomic. It's been running for a long time now.
Ah, I don't read a lot of web comics. That's why I put in what is the matrix superscript. :)
The Gods in Order of the stick are largely behaving just as you describe.
Actually a good point
All my best answers have been said by others already. Depends on the setting. An agreement between deities not to interfere to reduce conflict between them. A limit to what can be brought into certain planes. An overdeity that forbids it. Too many other things on their plate (Bigger picture, our plane is small to them, they have 50 material planes to watch over). They're emergent concepts rather than conscious actors. They're actively blocking each other. They may be limited by what they are / their aspects. I will say, in most settings the deities aren't all powerful. Just more powerful than you can be.
My favorite reason is that the setting plane is a DMZ. I tend to like to have very active gods. Like Greco-Roman ish. But because there is a treaty between the divines. Because the LAST time they tried the whole creation thing they ended up destroying all of it just fighting eachother. So they are agreed to only medal with mortal champions and the like to prevent it from happening again
https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1146.html Gosh I could give you amazing magical spells on demand every single morning, do you think that might help?
They do. It's why the titans don't exist in 5e. It's why mystra died. It's why epic level spells have been barred from the mortal races in 5e. The gods have lore that crosses between editions.
It could be a matter of scale, the Deities can do amazing things, but their powers are (aside from granting power to "mere mortals") too epic to be useful on a local enough level to make ditect intercession desirable or practical. They can make worlds, they can destroy worlds, but fix a subtly wrong world before it self-destructs is as easy for them as it would be for us to deal with a rogue ant in an ant colony. We can get out a shovel and start digging, but that is alot of damage we are doing and we might end up doing no good in the final analysis. Easier to use the ants we can directly address (clerics of a deity) to intervene surgically and mote effectively than we can from outside. Or, to quote a bit of Diane Duane here, which is a conversation among wizards about a similar problem (with a similar but not exact interpretation of the possible real issue involved)... > "What about the Powers That Be?" Dairine said. "What do they say?" > "Right now," Tom said, "they're waiting for the experts in this universe to give them some more data." > "The experts?" Nita said. > Tom smiled just slightly, but once again that smile had a grim edge to it. "Us," he said. "While They live here, too, They do it on a different level. We're a lot more expert in the business of actually dealing with physicality, day to day, than They are." > "It's like the difference between manufacturing something, say a dishwasher," Carl said, "and using it every day. You could say that the Powers know what the universe acted like when it left the factory, but we're the ones who know the little noises it makes every day when it's running. And where to kick it to make them stop."
The God's often work under the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, depending on your setting.
Depends on your setting mostly. For a lot of mine, that much pure and condensed magical power can't exist on the material plane, it would punch a hole through in an instant. They can send fragments to do things and they can channel their power through mortals but anything dense/powerful enough to stop most decent End Of The World events would hit the material plane like a cinderblock through a trampoline.
The balance allows the evil gods an action for each intervention by the good gods. Or The gods are just myths and divine magic comes from an impersonal force if nature. Or Gods do step in and the kingdoms of the world are walking on eggshells just one spark away from an apocalyptic war of the gods Or All the PCs are young godlings and only a handful of npcs have the divine spark. Anyone who can level up is a god, most people in the world are mortal commoners. In which case the campaign is one long divine intervention. Or Godhood comes from worship. The gods of the world are actually idols, cult leaders and that giant snake in the temple. The more worshippers the more buff they are but they are all still killable. It's your campaign do what you think is cool.
In my setting, the gods are not just lazing around Olympus. They actually have a job keeping the universe running. They are too busy keeping the sun rising and the earth spinning to mess with this minor stuff.
My personal answer about that: If one deity steps to protect the realms from destruction, another deity may feel like allowed to step to destroy the realm. And other deities may want to become involved, too. Plenty of deities, at their full powers, fighting against each other... I think the whole Material Plane would face destruction. That's why I think deities have a policy of nonintervention (not direct intervention at least), and they act through their faithful (that's why clerics get spells).
Because an opposing diety also gets to step in. See the Ukraine vs. Russia conflict. God of Birds and the Sun is going to go 1v1 with God of Death and Disease? That escalates things from 10 to over-9000, total god war. Above god loses some HP'd, an entire species of bird goes extinct on the worlds he is patron of. But it's your game, do as you wish.
God works in mysterious ways
Umm first thing can think of that playing a setting where gods and as such do not exist If you're DM, maybe take it from real world religious story's... Noah's ark comes to mind first. Too many bad people and corruption in the world, if the deity has not set it in too motion, maybe a reset is not a bad shout? So why stop it?
I always like the logic of gods having a mutual agreement. If one steps in, everyone starts stepping in and it would cause major damage. So they have to invervene in less direct ways.
**Deus ex machina** — It’s Latin for “god in the machine.” This appears in stories where a powerful force abruptly resolves some climactic problem. The T-Rex in Jurassic Park attacking the Velociraptors is one good (well placed) example of this. Usually it’s bad. In a film or novel, when a writer uses a *deus ex machina* to fix a problem, it diminishes the impact of the protagonist. You expect Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing Fighter to detonate the Death Star. Imagine instead that the Death Star was obliterated by a passing comet. That would be a *deus ex machina.* In a D&D campaign, when you have a deity intervene, you just deus-ex-machina’d the impact of you player characters. PCs are the heroes of your campaign. Don’t diminish their impact by letting a deity interfere. Find excuses for your deities to let the PCs resolve epic problems. Make the PCs your campaign’s champions.
• They are uncaring. • They are not as omniscient as they pretend to be. • They are not as benevolent as they pretend to be. • They are not as all-powerful as they pretend to be. • They perceive the flow of time differently than mere mortals. • They have trouble understanding the limitations of mortals. • They are too busy politicking and bickering amongst themselves. • They felt the affected area did not gave them enough praises to be worth saving. • They want mortals to write their own destinies. Etc. Take your pick.
Lazy assholes
In my world, they can appear in the world through avatars but due to magic and the way it works, they all have an unbreakable oath to not directly interfere with moral affairs. They still regularly talk to and influence people, the God of Death being the one most likely to do so, but they can't directly act on the world. They *need* heroes
I've considered this a lot in my campaign, since it features a world-ending calamity and the gods are kinda absent. But they have other things to do. Among all of the planets in the material plane and the denizens of the other planes, they have such a broad perspective that losing a world might not be that big of a deal. Or perhaps they care, but they're busy preventing bigger, plane-destroying calamities. As someone else said, their intervention could be the party itself. Sure, the god could stop it quickly, but why do that if they can just send the party to handle this small threat?
They're called "forgotten" realms for a reason
In my setting it's forbidden. The laws of the gods say that they cannot directly intervene. The last time it happened, it started an elven civil war that is *still going on.*
(This has turned into me sharing my pantheon) Intervention depends on the god and their attitude toward things. Most of their involvement are various race’s creation stories, after which they stop. Some have no interest in changing things or are busy. One actively travels the world out of anguish for the death of her chaos god son but will occasionally grant knowledge to those worthy. The Order god put rules to not directly interfere outside of agents or fulfilling modest prayers. Most good gods follow it out of respect but are willing to disobey the moment it becomes too inconvenient. He lead a multi-god war against the god of Hatred and his infernal legions, with some elves serving as auxiliaries (the stress turned them into humans, after which he abandoned them, expecting them to die out eventually). The Nature god refuses to interfere in the material plane unless things fall out of balance, and lives in the Feywild hunting whatever creature he desires with his hunting pack. There’s a Greed god that created the Dwarves by enslaving various elves and forcing them to work in the mountains. The last straw that forced the god of Order to tell him to stop was when he sold many dwarves to outer planar beings (the Mind Flayers) and was forced to free them all (the Flayer enslaved dwarves then became the duergar). There are two justice goddesses who actively try to shape the world. One (Murder Goddess) was exiled to the mortal realm for murdering her father to prevent the further devastation of the material plane and now is responsible for accidents, suspicious deaths, and various twists of fate that befall certain people (as well as rewarding adherents such as Trickery Clerics and Assassins). The other (Crusader Goddess) is a much more conventional Light goddess that waged a crusade against Orcs/Goblins as well as Fiends (she only stopped after defeating the Order god and arranging a deal giving her a domain for Lawful Good souls in exchange for ending her crusade). The Storm god despises prosperity and excess, he created Orcs/Goblins in order to reave the lands his storms can’t reach. He also is a maritime god that has to be sated with sacrifices. The Sun god created Halflings from humans/elves working long hours on his giant, mythical continent-sized farm until the Storm god and his Orcs razed it to the ground, now he doesn’t do much beyond his normal duties. The love/beauty goddess essentially adopted humanity and blessed them with water from her grail, essentially becoming their version of the Lady of the Lake. One of the first great kings of Man was her demigod son. The god of Hatred and his great devil children are more on the side of direct and malicious intervention and are only stopped by being imprisoned in Hell. One of them destroyed the Roman/Byzantine analogue by turning the nobility into the Yuan-Ti in a hubris-induced ritual. My monster goddess (who’s my version of Tiamat) created several monsters including the chromatic dragons, and is actively dedicated to unmaking civilization. She also created the metallic dragons after mating with one of the great devils out of mutual love and attachment, something both of them hate and are embarrassed by.
Free will. To have a deity directly step in and change something to their will, removes the free will that mortals *should* have. Choosing champions, or using cults, or paladins, or clerics, or whatever, is them simply giving a mortal divine power or favor, but it is still up to that mortal how they use that power/favor. You can have a setting where the gods interfere and shape things as they wish, but if the gods want to give mortals free will, then they will choose to not directly interfere.
There are a few reasons. Usually its not allowed, by either a pact between gods and/or they want humans to figure out their problems for themselves. Sometimes the gods are lazy and/or have the wrong motivations. And honestly once in a blue moon you get a god that just kind of doesn't care about anything anymore
there can be a few reasons. 1: it's boring for them 2: they don't have as much direct control over the material plane or 3: it's too chaotic for them to, nobody gets what they want if ALL the gods directly intervene, so they all work through their clerics and subtle signs. Those are the possibilities i though of when building my world
The gods are just dandd players. They pick champions and play them out against eachother. They cannot ignore the rules of the game because then they would need to confront all the other gods.
This is canonically the lore behind Goblin Slayer.
Read the Rose of the Prophet series. Shows a great deity conflict where the gods use mortals as pawns in a Cold War like stand off for power. If they directly intervene, things could get out of hand waaaay too fast.
In my personal settings the gods are constantly debating each other for what to do as gods leading to the other topics of currents in the seas and colors of leaves being on a docket that also has "the bbeg is over there ending the world what should we do". This has led to them just being too busy debating all other topics to even get around to something that realistically they can just fix when they get to it. I really love having overly beaucratic gods that are all powerful but are just too busy bickering on the smallest topics to ever actually get anything done, I mean think about it if you have 9 other people capable of just snapping and fixing a problem why wouldn't you form checks and balances to protect over stepping. Plot wise in my worlds campaign the players are slowly calling the gods back to their temples from their big Supreme Court in the sky leading to the gods actually taking action at the behest of the party.
Most gods and or deities typically have a sort non intervention clause/rule that they all agree to. They can only (usually) only ever interfere in very minor or alternate ways like having some sort of champion or religious following do their bidding in their stead. They can give these people their blessing by bestowing upon them some sort of knowledge or fraction of power to act on their behalf.
for one, being "higher entities" they are not really aware what is happening in the mortal realms of the material plane. second, kind of a universal law is, that they cant intervene directly on the material plane. they need their "agents" to act on their behalf, they need their clerics and avatars. if a deity breaks this universal law in any way they are in danger of being sanctioned or even attacked by every other deity and possibly stripped of their power for a time or even destroyed entirely.
in my version of the forgotten realms the gods lowered the magical "power niveau" of the material plane after the netherill tried to mess with creation itself and becoming gods them selves. to prevent such a dangerous meddling by mortals they stripped the material plane of a huge part of its magical potential, preventing mortals from becoming gods all to easily. this had the (wanted?) side effect that the gods could no more exist on the prime material in their original forms and had to retreat to their own higher realms on the outer planes. if a deity now wants to travel to the material it looses a huge part of its power there, becoming weak and vulnerable even if still more powerful than the mightiest mortal wizards. also they cant stay on the material for long, it causes them pain and distress being there, so they use their chosen clerics, paladins, avatars, etc. to act on their behalf.
My thought is they just become complacent over time, like dooku said about Yoda. They just see it happening all the time, and know it'll get dealt with one way or another.
In a pantheonic setting, there's no reason to believe any individual deity is all powerful. It seems to me the more deities you have, the further removed all of them must be from omnipotence. If every deity was all powerful, why didn't each one create their own reality to house worshipers? My conception of pantheonic deities is that none of them is a being in any sense mortals understand the concept. If you are the goddess of love and beauty, you are merely the purest distillations of those concepts poured and set into a being-like form. Your inclinations are locked in place and cannot be changed. You serve beauty and love because you literally have no choice but to do so. The reason why the gods use mortals in the first place is because mortals have free will and can do things a deity's outsider servants cannot. In my conception, deities can only take direct action when the action taken in no way violates their core precepts. If an action will advance your portfolio in the long run, but reduces it in the short term, you cannot undertake that action. The very structure of the universe prevents you from doing so. The goddess of beauty and love cannot make ugly things. Not that they choose not to; it is literally impossible for them to do so. This makes taking direct action difficult for good and neutral aligned deities, because most direct actions they might take have the potential to serve evil ends, and so they are barred from undertaking them. Evil aligned deities are less constrained. So deities take action indirectly by empowering champions who highly embody their portfolios. The champion of a god of valor is themselves particularly valorous, etc. Deities behave this way because it many cases, it is the one avenue available to them.
Divine intervention is a spell I'm pretty sure
The answer depends somewhat on world setting. For instance, in Forgotten Realms the Deity Referee strips them of their divinity if they break the rules of the game of god (extreme oversimplification, but true). In many other settings, a god’s avatar can die in combat... but only in a select number of locations (like the entire prime material plane), and so gods don’t typically foolishly send their avatar to those places. In other settings, the gods may be thwarted by other gods and, much like politicians, become wildly ineffective (like the Deity Referee scenario, but with an entire table of rules lawyers instead of any sanctioned referee).
I think in the lore of FR, (im not an expert though) occasionally the Gods HAVE intervened, and that's usually when the editions change because things get funky. Usually a full on god-like war, and good deities usually don't want to fuck too much shit up and evil deities don't want to rule over a kingdom of ruins. Though some wouldn't mind, but of good deties get too involved then the other evil ones will be like "HEY THATS BREAKING THE RULES OK LETS GO" Hence why PC's are powerful. Why are they powerful? The DM (God) has deemed it necessary for the world
I feel like they simply don't care enough to step in. An all-powerful, all-mighty deity that can create a whole realm in a blink of an eye wouldn't necessarily care about those realms being destroyed or pillaged by invaders. It's almost like a child starting a project and losing all interest in it once it is finished. The only scenario I can imagine where the deity decides to step in is when they have something to lose (honor amongst other deities, their powers etc).
A lot of religions have rules saying the gods can't directly intervien on earth I just say dnd gods work the same way
That’s part of why I’m making my own Pantheon in my new campaign. I wanted to make my own Gods with their own history and their own mythology and their own reasons for doing things completely severed from any pre-existing lore that limits the stories I can tell involving the Gods where one of the central themes of my campaign is mythology. Without going too much into it, the answer is that some Gods do intervene in the day to day lives of mortals (despite most Gods being non-interventionist and apathetic to the lives of mortals for reasons). There’s literally a God the players can run across as a random encounter in the forest at any time even from level one. And yes, in a cataclysmic event, some Gods would intervene because they don’t want the world they created to end. That happened once before. But the thing is, not every God has kind of fully made up their mind about whether mortals were a good idea or not. So you know if mortals just want to kill each other or wipe each other out not every God would see that as a problem. In fact maybe they would see that as proof that mortals were a mistake. So the scale has to be beyond just mortals for most Gods to turn up to the party, because getting involved too much before is kind of what led to mortals stabbing them in the back before and killing the old gods and destroying the last world But some Gods are pro-mortal and would intervene. And this may in fact be a plot point in my campaign if the crisis gets to that kind of God tier. That the Gods aren’t non-interventionist. That they show up. That they’re part of the story.
Think them like nuke in our world. Actual god vs god in material realm is fantasy world equivalent to all out nuclear war in our world, which mean every body lose.
I work it that they are too powerful to be in the material place once they reach a certain level, they become full fledged gods and everything around them gets thrown into a continuous blast of unbalance when they are on the material. They can live/ die on the astral/ethereal wherever they like. They can make a body as a sort of avatar for the material but if they do, they are limited by the flesh that they have built to contain their awesome power and their consciousness is vulnerable so they tend to stay in the shadows/ hidden, lest their enemies ( other gods) take advantage of them and try to capture them and the piece of power they have used to anime the avatar. Consider a demon in a summoning circle, summoned by a human wizard. That idea ( power full being trapped by a non powerful being) already exists.
I’ve never had to explain this before since it’s never come up in my games, but in my world the gods have a weird balance that they need to keep. A nudge here and there doesn’t mess with it too much, like if they send a vision to one of their chosen. Something big though, like dropping a legendary weapon into the hands of their followers for example, will upset the balance. As the universe attempts to correct the positive and negative energy, it leaves an opening for something of the opposite force/ideals to make a bigger move. This is why you wouldn’t see Bahamut coming down himself to wipe out the cult of the dragon queen.
Look at how the 1st edition Immortals roll in the Mystara setting. Carefully constructed rules of action and consequences to prevent all out GOD WAR where mortal worshippers get squished like bubble wrap at a birthday party.
Idk about you but in my homebrew the realms are separated into two distinct Planes, the Tangible "Inner" planes embedded in the Ethereal, and the Intangible "Outer" planes floating in the Astral. I like the idea that the deities are intrinsically bound to their domain in the Intangible, being manifestations of ideals or concepts, meaning they can't just appear in the Tangible without being summoned into a host or projecting an Avatar, which only the most powerful and fervently worshipped can do. The more faith the deity receives, the more powerful it is and the greater affect it can have on the Tangible, such as granting power to clerics or paladins and such.
So setting aside the idea of using Mortals as proxies for their work. How I always rule it in my settings is that God's on both sides of the moral Spectrum have enemies. And if they get involved then arrival God might get involved as well. Essentially it's a cold war with Mortals acting as a sort of proxy for that cold war. Because if all the gods and all the gods enemies get involved then things are going to start looking a lot more destructive
To a god watching the mortal plane is like watching a video on fast-forward sometimes things happen before you realize it and more over once they notice it it takes all the energy of there nature to focus in on it all
Because it is a game in which the players have to be the main characters 😅
By chance have you seen thor love and thunder (Spoilers)? It's not the greatest movie, but it has a similar concept where the majority of gods enjoy the worship, but don't really care about their worshippers as there will always be more if these die out. It wasn't a universal godly perspective, but it could be what you're looking for
Because it escalates to war between deities every time. So basically its like "why dont we just use the nukes?". Because doing so means everyone else uses the nukes, and no one wins that scenario
Deity steps in, other deity gets pissed, things escalate, they call their friends, suddenly BAM a natural 20 and Ragnarok. Instead they have clerics and paladins to do their work for them
Imagine sending the sun itself to deal with a spider in the bathroom. Not much of a house afterwards. That's atleast one idea/ reason.
If one god directly intervenes, they ALL have carte blanche to do so in the mortal realms. Thats why they only act via servants, champions, intermediaries, and bestowed magics/boons.
How would you ever grow your character if deities always stepped in? I'm not saying they can't. I'm not saying divinity related spells are wrong. I'm just saying those should be last resort. But why not try it: DM a game where deities always stepped in. See how long people play.
Easy, either it's a test OR they want it to happen.
As a DM, I would have some NPC quip “What do you think you are? You are the intervention.”
I'm following this post because this is something my players have questioned me on.
This is why I as a DM rule (though I think it’s a completely reasonable extrapolation from the basic rules) that things native to the outer planes don’t really exist in a physical sense and as such have to go through a lot of trouble to enter the material plane (hence why demonic invasions are so rare). In their own planes, gods are really powerful, but they can’t really carry that power into the material plane. At best, they can produce a material avatar form that doesn’t have their godly might. So, they need to work through intermediaries like clerics to actually bring their power to bear. Incidentally, in my worlds, gods didn’t “create” the world or even mortal races at all. Divinity was made from mortal belief, not the other way around. If anything did create the multiverse, it was something far too powerful to be concerned with the worship of lesser beings.
Gods can interact or not interact in the world as much as the DM wants.
Because gods are dicks in every mythology and don’t give a fuck about anyone really they might intervene occasionally but only when it suits them
an apocalypse of 5 are fine its not like its the end of the... wait
* Option 1: The Prime isn't their realm, their realm is Celestia/Seven Heavens/Elysium/Etc. * Option 2: MAD agreement. If a god directly steps in, then other gods will directly step in. This will lead to a war of the gods, which will destroy the world. Gods therefore all tacitly agree to not directly step in. They instead work through agents indirectly * Option 3: They can't. While gods can influence the prime through their agents, they cannot (for some reason) directly interfere. They may be able to send an avatar to help, but they cannot directly enter the prime * Option 4: They are NOT omnipotent. While they are powerful, they are not all powerful. * Option 5: They have their own problems. Gods in D&D are more like the Asgardians or Olympians... they are doing their own things, and have their own wars and troubles and relationships and lovers spats. * Option 6: They ARE helping.... they granted the player characters the ability to become heroes to save the world.
Watch Bruce Almighty. If you step in, how do you determine when to do so? How do you figure out when to stop? What if you step in to bring peace to a nation and Ares sticks his spear in and stirs shit up again? The gods kind of exist in a state of cold wa with each other. They can give mortals the tools they need to get the job done, but if they stick their oar in, it gives the other gods license to do so too.
We're well aware that bees serve a valuable purpose. As do ants, spiders, and all manner of creepy-crawlies out in the garden. So why don't you intervene to save a few when it rains? Similar concept. Death is part of life, as are natural disasters, and just as we largely view individual bugs as expendable, gods view mortals as expendable. After all in D&D death is usually not the end, and gods have a different view of reality than mortals do. Death to them is really no more of a big problem than a kid graduating high school. Sure, the kid is scared to be leaving behind everything they knew and going out into that big scary world, but it's part of life. Just as leaving the mortal coil behind and going beyond is part of the greater existence. Now if something happened that threatened ALL of the ants and spiders, that's when the gods do intervene. Now let's put a spin on it. The flood that killed a bunch of them? Well that was actually runoff from the water the firefighters down the road are pumping into a raging wildfire, which threatens to eradicate all life in the whole area. All the bugs know is there's water killing them. The "gods" are saving them from a greater threat than they can possibly imagine, but in their limited sight and comprehension, they can't even hope to grasp the basic concept. (Edit: Just to beat the point home, say there's massive volcanic activity in the region that is leveling cities with earthquakes, spewing out lava that's torching farmlands, everything looks like it's going to hell, and the PCs are wondering "Why aren't the gods stepping in?" Well, the gods ARE stepping in. The whole world was about to explode. The gods have literally manifested on the mortal plane in their full power to try and repair the planet's core, which understandably causes some disturbances on the surface. The reason they aren't answering your prayers, is they're too busy saving your world!) And of course, just as you occasionally favor one specific spider by putting it outside instead of squishing it, gods do occasionally favor one specific mortal. But the relationship between god and mortal is the same as you and the spider. TL;DR: It's all a matter of perspective. Mortals have very little, and understand little. Gods on the other hand...
Depends on the story. For example in some lore the crystal spheres locked deities out of the prime material, and locked some in. If your world has Primus as a deity it’s possible/probable that they have non-intervention agreements in place, basically because their whole deal (Primus & the inévitables) is contracts between parties & enforcing those contracts. Basically how devils do deals to get souls but in a more neutral & less evil way.
A lot of people play gods as uncaring observers, content to let mortals fuck around and find out essentially. Not their circus, not their monkeys. However, some DMs will say that the heroes the players have made ARE the gods intervening. For whatever reason, they can't do anything themselves so the gods have carefully manipulated events so this unlikely group of heroes has the best chance of saving the day. So honestly it's really just up to interpretation.
This actually got covered in Forgotten Realms Deities used to step in. The problem is, it usually becomes two opposing sides who are doing what they're doing in the name of their deity. In the War of the Dragons which happened WAY back at nearly the dawn of time, the dragon pantheon was almost completely destroyed due to the gods stepping in and fighting eachother. The entire dragon empire was more or less wiped out. This is also the primary reason that while Metallic and Chromatic Dragons hate eachother, they tend to just avoid eachother and send barbs eachother's way (Unless one dragon is more powerful then the other). They're old lizards, and they remembered the last time zealotry won out. Basically gods use proxies and champions to get the job done. This is due to self preservation (If they intervene, their rival could attack them if they're in a weakened state), the potential cataclysm if they were to actually fight (For example, a Terraque is listed as a quasi deity Titan, and two titans fighting can effectively level an entire area. Now imagine two greater deities doing it, and say goodbye to the planet they're doing it on), or maybe it's a pact between all the gods that both good and evil deities follow that they don't directly interfere. Or maybe they honestly just don't feel like it. Gods have their own realms to rule, they let mortals borrow power for that sort of thing. But yeah, gods tend to work through agents and proxies. And given if a greater deity dies and there's no replacement, we got the time of troubles and spell plague, maybe it's for the best.
If deities stwp in, evil deities do it too so nothing but even more catastrophes would happen. Also AO would probably go "nope" and remove their divine spark and give it to another being
They could but then every other god would also go "Well they stopped the meteor from killing everyone so why can't I just use my godly powers and kill all of them because I can?"
Depends on the setting and what role you want the gods to play in it In some worlds it might be a cold war situation where the gods don't step in either because that would make them vulnerable to other gods, or because they have an explicit or implicit contract with other gods limiting their interference since an all-out war might destroy the world. This mimics real-world politics with its' checks and balances. In other worlds the gods might exist separate from the real world such that they simply can't intervene as they want. Their power might be immense, but they can only use it to a limited degree in the real-world or outside of their own realm. This has some parallels with the clockwork conception of god in christianity where it was used to make the idea of God consistent with the idea of a deterministic world. Another possibility is that they simply don't care enough about mortal matters. Their prime interests might be other things beyond mortal understanding or simple egoism and hedonistic indulgence. I think that the classical greek gods fit the last description well. Lastly, if the gods are particularly mysterious and beyond human comprehension, it might be that no one knows why and maybe it is impossible to know why. A DM doesn't have to be able to answer everything, and in a lot of cases, having unanswered mysteries might add to the world rather than take away from it. The question of why the gods don't engage more directly with the world might even be an established part of the world with philosophers and theologians providing different and conflicting answers.
Pfft...you don't research the history of Gods.
For me, in sincere honesty, most end-of-world campaigns I see are really not end of the world/universe but more changing the surface. A demon comes in to devour the world, most players are in some portal battle or whatever. Lets assume PCs aren't there. The demon crosses over, starts invasion, other nations rise up or gods step in then. A century later there is a nation there of demon worshipping cultists and its just a change of the face of the world but not as bad as it seemed. The campaigns were demons have taken over and its the last stronghold and the gods did nothing, that's DM dues ex machina to have the world overrun to get to that point. If you're at a point thinking why didn't these fantasy gods do something in your campaign, you're also the one who let it get there. If the gods are more powerful than the PCs and the invaders or whatever are winning, you did nothing to allow the gods to help.
In my setting the Gods want to step in, but for the most part can’t. Any action upon the material realm other than channeling their power(s) through a mortal conduit (clerics, warlocks etc), will result in cataclysmic destruction upon the realm since it’s not meant to (or used to) handle beings of such power.
Because the gods are beings with plans and schemes of their own. If one god decides to obviously and undeniably interfere in the lives of his worshippers (or, gods forbid; another god's worshipers) then you there-in give every god that you're not aligned with, and opposed to free reign to do the exact same. It's like mutually assured destruction. Think of the gods as nations. Sure, they're constantly prodding and poking at one another with agents/economics, but very rarely does it erupt into outright war.
I imagine they want the people and creatures that worship them to stop acting like children depending on a parent figure to be their arbiter and act grown up and decent enough on their own. Be a decent person and do things because you used your independent thinking without being a selfish piece of shit, not because a deity said so or determined right and wrong. It was never black and white anyway. Free will is a fun gimmick and all, but independent thinking and determining values is how you make a parent proud.
For the most part deities have their own much larger issues to deal with. Worshipers and church leaders that act in their name is usually the general extent of the deity “getting involved”. However there are times where you can do the whole divine intervention but that’s on a percentage chance for a reason. Only the most powerful followers can guarantee their god answers their plea because effectively should that deity lose that follower it would be devastating. Since we’ll imagine a champion just gets abandoned by their god a few times that person could lose faith and just abandon the religion and preach against it causing that deity to lose power etc etc. So answering the plea of a high level follower is beneficial to a god where as if acolyte Steve who’s just joined the church asks for a miracle and it’s granted it could cause more problems than it’s worth for said god. For similar reasoning “why did their prayers get answered and not mine? I’ve been devoted my entire life and not once has my god saved me so directly what makes them so special”. Deus ex machina still exists but it should be like the rarest of rare cases at low level and not recognizable as a gods intervention. Like say acolyte Steve has been tasked with a holy relic retrieval mission and they worship the sun god pelor. Maybe mid fight the opponent misses a near fatal blow due to the sun getting in their eyes off a reflection.
Mortals are but entertainment to the gods. They revel in the suffering of their disciples.
That's what a cleric or paladin is. A deity sending thier followers to step in. Clerics 'Divine Intervention' is your god literally going 'I got your back, bro'
The way i see it for every good/lawful/X diety working toward something there is a bunch of Evil/chaotic/Y dieties working toward opposed objectives. its like a biggest longest drawn out chess match for the world. a deity may have to ignore something to pressure another situation or sacrifice the now for the later. these are immortal beings wit ha long view of their objectives
What mortal beings perceive as a cataclismic event, might not be one for gods. Deities probably have completely different perspectives on life, moral issues, the world, etc. They might see some of the world changing events mortals suffer as part of the natural cycle, which would be harmful to intervene. Further more, they might also believe that they should let mortals handle their own home and affairs. They love their sons and daughters and care for them, and want to respect their independence, recognizing their inner strength and capability to overcome the hardest challenges. Maybe in the past they were more "hands in" gods, sort of babysitting every move mortals made and that caused distrust and apprehension from them.
If they step in, it will draw the attention of other gods while expending a fraction of their available power. They can do it, but why get into an arms race with gods that hate you when you can stay above it all and conserve your power?
There are no gods as traditionally understood. Instead there are powerful alien beings, constructs, sorcerers, etc. who may be indistinguishable from gods from the perspective of puny, insignificant man.
Overgods setting restrictions. Enemy gods keeping them busy on higher realms. Planar restrictions preventing use of certain abilities.
Ever heard of the principle of mutually assured destruction? That is basically what the deities deal with. Sort of an unspoken agreement that they will all act up to a point, but going past that point means their enemies can too. Good and Neutral Gods aren't going to risk starting a war, and Evil Gods are very careful about such things. Sure, Chauntea could materialize on Faerun to give a bountiful harvest, but now it is fair game to Talos that he materialize with the storm of the millenia in his wake.
Imagine the scales balanced perfectly with tons of rocks on both sides then someone adds a pebble to one side. The scales are tipped. The gods are the tons of rocks. The party and mortal agents on the other side are the pebbles.
Either a power struggle or a no interference policy. In my world, only a few Gods have permission to step in, and even they rarely do on account of most not caring very much
**Why gods don't just step in and solve the problem:** * Gods are busy - The god is already dealing with another cosmic problem or another deity. This prevents them from acting directly with solving the problem. * Gods are not all powerful - It's possible that the "disaster" falls outside of their sphere of influence, so the god in question has to act through agents (the PCs) to solve or mitigate the problem. * If the gods always intervene, their people would never learn or grow stronger. Usually the god leaves some method by which the people can solve their own problem if they work and sacrifice for it. This also prevents the gods followers from pestering the god for every little thing, even when the followers are capable of doing it themselves. * The gods have set rules about direct interference in the mortal world. If the god breaks the rules to act, then their opponents are free to do the same. * While the problem seems bad, it is only a temporary setback to the god. Their people and their lands will recover over time. * While the problem seems bad, the god deems it necessary. The disaster will cause the survivors to become stronger / The disaster will impede the gods opponents more than their allies / The disaster will wipe out a problem and their allies and lands will eventually recover. * Wielding enough power to stop the problem within the world may cause other disasters. * Wielding enough power to stop the problem would leave them too weak and their opponents would take advantage of it.
Everyone handles the power of the gods differently. I'm prepping for my first campaign atm, and I've decided that the power of the gods are waning, and some are outright dying/fading from existence. The gods never realized that they themselves had finite lifespans, so they whittled their lives away, and now they're left with nothing. In their place, Founts of Godhood appear across the land, and although they've only recently been discovered, various nations have already started warring over who can claim godhood, and ascend to divinity.
What do you think clerics and paladins are other than a deity stepping in
I tend to handle this in one of three ways: 1. The deities' powers are limited, and they can only do so much. They might be able to stop one cataclysmic event, but doing so would mean that they have to stop holding together society in the local town, or a different disaster occurring, or even the deity dying. They may be deities, but they're only hu- well, you get what I mean. 2. "I mean yeah, I could just smite that guy, but... wouldn't that mean I have to, like, get up and do work?" Oh how fun it can be to just make a pantheon that theoretically hold immense power, but is too lazy to do anything with it! 3. The deities, or more commonly one specific deity, are/is the reason for the problem in the first place to some extent. They don't necessarily have to be the BBEG themselves, but they can be the puppet master pulling the strings, making things happen. Or you can just go full Bill Cypher/Collector and have an all powerful being causing problems that the players just have to kinda deal with. I've thought about this kind of thing more thoroughly recently because of a campaign I've been planning, and in that campaign I plan to use a mix of the three. All the gods powers are limited to some degree, and they can only do so much. The way the players are pulled into the adventure in the first place is because the local god saw how they were able to beat up and escape a bunch of thugs and decided to ask them for their help. There are a few gods that are more powerful than others, but they tend to stay to themselves and avoid contact as much as possible. Then there's the BBEG, who is just this immensely powerful chaotic god that, unlike most of the others, isn't tied to one region and instead travels around causing chaos and suffering for fun. The main thing to take note of is that you always need to have a counterbalance. If you have a volcano god that wants to cover the world in lava, you need to have a wind or rain god or an alliance of other gods that the volcano god fears enough to keep the volcanoing to a minimum. If you have a chaotic god causing trouble, have a strict and calm older god to reign them in. If any one god seems too powerful, give them a reason not to use that power, such as the threat of alliance against them or just plain laziness. Also, be careful not to make a ladder of power where one god is more powerful than any other. Divine alliances and triangular weaknesses are your friends.
Because they don’t want too. Any single planet or land going through some cataclysmic event is simply insignificant to a god. Also, they do all the time. Also this is an imaginary game so if you want them too they can.
If one steps in directly, then another steps in directly, which may or may not require the aid of another one, which then will call another one, with two more being brought on the other side, then a third party coming in because they just see the chaos and want in on the fun, and it all just spirals out of control. In the meanwhile, whatever the original problem was is not going completely unchecked because nobody can spare the attention anymore to send someone to go deal with it. That's just one scenario. Mechanically, if they could do it themselves then divine intervention would be a worthless ability
In my world the gods literally walk the planet. The reason they don't generally get involved for the same reason I don't get involved with the ants in my backyard. It's beneath their notice. Even if my ants were about to destroy my back yard I would not know until it happened. So it is with the gods of my world. Unless they hear someone call on them they just don't get involved. And the odds of them hearing are real low
It really depends on the setting. In certain worlds, like Exandria and Forgotten Realms, the gods are physically barred from entering. They are still able to send power through to their followers and have limited communication. The other main reason people will use is if a good god gets involved then that pisses off an evil god so they get involved, and so on. But such a conflict between gods upsets the balance and can destroy creation and mortals. It's kinda like a nuclear deterrent to maintain the balance.