Divine Intervention in D&D games

[Lanefan]

To some extent I've always had the gods (or at least a few of them) paying attention to the mortal world and what the party is up to.

In my first big campaign the party unknowingly and unintentionally became agents for one goddess acting against another two; the players (and characters) only found this out after 10+ years of play in the very last session when the god they'd been working for showed up and told them what they were doing - and why. But even before then, divine intervention happened albeit on a very rare basis.

In my second campaign, one of the more significant embedded adventure paths involved the rescue of a captured goddess (the 2e module "For Duty and Deity" was the climax) and thus right there the PCs ended up with a friend in high places. Long before that, I ran the "I-3 Pharoah's Tomb" adventure; the person who dropped by to give them their rewards afterwards as per the module was not Amon Ra but instead a minor god travelling in form of an old man. And not all the "rewards" were beneficial!

My current campaign has thus far been mostly based on a version of ancient Greece, whose deities constantly meddled with mortals; so having deities and immortals get involved even with low-level types hasn't been out of place at all. The immortal Discord has already taken significant interest in the PCs, they've managed to catch the Fates doing things they shouldn't, and have bent Ares' nose out of joint more than once. The only other culture they've had any real dealings with has been vaguely Celtic, another culture where the deities tend to manifest all over the place.

In any event, in an extreme situation a Cleric can try for divine intervention (I roll for this, sometimes already knowing there's no chance) and see what happens. I'll also occasionally do this in reverse: if the PCs are defeating an enemy Cleric, that person might also get divine help...in other words, it works both ways.

As a player, one example of divine intervention stands out. My namesake character Lanefan was lying half-dead in a pool of blood after losing a fight in "Tomb of the Lizard King". Barely conscious, he prayed to his god Loki for help. Loki showed up, stole a magic item - a ring, I think - from him, then took off and left him lying there! (someone independently found him before he bled to death and patched him up)

Lan-"I never did find out what that ring did"-efan

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Back in the 1e days when gamers in the area tended to form and break up groups pretty frequently there was a time when divine intervention was fairly common. The first time I saw it in action the houserule was a call for it at death, with a 1% per level chance of it working. (This quickly morphed into a slightly higher chance for Clerics, then it could be used in dire straights, but got reset to 1% if it worked.) In a large group with characters dropping like flies it was almost guaranteed that a diety would be contacted, and possibly show up.

If I recall correctly, the first character I had who was played under this rule converted to whatever god showed up and saved the rest of the party when his Cleric went down and made his intervention roll. The average level of the party was high single digits, or low double digits, and he was like 2nd or 3rd. So we are obviously all about to die and God X shows up in person to save our bacon! You bet he converted, on the spot!

I used the idea once or twice myself, but the idea petered out fairly quickly and there haven't been a lot of gods around since.

 

[Hussar]

And, even if it hasn't shown up in your games Bullgrit, it's certainly seen in loads of published products.

Dragonlance has Fizban.
Queen of the Demonweb Pits.
Temple of Elemental Evil.
Isle of the Ape.
Greyhawk has Zagyg, Iuz, and a bunch of others show up in canon.
Forgotten Realms - too many to list, but, Time of Troubles is the poster boy.
Planescape setting.
Lost Temple of Tharizdun.
Immortals rule set for Basic/Expert D&D.

Even if it hasn't featured in your (or honestly mine either) campaign, it's not hard to see that gods having a pretty direct hand in the setting is hardly a rare idea.

 

[Gilladian]

IMC the gods are all mortal beings who have found ways to move to "higher" planes of existence (very difficult as far as I'm concerned) and have taken on godly personas. They know they're not really gods, and they're using magic that they "found" or "won" in battle with other beings, and don't really quite understand.

These beings mostly dislike and fear other mortals, so even "good" gods are as interested in keeping their followers in line and away from their home territories as anything else. They tend to view being hands-off as fairly advisable. However, since their power is pulled from their worshippers, they do need to grant spells and remain just "visible" enough to keep their worship at a peak. Woe betide a god who falls from his or her worshippers graces when another god challenges him/her.

If there ARE "real" gods somewhere, there's no evidence of it! My underlying assumption is that it's really just all "magic". Where does magic come from? The big bang, I guess!

 

[Sammael]

Religion is a huge factor in my games, particularly FR ones.

The trigger for my long-term Rebirth campaign was the decision of Lathander (god of morning, youth, and renewal) to initiate a "purge" that would cleanse the world of all evil. Needless to say, things did not go according to his plans. Over the course of the campaign PCs interacted with a number of divine manifestations and avatars, and when they eventually reached the Outer Planes, they met with several deities "in person" and even participated in a divine meeting in Cynosure, where (in my version of the place) the deities shed their "shells" and appear as the concepts they represent.

An important point is never to let the divine intervention overshadow the actions of PCs. For instance, when the party got TPK'd, an avatar of Shaundakul, patron god of wind and travelers, removed their bodies (so that they wouldn't be defiled) and stashed their equipment away (so that it would wait for their return). Valkur, demipower of sailors, transported them along rivers Oceanus and Styx when they were roaming the Outer Planes on their quest to restore Faerun to normality. Helm was there to conveniently bite the bullet when they needed to dispose of an artifact (the only way to destroy it was to use it to strike down a god; of course, since Helm acted in accordance with his portfolio, he was then restored to his position by Ao).

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Gods are an iffy subject. I have used gods alot in my games, but then again, I usually run game in the Forgotten Realms setting where it seems like the gods stroll the streets and interact with people all the time, just because they have nothing better to do.
I try to use gods sparingly, to advance plot, introduce artifacts, or as BBEGs at the end of the game. When players hit the higher (epic) levels, having them travel WITH gods on their big epic quests of universe saving proportions isn't out of the question either.
However, in games I've played, gods have been uses slightly less sparingly.
In a 3.5 game I played last week, one of the characters prayed for help against a group of guys who seemed to be +2 levels to us, and he thought we were out matched. So then the god SHOWS UP... and WINS for us. I sit there feeling like someone who got his kill stolen by a god, and the game goes on. Bad DMing? maybe. Bad storytelling, yes.

One of my earlier characters had a god fall in love with him. It was kept on the down low for years, and not even refferenced to for the longest time. The character would come up against impossible odds (Set up by jealous gods) and still manage to succeed on his own. Every time there was a "cheap kill" for instance a vorpal sword cutting my head off, or being suffocated in a vaccume between time and space, my character would find himself alive and well some days later.
Then the reveal happened and the god chose my character as her champion, and the game pretty much ended (the DM moved to New Zealand, and we have opposing schedules) but the game was fun, and I believe the god was used properly (well... except for falling in love with my guy).

 

[karlindel]

It depends on the setting and the campaign. Here are the most direct examples of divine intervention I recall:

In a previous homebrew campaign, a mid-level paladin called on his deity and begged for a miracle to save his friends, as he and they were badly losing a fight. I gave him a small percentile chance, and rolled 01. His deity sent an emissary to aid in the fight and tasked him with a quest to take on as soon as the party finished their current mission (which was almost over at the time).

In my current campaign, the party has interacted with exarchs of the Raven Queen, who used the party as part of a ritual to break the elemental gates/shields that protected a false raven queen who was using an artifact to wall off a portion of the Shadowfell and using the souls there for her own purposes.

 

[the Jester]

As a DM, do you have the gods directly active in your setting(s)? Do they get involved with PCs?

Absolutely- but by manipulating things from behind the scenes. If you're talking about actual direct intervention- like, the god itself shows up- that is pretty darn rare imc. Most of the traditional gods are abstract creations of faith; it would take tremendous energy to physically manifest on the material plane.

On the other hand, there is a group of more physical deities that has "crossed over" into my world, and in doing so have shaken things up- they are considerably more likely to take a direct active hand in things.

That said, since my new campaign world started in about, oh, '93 or thereabouts, I've had the following incidents that might be termed "direct deity involvement" (not counting archfiends, dragons, elemental princes or other entities that style themselves as gods but aren't the traditional deity):

1. A pc became the Jesus-figure of his religion (2e; psionicist later dual-classed to cleric). He didn't have any super god powers or anything, just a normal pc. (This whole thing started when he was 2nd-3rd level.)

2. A group of pcs "crossed over" into the world that the more physical deities I mentioned above were in and met a couple of them before being tricked into bringing them back. (High level 2e pcs.)

3. Those pcs met some imprisoned gods and persuaded their captor to release them. (Same pcs as 2; same plot line; convoluted tale!)

4. A later group of epic pcs met with the interloper gods to get their help in tearing down the forces of Law. (A dozen sessions or so before the finale of my 3e epic game.)

5. At the finale, the biggest god on the block went ahead and spent all that energy to physically manifest and try a last desperate attempt to triumph over the forces of Chaos (and our heroes), and one of the interloper gods appeared to fight him. The pcs (level 35-38) fled a couple of rounds later; there was just too much energy being thrown around.

This is over the course of just under 900 sessions.

5.

 

[DragonLancer]

In my games gods do take a role but very rarely ever take a physical form and interact with the characters. Gods have to take a hand in world events in my mind for a variety of reasons, whether it be they (probably an evil god) want to dominate the world or part of their portfolio is agriculture and farming.

In the past I have had players who have sought to get the gods in on their quests, usually while praying and asking for guidence. I find this odd as if you want their guidence you get the cleric to learn some divinations.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Nope.

I'm really tired and bored of the greek/hellanistic style pantheon, where all the gods are reguarly coming down to high-five their followers, and there's no questions ever about anything. Yawn.

While my setting has divine magic, wether that comes from a greater power is up for grabs. Certainly the various religions feel so, though each thinks of the other religions as being false. Some utilize divine magic just fine without being a part of any of the major religions. Religion then is a matter of faith - which incidentally leads to much more exciting intrigue and drama. While most religions have a vague real world application, the two that stand out are gnomish agnosticism and dragon worship - the first is somewhat self-explanatory, with the transhumanist (transgnomist?) gnomes not even caring about the existence of other "gods" while some laboratories run experiments on how to make their own, and the second leads to some excellent fun with divine characters. If a staunch religious cleric ends up meeting a figure who claims to be a god, and certainly has plenty of power to back it up, how do they react?