What is a 'God' in D&D?

[Ltheb Silverfrond]

Aside from the metaphysical ramifications, just about anyone ~10th-15th level in D&D can call them self a god and 99% of the populace cannot disprove it.
1. They can fight dozens or hundreds of opponents (depending on edition) without effort. Commoners and peasants; Heck, even some kings have 0 chance of defeating the character in combat.
2. If they cast spells, they have any capability they could ever need. Attempts to imprison, outsmart, or overpower the character are not likely to succeed.
3. At this point anything that could challenge them need come from either:
A. The Underdark
B. The Planes
C. The Plot

Truly 'Divine' Gods would exhibit the same qualities. The only real difference is that Divine Gods 'typically' are:
1. Older - Some are world-builders or Overgods, some are just plain ancient. 'Mortal' Hero-Gods typically die (Either of Old Age or in Battle) and can be forgotten. When a True God dies, its some huge thing. (usually)
2. More Powerful - Many gods can just 'do' things. Blasphemous King giving you flack? Drop a Mountain on his castle. A Big One. Like, Everest-Size. In the Middle of the Night. Without Warning.
3. Grant Spells - 'Real' Gods grant spells to mortals for whatever reasons. What allows them to do this is really known only to them.
4. Unknowable - Frequently, True Gods have motives and personalities that are Alien to Mortals. A Goodly god, lets say of Strength and Protection, while extremely powerful, could easily crush every goblin tribe there ever was in the blink of an eye. Why doesn't he/she? Divine Law? Plans within plans? Doesn't care?

But your results may vary.

 

[Daniel D. Fox]

In most D&D games I have seen, gods are just really big NPCs.

In my own games, they are removed from the human sphere entirely -- to kill a god is to destroy an aspect of reality, creating gigantic, cataclysmic changes. They are fundamental building blocks of cosmic reality.

This.

 

[justanobody]

I don't think they play any part in 4e save for some powers to a few classes. Alignments play very little in the game so that takes deities pretty much out of the picture.

 

[WayneLigon]

I got to wondering what exactly is a god, in D&D 4e, and what isn't. What is the link between the religion(s) of the gameworld, and its deities? Are all gods in the setting worshipped? Are all objects of worship gods?

How do the game mechanics of religion (classes, prayers, rituals, etc) support or interfere with these ideas?

All that depends on the individual campaign and what I've chosen for the cosmology; I've done games that answered all those questions. The only usual problem that I have with many settings is that they'll include a god of arcane magic; that has almost always conflicted with how I see magic-users.

The vague idea I'm working on now will probably involve:
1. Human desire and will creates gods out of nothing
2. Gods change, grow, and die
3. There are big gods, little gods, and even household gods
4. Gods can be confronted and killed, though that's usually a bad, bad idea; even a household god can put up a considerable fight. But the rewards of doing so are also great. Kill a household god, and the family will probably wither. Kill the god of a nation and you'll probably start a civil war. Kill a god that's gone insane and the people under her thumb will love you forever.
5. Religion sustains them for a time, but it's a subsistance diet at best. Religions continue after their gods have died. Religions can exist and not generate a god. A god can exist without a religion.
6. Divine casters are rare and special; they are people specially touched by a god or force. Most members of a religion are not spellcasters. In fact, many religions don't like to see a cleric or especially paladin of their god show up - that usually means someone's done something to so anger their god that it'll all end with multiple sword wounds.

 

[Snoweel]

In fact, many religions don't like to see a cleric or especially paladin of their god show up - that usually means someone's done something to so anger their god that it'll all end with multiple sword wounds.

I'm leaning this way as well right now; for the organised priesthoods of deities to be at odds with their (adventuring) clerics.

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Off topic:
I like the idea divorcing of spell casting from the worship of a god! Some game systems imply this in their mechanics but for DnD it's quite a big step to say only certain special priests have magic. It should give the PC cleric a strong sense of divine mission too, which would give some nice roleplaying opportunities.

On topic:
I like my gods distant. Unknowable. I think Goblyns Hoard who gives his gods a range of personality traits, from nice to nasty, is on to a good idea. It allows the religions (ie: that part of the god thing that PCs will interact with most) that much more scope for internal conflict and wrong-headedness without begging the question of 'why does God X allow this?' I like a bit more grey morality in my games.

Distant and fuzzily defined is how I like them. Not all that helpful for a definite campaign design. But it does allow variation on the theme of god. So a major religion that worships the Sun God can operate by one set of rules and a small tribal religion that worships a giant crocodile can operate by another set of rules. Or not.

I could enjoy a game that was more like the Greek myths but I'd get tired of it fairly quickly. It would be like playing in the Realms, all these uber-NPCs running around the place doing all the cool stuff while the PCs look on.

 

[Orius]

It depends on the DM really.

They could be the big guys/girls upstairs (or downstairs) who give clerics their spells and nifty abilities. Or maybe the Athar in Planscape have it right, that the gods are just a bunch of very powerful narcissistic liars and the power of faith comes from within. It's whatever the DM decides.

Maybe they're the beings that are way too powerful for the PCs to kill and take their stuff -- unless the DM decides otherwise.

Maybe they don't exist at all, and they're just concepts used by fiends and celestials as a way of manipulating mortal behavior and development, according to how the fiends and celetials believe mortals should be guided. That is assuming the DM wants to take this view.

Or maybe the multiverse itself is conscious, and the gods are different fragments of that consciousness, if the DM is cool with this idea.

Or maybe the priests just made them up out of whole cloth, after having too much sacramental wine, or doing too much of the psychotropic substances that give them visions, if the DM thinks this will make for a trippy campaign.

Anyway, the nature of the gods, particularly in a homebrew is kind of up to the DM. If you're DMing, then just make them whatever you want.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

It varies radically for me, what Gods are like in my settings, over the years (so not just 4e):

-God-Machine: It is literally a metaphysical computation machine that controls the reality and physics of a Artificial World.

-Loa: The closest thing to Gods, are essentially the spirits/saints of Voodoo culture, but somewhat reflavoured for the setting.

-Spirits of The Land: These are your quintessential "living gods" they roam the world in human or animal form and are tied to a specific place in the world. They are quite strong and powerful, but they can be killed like any mortal.

-Average Joe: This is for those planescaping style campaigns. A god is essentially a say level 25 NPC. He is simply the one who most likely unfortunate for him has to deal with all these people wanting to have something to worship and filling his head with their toughts. It was quite common seeing a god drinking himself into a coma to get away from it all in my setting.

-Dead/Non-Existent: They have all died off, or never existed to begin with.

There are more but that is what pops into my head. I almost never have ordinary D&D-generic gods.

 

[FalcWP]

Obviously, it depends quite a bit on the sort of flavor you want for your game.

I personally like Eberron's take on it - some gods may be nothing more than concepts that people believe in, and get power through their belief, while other gods are real, physical entities.

That said, I'm developing a world for my next campaign where the gods were actual, ancient beings who fought and died over the world long, long, long ago. Emphasis on 'died' - most of the gods were slain, or grievously wounded and forced to retreat. They blood became part of the world - it seeped into the ground, mixed in the water, and became part of the air, and through that, mortal races were able to draw on magic. Some take this as a gift - the gods made great sacrifices so that mortals could harness magic - and worship them for it. Others merely want to grab as much power as possible, with no cares for where it came from.

To make things more interesting:

1) There's a finite amount of magic. This actually lets me put a sliding bar on the level of the game - earlier in history there are greater heroes because using magic is as easy as breathing. Later heroes can't come close to what the great heroes of legend could do, because there simply isn't enough magic left in the world. So if I want high fantasy, high level games, I go earlier; grittier, low level games, later.

2) Drawing magic from different sources can have different effects. Still not 100% on how this will work (its a work in progress), but its easiest for someone to draw on magic granted by their creator god/parthenon (IE: Elves can draw on Corellon, Dwarves on Moradin, and so forth). If you draw on whatever source is handy, it may work, but there may be consequences (more likely to be story-based than rules and backfires). Which discourages an elf from trying to draw on Gruumsh. Rules-wise, this may allow studying of different gods/power sources (hey, atheist adventurers need magic, too), opening up new feats and rituals.

3) Remember how I said 'most' gods were slain? That means there are some who weren't. And there is all manner of debate as to if they're still around, who they are, and what to do with them. Members of different, even warring groups, may want to kill or save a god, for various reasons. You could have elves and orcs working together to save Gruumsh - the elves don't want the orcs to gain more magical power, the orcs want their god to be one of the last ones standing. And of course, they could be opposed by elves and orcs who are trying to *kill* Gruumsh.

Just something I'm toying with.

 

[Byronic]

I like having different kind of Gods for different races.