I am running a game where the players are now 14th level and its a well balance group. I wanted to integrate the God's they worship into the game but did not have any good ideas. Have any of you had God's interact with the characters? If so, how did you go about it? My group is trying to save the world and require assistance...
I never do ... in point of fact, there are no gods in my game worlds, so obviously they can't.
This is something of a slippery slope ... you don't want the players thinking 'every time we get stuck, the GM will have the gods tell us what to do next', and then they stop trying.
There should be some type of event where the gods' opponents have become active in the world, giving a reason for the gods to lend assistance to the party. Generally, if you are going to have the gods take part of something, it has to be big, especially at the level your PC's are at.
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Have them do so through mortal or Outsider agents. They can't intervene directly (for whatever reason), but having their Herald or another badass emissary show up to help the PCs in some non-combat capacity or give them gifts from their God can be pretty cool. Giving out Deific Obedience or an equivalent boon at some point might be cool, as might appropriate permanent bonuses (a worshiper of Cayden Cailean becoming immune to poison) or actual physical items (a longsword direct from Iomedae).
In other words, have them boost the characters up, not do the work for them.
I am running a game where the players are now 14th level and its a well balance group. I wanted to integrate the God's they worship into the game but did not have any good ideas. Have any of you had God's interact with the characters? If so, how did you go about it? My group is trying to save the world and require assistance...
I have been portraying gods in direct conversation in my game, and I've taken to do communication in different ways, depending on what kind of situation and mood you want to create.
A player of mine used a magic pen to use contact other plane and communicate with a god known as the Peacock Spirit. I portrayed it as a mental projection where the character in question found herself atop a snowy mountaintop in a snowstorm. As she turned around to get her bearings, The huge form of a massive otherwordle peacock banished the storm for about 50 ft around them with a flap of its wings, and regarded the character with faint curiosity.
The character proceeded to show respect and ask questions, and I communicated the answers in the following way.
Character: "Where can we find <insert world threatening bad guy>"
Me: "The passive form of the peacock spirit turns its head, blue and green flames licking across its feathers at the movement. It gazes into the thick snowstorm, as if trying to percieve something beyond the snow, beyond even the plane of existence you currently find yourself in. Without turning its head back to you, you feel a tone in your head, like one that of a finger running over a crystal glass coupled with the rumble of an erupting volcano. You find that you understand: <villain> is presently hidden away in a plane of his own, keyed to but a single anchorpoint on the material plane"
and then continued in that fashion for the rest of the questions.
I chose to do it that way because the Peacock spirit is a very, very old god and their interaction with it needed to carry the tone of them encountering the remains of a very old, mystical civilization, so I wanted the encounter to carry alot of oomph. I wantaed the character to realize she found herself in front of a creature that did not have sympathy for her cause, nor interest in her quest, but a creature that merely recognized her right to at least ask the questions, for being the bearer of the magic pen.
meanwhile, in the real world, the character was sitting perfectly still at a desk, with the rest of the party around her, watching in silence as the character, with eyes aflame with scintillating light, mechanically wrote the answers she were told onto a piece of paper she was sitting with.
If I wanted to portray a different god, a god more sympathetic, or in a situation where I wanted the god to speak with the players, rather than just add flavour to a spell, I might have the characters encounter the god and play it out myself. There is of course the danger of mucking up the in-character roleplay when you try to portray something as majestic and beyond the scope of mortals, as a god, but my workaround is this:
The players conversing with the god is not beholding the god in its full glory, nor listening to the gods actual voice. The god has purposefully diminished itself, reducing its shape and sound, so as to be comprehendable by mortal senses. This reduced shape, while obviously otherworldly and brimming with power, a mere veil of fallibility draped over something beyond such notions, still acts and talks like a mortal would. Like a fallible creature would. That way, if I stumble, if I misspeak, it is not the fault of the god, but just something that happens because the god has to adjust itself to a mortal level.
Of course, not every instance of divine communication needs to be done directly with a god. The heralds of gods or divine emissaries will do just fine for many cases. But if you want direct contact, those are my suggestions.
Hope it helps.
-Nearyn
You could also go from church to church or group to group trying to hire people. Let's say your BBEG is trying to kill a god for whatever reason. Have your players hire the Red Mantis Assassins or try and wake up their deity.
Just remember the gods themselves are usually too busy to deal with the affairs of mere mortals.