Divine Dungeon-Mastering: Roleplaying the gods

Multiple tabletop fantasy rpgs now have varying classes where a player-characters’ abilities and powers are granted to them by a higher power, but it’s not as common for the player’s to ever have a chance to roleplay their relationship with their god. In some games I’ve played in, the character’s relationship with their deity or patron is never once addressed. Personally, I think this is a mistake as this strips the class of much of its flavor, and they’re basically just a wizard with a different spell-set.

Often times, I leave a player without divine-abilities to roleplay how their character views their religion as they see fit, but when a character actually has abilities, spells, and powers granted to them by their god, it gives me some opportunities to create some interesting roleplaying encounters. When running a new game for these types of characters, I ask them what gods they are granted abilities from and do a little bit of research before the game. I find out that god’s agenda, personality, and little quirks. Throughout the session, I may ask them about how they view their god, the first time their god spoke to them, etc.

Then in combat, that player begins casting spells, laying hands to heal their allies, channeling the divinity of their god. Here the flavor of the cleric, the divinely favored soul, and the paladin shine…