Are there gods in your setting? Are they benevolent? If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?

As long as your setting's gods aren't omnipotent there's really no conflict with there being suffering.

The problem only arises when there's a god that could prevent all suffering and chooses not to. If you've got your standard fantasy pantheon that's not really going to be an issue (there might be multiple gods working on minimizing suffering but they're often in conflict on dogmatic issues or are opposed by other, less wholesome gods).

Yeah, and some are benevolent, but it really varies. They ultimately spring from and are shaped by the mortal psychosphere/collective unconcious, so they're only as anything as people think they are.

>Yes.
>Some of them. Others are malevolent or indifferent.
>Limited ability to influence the world.

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yes
>Are they benevolent?
No. Some seem benevolent but really all the gods want something from you and it's a matter of if it's easier to convince you to give it or to kill you and take it.
>Why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
The gods have no interest in the 'Real' let alone for use as a fresh front for their eternal struggle against each other. The powerful veil that exists to seperate the Heavens and the Earth is too stubborn for even a god at the height of their power to penetrate. The most they can do is send lackeys through the veil with special runes to fool the veil for a time, and hope they get enough work done to make an impact.
If a god actually found a way to manifest even a portion of themselves into the Real it would spell the end of the world in as short as a few days, if that god was not obliterated by competition first.
And of course, there are deeper, more sinister forces for them to worry about as well.

Gods are present, but they aren't omnipotent or omniscience.

To influence a place they require holy places decided to them, worship and sacrifice to provide them with power. A people must support and tend to their patron Gods if they don't wish to live under the Dominion of the Gods of others.

>Are there gods in your setting?
Some.

>Are they benevolent?
Some.

>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
None of them are truly omnipresent or omnipotent, so I'll take "their world" to mean "areas
where they could prevent it".

God of Nature: Only intercedes if the conflict and suffering is deemed too unnatural or "civilized". Capricious and wrathful as well as kind and nuturing, she allows what she subjectively feels is part of life's natural course.
Upshot: Not really her area of benevolence.

Moon Goddess: Life is suffering. She does aid those who ask her for it that she deems worthy. Because she can.
Upshot: She allows conflict and suffering because they are part of the Balance, just as she herself is.

Dragon God: Although conflict and suffering can bring great wisdom, he does as much as one being can to encourage others to avoid more than is truly necessary.
Upshot: He respects their free will.

Phoenix God: Actually pro-conflict and suffering.
Upshot: Conflict brings change and rebirth, suffering can be endured and make one stronger.

God of the Sea: Shut up, I'm busy protecting your asses from things you'd rather not know about.
Upshot: There are worse things.

Goddess of Light: How does one resist those that seek conflict, without creating conflict oneself?
Upshot: Some suffering is easier to prevent than conflict.

God of Just Fire: Conflict and suffering cannot be prevented entirely, merely reduced. The struggle to do so is an important part of life.
Upshot: He only leads the way for others to strive.

God of Death: Actually ended conflict and suffering on a global scale. But then his kids got a bug up their butts about how ruled, so he killed them before getting killed himself. Now he just can't be bothered with it.
Upshot: He's retired.

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yes
>Are they benevolent?
No, they are as fallable as you or I, just much more powerful
>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
Well, this one doesn't apply to me, but if they were both present and benevolent, then they must not be omnipotent, and therefore try to prevent suffering but fail.

Yes, and of course not. They're personalities are as varied as their followers and domains.

The Problem of Evil is only a problem if the god is question is omnipotent. If their influence is limited than they couldn't prevent all conflict and suffering even if they want to.

If you want a deity that is both omnipotent and benevolent on the other hand, there have been several solutions proposed to the Problem of Evil. None of them are completely satisfactory for one reason or another but a fictional setting doesn't have to have the same rules as the real world.

Gods are typically patrons of a particular kingdom or ideology and as such exhibit what that group views as a perfect person onto of being super powerful but not all powerful or all knowing and as such cannot right each and every wrong. The gods know this and so act through mortals as best they can.
Of course what one god sees as just another might see as foolish or even cruel.

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yup.

>Are they benevolent?
Some. All do their part according to their archetype.

>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
Part of the cosmic rules. There wouldn't be any worlds without suffering in the first place.

Okay

According to themselves

I'm pretty sure that humanity doesn't know everything & that anybody can have a different opinion. They could decide that the optimal route just happens to be a route some humans consider bad

God isn't active in my setting, but I only started working on the idea last night, So I'm not sure what he's actually doing instead of hanging out in the afterlife.

Yes, because conflicts creates death and death is necessary for the winter harvest

>Are there gods in your setting?
God like beings yes.
>Are they benevolent?
Some, most are more concerned with their own issues and don't really pay much attention to mortals.

Arguably depending on who you ask
He doesn't think conflict is a huge deal as long as humanity as a whole is doing decently, and he has a hard time comprehending the physical world and doing anything but being cryptic and fighting extra dimensional post humans in the spirit world

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yes, plenty.
>Are they benevolent?
Some.
>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
They don't. They fight proxy wars against their more malevolent brethren to create better lives for their followers, at least the benevolent ones do. They can't directly strike due to ancient pacts that were crafted to prevent another great war of the gods and the subsequent catastrophe upon the mortal world.

Omni powers are ridiculous and contradictory. They cannot exist upon any being which can claim to be a being.

There's always skeeball.

Yeah.
Like 50/50.
Because 50% of them are douchbags

Yes, and they're ambivalent in that they don't want the world to outright end or be interfered with by outside forces, they just don't mind what happens otherwise.
They prefer watching their creations to better understand their mindset, as it is.

More complicatedly: none of the gods are keen on queering the nonaggression pact between the planetouched on the moon since they theoretically have a superweapon capable of destroying the Earth and probably each other and maybe target god.

The only living being on the Earth who knows about this is an ancient dragon who happens to be a massive dick. He's a greedy bastard who's so old he lives more for shenanigans than the accumulation of wealth AND HE FUCKING LOVES ACCUMULATING WEALTH.

It's a weird setting.

>God used to be a prolific skeeballer
>Retired from competition since he's fucking god how the hell can you beat that shit
>Doesn't even do it for fun anymore, thinks that competition was what made it interesting
>He just chills out beyond the reach of the deceased, not giving a shit anymore
>But then one day
>God is kidnapped by beings beyond even his understanding
>They made a wager against a similar being that if they lost to it in a skeeball competition, they would be it's slaves at it's amusement park
>God gets dragged into Celestial-Skeeball Space Jam

Do you have children? If so, would you protect them from all suffering and every hardship, never once letting them know a moment of pain or bitterness? Do you think that is wise? Do you think if you did so they would grow up to be well adjusted capable adults?

God(s) see a bigger picture than we do, in much the same way we see a bigger picture than a child. They understand our suffering is transigent and fleeting, but that it serves a purpose which lasts much longer, to teach us.

I've got a giant rat that makes people dance to death and would send rats to steal aristocrat's babies from the crib and cook them into stew to feed the poor in a time of famine as well as teach a little girl magic that would bring ruin to two nations.

If a god is a creator of all things, why create suffering to begin with?

Like, if you are a parent, you have to let your children toughen up because hardship will find them eventually, but if the only source of hardship is you, that's a poor justification. "Sure, I punch my children in a face, but only to prepare them to the day I'll beat them with baseball bat"

Because the alternative is really fucking boring

Gods in my settings work much like the primals in FFXIV. they don't "Exist" but they can be invoked in the right circumstances.

This is where it gets really complicated, gimme a minute to go get some reference material, this is gonna be an absolute shit show if I try to do this from memory alone. Hopefully I still have that audio file...just one moment please.

yes
some are
sealed away in the same ritual that locked out the daemons. They can both push through the seal to a degree (gods grant powers to mortals, daemons sneak through temporarily).

a huge bunch, but pretty much none is in any way omnipotent

>If a god is a creator of all things, why create suffering to begin with?
I know this, and I can give the soundbite version of the answer, but might fuck up the full explanation.
I can't find the book that summed it up nicely.
Best to wait for

Detective Comics
>Shazam is powered by the divity of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury
>Greek Pantheon is rarely allowed to even touch their domain, unless it looks civilian(logistics)
>The Pantheons leaders(Zeus, Poseidon, Hades) may not actually have a domain to draw power from
>Snyders adaption of Superman & Justice League so far is spot on, on the Worshiped as Dieties aspect
>Norsegermanic Pantheon only really show up in Elseworld(alongside Frost Giants)
>Dieties being superior to mortals is not a thing outside of Shazam and aliens
>Kryptonian Sungod do show up(and leave mostly for the same lame reasons)
>Wotan and several others are in are trapped in Source Wall
>New Gods aren't really allowed to show up anywhere, don't need prayer or domains(but do make them stronger)
>Mother Boxes are basically Omnipotence compressed into a aid, except when its just a glorified teleport aid
>The Darkseid War ends with Justice League becoming Gods, for like 5 issues then goes back to Status Quo

MARVEL
>Asgardians may or may not be Gods, and may or may not be powered by their domain. Flip flops everywhere
>Greek pantheon is played straight, except mostly same portrayal as the Asguardians. Rarely shows up
>Fundamentals don't show up, but are also basically Higher Gods
>Lesser Deities show up in Dr. Strange stuff, but only for pages at a time

D&D:
>Characters start ascending at level 20, but most don't reach Godhood
>Domain & soul rules contradicting each other
>Muh prayers might not even be a issue
>Splatbooks have no agreements beyond "muh dieties"

Gods in my setting aren't all that different from mortals, aside from being far more powerful and existing on a higher plane. They know they only exist on the whims of even higher planar entities, who see them (and by extension the mortals) as a way to stave off eternal boredom for a while. These higher planar entities are, of course me and the players.

I like to think of this as follows: If the gods have prepared eternal life for mortals that awaits them when they die, why should they give a shit about what happens to them before they die? A life of suffering for even maximum of like 100 years is still irrelevant when compared to eternal life free of troubles after you die.

If only. That would be too fun. Gotta make him a dead serious negro instead.

Technically, but the only actual god of the setting is Nature, who just sort of loafs around watching all of her creations kill each other. She's extremely disappointed in humanity for making deals with demons and learning their magic and technology to undermine her, and is waiting patiently for any of the deadly germs of the world to wipe out our species. The only people who pray to her are survival-of-the-fittest nutjobs and they don't get any reward from it anyway.

Have you ever met rich kids who've had everything handed to them? Insufferable assholes. Besides gods are literally the source of everything, so where else would the suffering come from?

Suffering is technically a blessing.

This is a complete non-sequitor.

Mind you, god also created insufferable assholes, why would he do it?

Maybe the metaphysics of the settings are such that it's not really possible to create usefully intelligent entities without both free will and personality flaws. That would explain a lot of stuff.

>Are there gods in your setting?

There are things that call themselves gods.

>Are they benevolent?

In comparison to mortals, most aren't.

>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?

They aren't omnipotent.

Why does a writer create a world of conflict and suffering? Do understand, you about as 'real' to God as your own beloved OCs are to you.

I create heros, I create villians, I create setpeices grand and profound, tiny and humble, silly and serious; but I love them all, because I made, them for they are mine... yes, even those vilest villians, even having created them to condemnation, because as I create them I explore them, I come understand them in ways they don't even understand themselves.

I can rewrite their past, their present, their future, on a whim, but there is one rule I must obey. They must remain 'true', lest the story be twisted out of shape and it all lose cohesion.

>Are there gods in your setting?
Maybe. Most people seem to think so.
>Are they benevolent?
Most of them.
>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
That's a good theological question. Depends on the religion in question. Usually something to do with free will.

Do you not understand? That a world of troubles is to take an intelligence, and school it into a soul?

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yes, but most if not all are dead; Titans won the Titanomachy and are trying their best at the moment to pick up the pieces of their pyrrhic victory and wiggle their way into whatever deific positions are available.

>Are they benevolent?
Most of them, yes, but even the evil ones see no purpose in comedic, mustache twirling, villainy.

>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
A few reasons, but it mostly comes to them being unable to stop it: usually because it's a part of the system and they'd have to change how the world and how it worked in order for it to cease and doing so would defeat a lot of the value behind free willed dynamic worship.
Keep in mind, they'll cure diseases, bless crops, they're more than willing to hedge their bets, but they can't (for example) remove all the mosquitoes on the planet.

Yoooo why that guy gettin he dick sucked by a furry tho

>Are there gods in your setting?
Yes, both a Hands-off Creator, and numerous Pretenders and Servants
>Are they benevolent?
The H-O Creator is, after a fashion.
>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
The Primeval Person, the first Soul that was not either the Creator or Their Servants, wanted Knowledge of Good and Evil. As such, this world was made so that the Souls could learn about Good and Evil.

>Be a father to my followers;support them and only give dirict help when they really need it
>I know they can over come most problems since they are strong
"Fucking lazy god!"
Or
>Control everything they do so I can prevent anything bad from hurting them
"wtf?! I want free-will now!"

Mortals are picky cunts.

>yes
>no
>by literally not giving a shit.
Gods in my setting treat the mortal planes like Richard the Lionheart "The greatest King Evarr!!!" treated England.
"What? England? Oh yeah, I am also king of there. They give nice taxes."

>Planning a setting with no gods to make things feel less like high fantasy
Would I have to block classes like clerics and paladins then?

POWEEEERRRRRRRR

Divinity is a disease transmitted by a parasite that lays eggs in you that reside in upper dimensions to hide them from lower dimensional predators. Sure it's regulated by the church once you get infected and don't die, but because the mortality rate is so high most saints are homeless people who happened to survive. You can go to the saint on a subject you have a problem with but they may just not know how to help, or not want to, or have died at some point.

It's a crap shoot.

Yes.
Yes, mostly.

Because they've assumed the role of guides guides, not enforcers.
They could mind control humanity to make everyone live in a peaceful utopia, in fact they actually did that in the past. But that ended up doing more harm than good.

They realized that they're not perfect ( most of them did, at least ), so instead of forcing us into a path of their choosing, they decided to let humanity learn from its own mistakes and simply act as guides to people who wish to be good and help others.

Are there gods in your setting? Are they benevolent? If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
Because they have thousands of worlds and thousand of possibilities to consider, its not that they don't care, they're just aloof and generally busy.

Also because malignant gods usually have set up some kind of rules with them and these rules are honored or all hell breaks loose, two gods fighting isn't pretty.

Yes and yes, if you're talking about the one actual god. There's a handful of fallen angels that were worshipped as gods, but the majority of them are either the closest way of being dead, imprisoned, or reformed and penitent.

Gods are just spirits that have bargained and manipulated their way into great power and a constant flow of worship/praise/fear.

They're largely neutral with entirely alien and incomprehensible motives. One god is worshipped by warriors and bestows protections and strength in return for lives sacrificed and the wearing of holy symbols. Another is a harvest deity and will change the weather, cure crops and bloom fields out of a deep desire for perfect, beautiful pumpkins placed at their altars.

They allow conflict and suffering because they're vastly powerful, but not omniponent or kind. Conflict feeds them, makes them useful, wanted and needed, which sustains them.

There's two sets of gods, the big God, whom the main religion is focused on, the and minor gods, who are not worshipped by the majority of people but have dedicated cults surrounding them. The minor gods walk the Earth, often living in a grand temple-fortress, and seem to be immortal, but there have been rumors of them being killable. They certainly aren't all benevolent though, as petty squabbles between them often result in major natural disasters and massive casualties. The main religion (the one serving the big God) believes these gods to be demons in disguise.

The big God doesn't show up much, but occasionally sends angels and servants to do his bidding. Every now and then a big event will happen, such as the splitting of a continent or the sinking of a nation, and these events are often viewed as miracles or punishments by the major religion. He is viewed as benevolent by his followers.

Some people worship the little gods, some people worship the big God, some people think that they're both not worth worshipping (even to the point of declaring war on the gods), and some people don't give a shit as long as they're left alone.

>Are there gods in your setting?
There are beings close enough to being gods
>Are they benevolent?
To a point. They are gods, but they are not saints.
>If so, why do they allow conflict and suffering in their world?
Because they didn't even know mortals existed until very, very recently.
And when a messenger was sent to Earth to help them in their path to eternal peace and ascension, mortals murdered it and used its remains to make weapons of war.