D&D 5E WotC's Jeremy Crawford Talks D&D Alignment Changes

Jeremy Crawford has spoken about changes to the way alignment will be referred to in future D&D books. It starts with a reminder that no rule in D&D dictates your alignment.

Data from D&D Beyond in June 2019​

(Note that in the transcript below, the questions in quotes were his own words but presumably refer to questions he's seen asked previously).

Friendly reminder: no rule in D&D mandates your character's alignment, and no class is restricted to certain alignments. You determine your character's moral compass. I see discussions that refer to such rules, yet they don't exist in 5th edition D&D.

Your character's alignment in D&D doesn't prescribe their behavior. Alignment describes inclinations. It's a roleplaying tool, like flaws, bonds, and ideals. If any of those tools don't serve your group's bliss, don't use them. The game's system doesn't rely on those tools.

D&D has general rules and exceptions to those rules. For example, you choose whatever alignment you want for your character at creation (general rule). There are a few magic items and other transformative effects that might affect a character's alignment (exceptions).

Want a benevolent green dragon in your D&D campaign or a sweet werewolf candlemaker? Do it. The rule in the Monster Manual is that the DM determines a monster's alignment. The DM plays that monster. The DM decides who that monster is in play.

Regarding a D&D monster's alignment, here's the general rule from the Monster Manual: "The alignment specified in a monster's stat block is the default. Feel free to depart from it and change a monster's alignment to suit the needs of your campaign."

"What about the Oathbreaker? It says you have to be evil." The Oathbreaker is a paladin subclass (not a class) designed for NPCs. If your DM lets you use it, you're already being experimental, so if you want to play a kindhearted Oathbreaker, follow your bliss!

"Why are player characters punished for changing their alignment?" There is no general system in 5th-edition D&D for changing your alignment and there are no punishments or rewards in the core rules for changing it. You can just change it. Older editions had such rules.

Even though the rules of 5th-edition D&D state that players and DMs determine alignment, the suggested alignments in our books have undeniably caused confusion. That's why future books will ditch such suggestions for player characters and reframe such things for the DM.

"What about the werewolf's curse of lycanthropy? It makes you evil like the werewolf." The DM determines the alignment of the werewolf. For example, the werewolf you face might be a sweetheart. The alignment in a stat block is a suggestion to the DM, nothing more.

"What about demons, devils, and angels in D&D? Their alignments can't change." They can change. The default story makes the mythological assumptions we expect, but the Monster Manual tells the DM to change any monster's alignment without hesitation to serve the campaign.

"You've reminded us that alignment is a suggestion. Does that mean you're not changing anything about D&D peoples after all?" We are working to remove racist tropes from D&D. Alignment is only one part of that work, and alignment will be treated differently in the future.

"Why are you telling us to ignore the alignment rules in D&D?" I'm not. I'm sharing what the alignment rules have been in the Player's Handbook & Monster Manual since 2014. We know that those rules are insufficient and have changes coming in future products.

 

[SkidAce]

Players write whatever alignment they want on their sheets, as a guideline and an indicator. And most importantly we talk about expectations.

So they are not surprised when they have NG written on their sheet, been playing as a pirate for weeks and making innocent woman, children, and gnome paladins walk the plank into shark infested waters, and then the NG sword of light burns their hand to a crisp when they pick it up.

Well, at least not surprised for long...

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

I would dare to say the 5.5 will not be published as a book by paper but as a videogame, because it's easier to add new ideas and later an update patch to be more "munchkin-proof".

 

[jayoungr]

5th edition D&D Player’s Handbook (emphasis mine):
"The evil deities who created other races, though, made those races to serve them. Those races have strong inborn tendencies that match the nature of their gods. Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc god, Gruumsh. and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel the lingering pull of the orc god's influence.)"

Volo’s Guide to Monsters:
"No matter how domesticated an orc might seem, its blood lust flows just beneath the surface. With its instinctive love of battle and its desire to prove its strength, an orc trying to live within the confines of civilization is faced with a difficult task."

They could definitely have done a better job of making this explicit, but I never took those as absolute prescriptions for how orcs were to be played, especially in homebrew worlds. An orc who wasn't created by Gruumsh obviously doesn't have to live by Gruumsh's ways.

 

[prabe]

They could definitely have done a better job of making this explicit, but I never took those as absolute prescriptions for how orcs were to be played, especially in homebrew worlds. An orc who wasn't created by Gruumsh obviously doesn't have to live by Gruumsh's ways.

Agreed. My homebrew world was cut off from the gawds ~1000 years ago, and while the orcs (among other folk) still bear the marks of having been shaped by their gawds, they are no longer driven by them. Most of the peoples are just trying to get by.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

because it's easier to add new ideas and later an update patch to be more "munchkin-proof".

Ha! I will build a better munchkin.

 

[Zaukrie]

I admit I didn't read the entire thread this time....so apologies if this has been mentioned, but PF2 bestiary does a great job of showing how you can have generally evil creatures, but not all are. They do a great job of writing that way in the bestiary.

 

[jsaving]

Personally I hope that with 6E (which, honestly, feels like it's suddenly gone from six+ years away to "maybe 2" years away)

Yes, I think you can count on that. They've produced new editions before to show their commitment to certain cultural values (2e comes to mind) and there's no reason why they couldn't do that again.

However I do think the debate over whether 6e is "needed" misses the mark. Yes, the 5e core books are still top-sellers on Amazon and yes, there are few glaring deficiencies in its mechanics that require immediate attention. But tone matters too and perhaps the most visible and impactful way to handle that would be a new edition that combines minor mechanical changes with a frank acknowledgement that some of the flavor text wasn't what it should have been.

 

[ZeshinX]

I enjoy the existence and presence of alignment in D&D, but I do enjoy it's state in 5e as being mostly flavourful and much less a mechanical element. I would like it to remain in the game at the very least as a flavour/fluff option if nothing else.

Ultimately I find it a fun element to explore through role-play the nature of good and evil and neutrality.

 

[Laurefindel]

Your character's alignment in D&D doesn't prescribe their behavior. Alignment describes inclinations. It's a roleplaying tool, like flaws, bonds, and ideals. If any of those tools don't serve your group's bliss, don't use them. The game's system doesn't rely on those tools.

This sentence alone could relax a lot of situations where alignment is concerned. With that you can have an evil character working in a group of good adventurers without causing a fit. They'd be inclined, for example, to kill the prisoners and leave no witness. They are not going to do it because they know their friends/companion would not accept it. They could go all their adventuring life with an effective "good" behaviour, even if that wasn't their first instinct.

As a matter of fact, many characters are a already like that, but players write CG on their character sheet because hey, DM said no evil alignment, and the game is about being heroes and not villains.

For that matter, these characters may be quite happy tagging along good characters and use their moral compass, be with the guys who do "the right thing", and not to have to worry about which side they should be on. Fiction is full of characters like that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I had this discussion with a player recently, over Yuan-Ti. In character, he started defending Yuan-Ti, and I had to remind the player of the facts in play, and then the player said sure but he's always thought that was silly, and I had to say he's sure welcome to think that, but in the setting we're playing, Yuan-Ti are bad guys who have always done bad, and his character will be perceived in very poor light by everyone who hears him defend them.

Neither player lasted in the group much longer than that, though those weren't the issues that took them out of play. But both incidents left me confused.

I think pulling a Luke Skywalker "There is good in you" and trying to redeem a Yuan-Ti even though you keep getting flak for it is a very interesting character trait. As a GM I would certainly run with it.