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.

 

[FrogReaver]

Usually, but not always. See those thousands of non-evil orcs in the Forgotten Realms as an example of a creature bucking the trend in numbers other than extremely rare.

In 5e?

 

[Azzy]

Was that B/X or BECM (I didn't remember, or is B/X considered the same as BE)?

It was BECMI. And kinda... the B & E in BECMI were mostly the same as B/X with a few revisions and a different presentation. It was less different than 2e AD&D was to 1e AD&D. I'm sure there's someone that could better answer that question, though.

 

[Cadence]

Oops -wrongthread.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

However, embedded in D&D is the idea that if I see an orc in a dungeon room, I can immediately justify killing it.

Traditionally, this has been true because D&D settings have declared all orcs to be evil.

I agree with you on this point. No need to have long un-fun (in my opinion) episodes of subduing the lone orc, taking him prisonner to bring him back to a court to answer for his crimes. The orc in the dungeon room is exactly like stumbling upon a hungry predator: if you don't kill him, you'll be killed, and there is no hope to turn a tiger into a productive member of society. An orc was absolutely evil, a threat, not something remotely like a real people, just a monster with no agency, no free will, only being evil.

I would argue that this is a lazy and harmful stereotype. Real people judging others based on their appearance has led to real harm and tragedy for all of human history, and obviously it's part of a lot of important discussions right now.

I would argue this is a very useful stereotypes. It allows for "orcs" to be both rather intelligent (able to work in groups, lay traps, sound alarm, regroup after fleeing), therefore being a fun monster to fight, without all the problem linked to using violence, especially lethal force, against an opponent that could be considered human. If a human opponent surrender, in most country, it is a crime to finish him, even in the context of an open war; it would be evil for PCs to execute prisonners of war. It would also be boring to have them handle lines of POWs during the many fights they do in an adventuring day. Therefore, having non-human opponents (orcs, mind flayers, beholders...) is useful.

The problem you mention of "judging others based on their appearance" only applies when talking about judging other HUMANS based on their appearance. I don't think there is a lot of debate on judging a carrot is food based on its appearance, or a mosquito can be squashed based on its appearance. Most people will stop the propagation of locusts to protect their harvests, even if locusts are not really trying to harm them but just being locusts, judged on their appearance.

The contention is that WOTC has described orcs in terms used to describe Black or Asian people. It's unfortunate and hopefully they didn't know it was used as such, but it's something that can be corrected by giving orcs physical traits less reminiscent of real life people. "Two arms, two legs, with tusks and snout" are much better than "dark skinned humans": by making the depiction of non-human monsters less evocative of real life people, we can keep them without being offensive to anyone.

My argument is that when Wizards of the Coast has monstrous humanoids in upcoming adventures, settings, and editions, come up with other ways to show that the monstrous humanoids are antagonistic rather than just relying on the lazy, harmful trope that "everyone who looks like ____ is evil."

Just because it's tradition doesn't mean it's good.

If you disagree with this, then I challenge you to demonstrate how losing the trope of "everyone who looks like ___ is evil" harms the game or the experience of playing the game one bit.

As pointed above. Losing the trope "everyone who looks like he's a member of this species of monster is evil" harms the playing experience because, unless you're playing an evil group who will not take prisonners, you will encounter problems with intelligent opponents: what to do with them in a fight and especially after a fight (I recommand the thread on how to deal with a prisoner young dragon in a good kingdom if you want to see how complicated any situation like that can be).

A human bandit, you subdue and arrest him and have him be judged (whether he will be hang or acquitted based on the fact that he was raised in a bandit clan and never taught the right way to behave is better suited to Lawyers & Litigations than Dungeon & Dragons, but the part where you stop the bandit raid is....). You just don't kill them, especially as they could be raiding to feed their families and have a different approach on personal property as more settled villagers. You have human opponents if you want to delve in the complexities of morality and war.

A monster bandit, you can reasonably kill him, since he's just a predator on humanity, with no free will, and therefore not worry about whether baby orcs will die. Losing this trope of evil monster will harm the game since you will have to limit opponents to non-intelligent ones if you are not in the mood of complex debates on morality (and those simpler games are a large part of my adventures because often my players deals with enough complexities in their real life jobs and just want to have fun on weekends).

 

[Maxperson]

In 5e?

Kinda sorta. The Sword Coast doesn't detail that part of the Realms, so we have no updated lore for it. I don't see why it would change and absent new lore, I'd think they would be present there in 5e. However, nothing in 5e actually says that they are.

 

[Marandahir]

I agree with you on this point. No need to have long un-fun (in my opinion) episodes of subduing the lone orc, taking him prisonner to bring him back to a court to answer for his crimes. The orc in the dungeon room is exactly like stumbling upon a hungry predator: if you don't kill him, you'll be killed, and there is no hope to turn a tiger into a productive member of society. An orc was absolutely evil, a threat, not something remotely like a real people, just a monster with no agency, no free will, only being evil.



I would argue this is a very useful stereotypes. It allows for "orcs" to be both rather intelligent (able to work in groups, lay traps, sound alarm, regroup after fleeing), therefore being a fun monster to fight, without all the problem linked to using violence, especially lethal force, against an opponent that could be considered human. If a human opponent surrender, in most country, it is a crime to finish him, even in the context of an open war; it would be evil for PCs to execute prisonners of war. It would also be boring to have them handle lines of POWs during the many fights they do in an adventuring day. Therefore, having non-human opponents (orcs, mind flayers, beholders...) is useful.

The problem you mention of "judging others based on their appearance" only applies when talking about judging other HUMANS based on their appearance. I don't think there is a lot of debate on judging a carrot is food based on its appearance, or a mosquito can be squashed based on its appearance. Most people will stop the propagation of locusts to protect their harvests, even if locusts are not really trying to harm them but just being locusts, judged on their appearance.

The contention is that WOTC has described orcs in terms used to describe Black or Asian people. It's unfortunate and hopefully they didn't know it was used as such, but it's something that can be corrected by giving orcs physical traits less reminiscent of real life people. "Two arms, two legs, with tusks and snout" are much better than "dark skinned humans": by making the depiction of non-human monsters less evocative of real life people, we can keep them without being offensive to anyone.



As pointed above. Losing the trope "everyone who looks like he's a member of this species of monster is evil" harms the playing experience because, unless you're playing an evil group who will not take prisonners, you will encounter problems with intelligent opponents: what to do with them in a fight and especially after a fight (I recommand the thread on how to deal with a prisoner young dragon in a good kingdom if you want to see how complicated any situation like that can be).

A human bandit, you subdue and arrest him and have him be judged (whether he will be hang or acquitted based on the fact that he was raised in a bandit clan and never taught the right way to behave is better suited to Lawyers & Litigations than Dungeon & Dragons, but the part where you stop the bandit raid is....). You just don't kill them, especially as they could be raiding to feed their families and have a different approach on personal property as more settled villagers. You have human opponents if you want to delve in the complexities of morality and war.

A monster bandit, you can reasonably kill him, since he's just a predator on humanity, with no free will, and therefore not worry about whether baby orcs will die. Losing this trope of evil monster will harm the game since you will have to limit opponents to non-intelligent ones if you are not in the mood of complex debates on morality (which is an important parts of my games).

The problem is that all humanoids are stand-ins for real-world humans, in some form or another. There's only so much rubber you can apply to the forehead to disguise the human underneath (and the human roleplaying the character).

Some humanoids are treated like always*-chaotic-evil monsters, such as Orcs or Dark Elves, and unfortunately, the tropes associated with what characteristics they've been given are drawn from centuries of racist caricatures made by white Europeans and Americans about people that look "other" than the designated insular audience. D&D, as a hobby that emerged in the 70s & 80s predominantly among white male Americans and Canadians, bears a history of those racist caricatures, whether purposeful or simply due to a lack of awareness of the insidious tropes they (and we) leaned into at times because they were in the stories they (and we) grew up with. Checking privileges, countering racism and discrimination, these are not one and done tasks. They're ongoing jobs of each and every one of us. We've let these tropes fester in our hobby for too long, and now as the hobby finally explodes into more mainstream and diverse audiences, we're actually being held to account for them.

These insipid tropes do not exist in a vacuum either. WotC and other game development studios can have the best of intentions, but if the leadership is predominantly white and male and cis and hetero, there's a self-perpetuating problem of insular bias within the company. This begets caustic work environments and you get messy issues like the Orion news. The answer is not to puff up and defend the hobby and the company, the answer is to continue holding ourselves, the content we create and consume, and the people who make that content (that we purchase from) to account. We can force change in corporate culture, but it takes time, effort, and ongoing attention to the issue at hand. If we let up because it's working, or because we're getting small victories, then it's easy for the movement to peter out.

*Yes, I know there are exceptions. But the Drizzts and Thralls of the world prove the rule.

 

[Remathilis]

The problem is that all humanoids are stand-ins for real-world humans, in some form or another. There's only so much rubber you can apply to the forehead to disguise the human underneath (and the human roleplaying the character).

Then that's true of beholders and dragons and pit fiends too; you cannot truly have an alien mind because humans cannot think in ways that are beyond them. They're*all* rubber masks on humans because that is what we know: humans*. We have no real frame of mind if what a being of absolute malice would be like, or a being that can see centuries pass without aging. We can guess, assume or hypothesize, but in the end we use human concepts of love, joy, pain, time, and dimensional awareness to construct elves, orcs, dragons, liches, aberrations, and demons. They are all us underneath.

I guess that means all of them should be treated like stand-ins for humans, since they all reflect some aspect of human psyche.



(*we can also mimic the low sentience of animalistic creatures, but that's not much of a challenge).

 

[jsaving]

Losing this trope of evil monster will harm the game since you will have to limit opponents to non-intelligent ones if you are not in the mood of complex debates on morality (and those simpler games are a large part of my adventures because often my players deals with enough complexities in their real life jobs and just want to have fun on weekends).

I am struggling to understand how it harms the game for "monsters" to have motivations beyond simply being evil. When has D&D even been a Diablo game where you mow down foes rather than role-playing your interactions with them?

That said, the beauty of Jeremy's comments is that you are 100% free to run your game as you see fit. He's simply pointing out you don't have to treat members of a species as uniformly evil just because the MM lists evil in their stat block, which seems like a win for everyone.

 

[Voadam]

Right. B/X might be the only set that doesn't and I'm not sure of that.

B/X also only has Law/Neutral/Chaos as alignments and no classes with alignment restrictions.

The Orcs of Thar gazetteer for the Known World/Mystara setting had playable orcs. Never read it it, however, so I can't give any opinions on it.

Not great. Think Jim Holloway art, not the cool warrior Jim Holloway art but the cross-eyed silly idiot Jim Holloway art. Both in the art and some of the writing.

Also derivative Aztecs (as in the humanoids copied the actual Mystaran Aztec peoples). with accompanying art.

Some salvageable stuff, but not great IMO.

But sure, it will let you play orcs and kobolds and goblins and bugbears and gnolls as PC race/classes in BECMI. I never read the classes though in depth to comment more on them.

The drivethru description essay is pretty good for the product, it gives some history on playing monstrous races in D&D and other early RPGs.

Was that B/X or BECM (I didn't remember, or is B/X considered the same as BE)?

BECMI. BECMI was a redo with tweaks of B/X (thieves percentages was the big change and lots of neat new expansion stuff like weapon mastery and a skill system). So basically 3.5 to B/X's 3.0.

 

[Remathilis]

I am struggling to understand how it harms the game for "monsters" to have motivations beyond simply being evil. When has D&D even been a Diablo game where you mow down foes rather than role-playing your interactions with them?

The reverse is also true; if the primary purpose of orcs are to be antagonists, why do they need deeper motivation? Are you having philosophical debates with the orc guards in the dungeon? Are you arresting goblin bandits and having them stand trial for their crimes? When you enter a hobgoblin camp, is your first instinct to negotiate trade relations with the nearby village? They are primarily used as antagonists, and what motivations they may have tend to be evil because the game is a lot cleaner when you don't have two factions of "good people" on both sides.