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.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Your insistence that the problem is that I lack understanding is getting rather annoying.

What would you say the problem is? What is your objective in this conversation?

And, how is imposing Order via harsh laws Chaotic? Nothing about "Lawful" says that they have to be good laws or laws that are fully consistent. Not having a governing structure is far more chaotic than ruling over the land as a king, no matter how "capricious" you are.

Because here is exemplified what I think the problem is. By this line of reasoning, there can be no such thing as a chaotic ruler. And yet practically every D&D setting which uses alignment does indeed allow for the possibility of chaotic rulers. You want to point to this as an example of a contradiction in the alignment system. But notice that the only person asserting that there can be no such thing as a chaotic ruler is you. It's an inference you are making, based on premises about "law" and "chaos" that you have chosen. In doing so, you are attacking a weak simulacrum of the opposing position -- a strawman. What you want to do instead is look for (or ask for!) better premises about "law" and "chaos" which do not lead to such obvious contradictions, because those are more likely to be the sorts of premises that people in the opposing position actually hold.

(Briefly: "No governing structure" is not the only alternative to "capricious governing structure". There is also "stable governing structure" to be considered. If a despot overthrows a stable state and leaves it a mess, or through their monopolization of power prevents a stable state from forming where it otherwise could have, then clearly chaos in the world has been increased.)

You implied it would avoid alliances (they don't they sometimes choose to set aside their differences with Yuan-Ti and work towards a common goal, and it is noted that it is the Yuan-Ti that often chafe under the alliance) and that they destablize the region (they are a scholar, mind controlling thralls within their realm)

We've just examined how tyranny can be destabilizing, and how easy it is to discover "implications" that are both alien and hostile to the original speaker.

 

[Lanefan]

Pick your edition

1e Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits I think is the oldest as she conquers worlds while only having 66 hp.

One can conquer worlds and still be Chaotic. That said, my memory of running Q1 tells me that Llolth more just sat there and waited to be a boss battle. (in my game Llolth is a full deity, thus at a considerably higher pay grade than a simple demon. The pathetic shadow of Her they meet in Q1 is just that: a mere shadow; and it still nearly killed them all. Had they met the real thing they'd have been dead before they knew what hit them, andLlolth would have taken their souls...)

2e has Dead Gods.

3.5 has Expedition to the Demonweb Pits.

4e has E3 Prince of Undeath the culmination of the nine module's worth of Orcus plots.

Don't know the 2e or 4e ones. The 3.5 one is I assume an update of Q1, or a variant take on it.

5e has Out of the Abyss which I have not read or played in so I can not say how convoluted the Demon Lord plots are in there.

Lolth, Grazzt, Orcus, and Demogorgon, all have had complicated plots and plans.

Sign of a disorganized Chaotic mind: when all the plots and plans cross wires and collapse into a steaming mess...usually just when the PCs arrive.

Malcanthet is the Queen of Succubi. She gets described in detail in a 3.5 Dragon Magazine Demonomicon issue and probably the Fiendish Codex and 4e Demonomicon.

Thanks for that - never read either book.

 

[TheSword]

Chaotic evil creatures do whatever they want when they want. They are fickle. They believe they are more important than the systems and structures they may be part of. They break rules and follow the strongest. Someone who can’t hold power has no right to it. Demons want to shatter all bonds and enjoy and endless orgy of violence/debauchery etc.

Lawful Evil devils do whatever they can get away with. They see the system as more important than the individual freedoms but want to be the one in charge of the system. They may resent the commands of a person who has been placed above them and seek to subvert them, but they will generally obey them. Devils want the whole multiverse to conform to their rigid hierarchy. One of cruelty and punishment that echoes their own misery.

Neutral Evil creatures don’t care about the rights and structures of other groups. They don’t have ideology they only care about the evil. Yugoloths do more than just fight for each side in the blood war, they perpetuate it... profiting as they go. They are the ultimate profiteers. They also aren’t just hungry for wealth, but also power and knowledge. They do whatever they need to do in order to gain it, not caring who they work with. Same with Hight Hags.

Shinra from FF7 are a good example of neutral evil. Yes they have structures and organization but they would burn it all down in an instant if it got them what they want. They literally don’t care about anybody else. They lie when it suits them, kill when it suits them but still use structures because they are convenient.

Alignment isn’t a straight jacket, it’s a general method of indicating how a multiverse of creatures might respond to ideas like society, strength and freedoms

Read some of the books on the Drow, particularly war of the Spider Queen. It covers a lot of the debates on what Chaotic Evil means and has examples of Neutral Evil creatures. It also explains how an ostensibly ordered society can follow a demon lord.

 

[Remathilis]

So, Neutral Good is Transactional Good? Good as the price of attaining some other goal? They are supposed to mirror each other after all.

Or, are you implying that a LE character would not murder or seduce someone to further their long-term plans?

You know, I'm not going to define each alignment for you in longform. It's a waste of both our times, since I sincerely doubt that anything I say would convince you alignment has any worth to the game.

Suffice to say, it's another part of the game that is going to probably end up in dustbin. Which is sad, since alignment is one of the quirky nuances unique to D&D that even non players understood the reference.

 

[Voadam]

One can conquer worlds and still be Chaotic. That said, my memory of running Q1 tells me that Llolth more just sat there and waited to be a boss battle. (in my game Llolth is a full deity, thus at a considerably higher pay grade than a simple demon. The pathetic shadow of Her they meet in Q1 is just that: a mere shadow; and it still nearly killed them all. Had they met the real thing they'd have been dead before they knew what hit them, andLlolth would have taken their souls...)

Don't know the 2e or 4e ones. The 3.5 one is I assume an update of Q1, or a variant take on it.

Sign of a disorganized Chaotic mind: when all the plots and plans cross wires and collapse into a steaming mess...usually just when the PCs arrive.

Thanks for that - never read either book.

Law and Chaos can be viewed many different ways.

You could for instance say Law follows orders and The Plan no matter what, while Chaos adapts, improvises, and innovates. Law sees one way forward, Chaos sees many, so complex plans are the purview of Chaos.

The 2e one starts in Modron March and goes on to Dead Gods and is a pretty neat storyline for D&D cosmologically.

My understanding of the 3.5 Expedition (I played and did not DM it) is that it only shares Lolth and the Demonwebs as shared elements of Q1, it involves different schemes and pulls in other demon lords as well. Of course the game I played in it was modified for our campaign and I have no idea how much of it was used or changed.

The Demonomicon articles from 3.5 Dragon were pretty good, fairly in depth and took the demon lords in interesting directions.

For the 3.5 Fiendish Codex I Hordes of the Abyss I believe they were fairly compatible and written by the same guys (just different power levels for the stats).

4e's Demonomicon is based on the different 4e cosmology and so details are different such as the Demon Lords at essence being Elemental Primordials warped by Tharizdun's Shard of Evil at the center of the Abyss instead of AD&D/3e possible interpretations as soul stuff in the CE plane. Grazzt in particular has a fantastic story as an Angel under Asmodeus, who became Asmodeus' right hand Devil after the uprising against the Unnamed God, who was then sent into the Abyss on a mission about the Shard, got corrupted by it, and became a top tier Demon Lord who might now fully hate devils or secretly be Asmodeus's man on the inside in the Abyss.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Red Dragons build their lairs in solitary places... they have a treasure hoard to defend after all. They may devastate the area around their lair, but that's not quite what I'd call ruling as a king. Is 5E different? Silver Dragons have been known to live among humans iirc. As for Devils they want to advance in their hierarchy and lord it over other Devils. They aren't solitary / small group creatures. Hags, depends on the type iirc. I've never thought of them as LE myself, more NE and CE, but that's me. I don't have a problem with saying some creatures alignments have been mischaracterized or been moved all over the place in different editions (Orcs, for example).

Every Red Dragon depiction that I have seen pulls on the imagery of a ruler. They are presented as Kings and Empresses. They are isolationist, but they also create spy networks and utilize slaves to defend it.

Amusingly, the next page over is the Green Dragon, the decietful manipulators who seek to twist kingdoms and realms into dark mockeries of themselves, spreading fear, despair and ruin.

Green Dragons are Lawful Evil.

You cut out the alignment, you cut out information. You could cut out a lot more too. Given the minimal space alignment takes up I think it's worth keeping. A couple of words / letters yielding basic information.

See, that is part of the problem though. Alignment is seen as mattering, it is seen as telling us soemthing about the creature, but we keep finding example after example where the alignment isn't useful information.

And this is all focusing on Monsters. Alignment also appears on the player side, and it is equally as useless in my experience. After my very first character where I spent hours trying to work through whether they were lawful or chaotic because they held a personal code of honor, but would not necessarily respect the law of the land, I never bothered with an alignment for my characters again.

Sure, they tend to be good, but beyond that, it isn't helpful. What is helpful is telling people about my characters bonds.

For example, I had an Ancient's Paladin who was part of the City Guard in Neverwinter, mostly retired because of his political views and dislike for Lord Neverember. He was the type of person to think about the proper authorities, to make reports and send information up the chain. He was also married, and would have burnt down the world in vengeance if someone harmed his wife.

Sure, I could have written LG on the sheet. Might have even been mostly accurate most of the time. But instead of worrying about and tracking how lawful or how good I was, I focused on other aspects. Former Cop still integrated with the Force. Defender of the City from the Cataclysm. Married man with a beautiful wife he loved more than anything. Those gave us more hooks, more information, and was more accurate in shaping how my character would act, than LG ever would have been.

But, a lot of people look to alignment, write down something like "LG" or "CN" and act like that is their character's personality. And I think if it were removed, then they would instead look first towards tying their character to events, phrases, or people.

I have spent a lot of time in the last few decades building fluff and altering minor things to justify some of D&Ds odder quirks and creatures. I enjoy it. Just coming up with explanations for things and why they work the way they do in D&D is an interesting exercise. To me anyway, ymmv.

Oh, I love messing around with creatures and figuring out how they fit into the world an why they work. I just don't think alignment does anything at all to help with that. It is too broad and too vague. Heck, I was able to find Neutral Evil monsters that exactly fit someone's definition of Chaotic Evil.

What would you say the problem is? What is your objective in this conversation?

Why do I feel like if I say "I'm trying to show the problems with alignment and why it doesn't help us as DMs or Players" you are going to turn right around and say "Well, you are looking for problems so obviously you will find them, but if you were objective you would see the system actually works and isn't broken"?

Instead of having that conversation, how about this. Stop assuming that I am pointing things out because I lack understanding of the subject matter.

Because here is exemplified what I think the problem is. By this line of reasoning, there can be no such thing as a chaotic ruler. And yet practically every D&D setting which uses alignment does indeed allow for the possibility of chaotic rulers. You want to point to this as an example of a contradiction in the alignment system. But notice that the only person asserting that there can be no such thing as a chaotic ruler is you. It's an inference you are making, based on premises about "law" and "chaos" that you have chosen. In doing so, you are attacking a weak simulacrum of the opposing position -- a strawman. What you want to do instead is look for (or ask for!) better premises about "law" and "chaos" which do not lead to such obvious contradictions, because those are more likely to be the sorts of premises that people in the opposing position actually hold.

(Briefly: "No governing structure" is not the only alternative to "capricious governing structure". There is also "stable governing structure" to be considered. If a despot overthrows a stable state and leaves it a mess, or through their monopolization of power prevents a stable state from forming where it otherwise could have, then clearly chaos in the world has been increased.)

Let me ask you this, to establish a line of thinking.

If a person dives into a collapsing building to rescue someone asking for help, and that person asking for help turns out to have been a demon in disguise, who proceeds to lay waste to the surrounding countryside, is the person who risked their life to save them, with no knowledge of their nature, Good or Evil?

I think we can all agree, they would be Good. Because, it is not the result of your actions that matter, but the intent and the action itself. A person's alignment does not turn Chaotic Evil because they saved a serial killer, and thus perpetuated more Chaos and more Evil into the world.

The PHB tells us that the Law and Chaos axis is how they interact with the concepts of Society and Order.

Chaotic Evil creatures, we are told, "act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust." However, if the King says "if you speak in my prescence, I will kill you. And you speak, and then he kills you, that is not arbitrary. He set a rule and a consequence, that rule was broken, so you suffered the consequence.

Look at the other Chaotic alignments: "creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else."
"creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect."

None of that speaks to building a society, setting rules, enforcing consequences. People usually point to Barbarian tribes as being chaotic, but a barbarian who follows a set of traditions and laws, such as owing a life debt to someone who saves their life, is not chaotic. If they were, then they would not feel they owed a debt. They would hold their personal freedom above that tradition and refuse to bow.

Chaotic alignments are explicitly stated to be anti-society, so you cannot have a Chaotic Society. It is a contradiction.

Look at elves, how often are we told Elves are "Chaotic good". This would mean that they are against society. We also have a long tradition of Elvish royalty and nobility, and they respect traditions, in fact they tend to be "unchanging" to a degree.

You know, I'm not going to define each alignment for you in longform. It's a waste of both our times, since I sincerely doubt that anything I say would convince you alignment has any worth to the game.

Suffice to say, it's another part of the game that is going to probably end up in dustbin. Which is sad, since alignment is one of the quirky nuances unique to D&D that even non players understood the reference.

Right, because we can't have discussions, that would waste time. Better to just declare ourselves right and move on.

And yes, most people were aware of alignment, mostly because we debate about it so often.

 

[Oofta]

All I can say is that I find it useful for monsters that are not important to the overall story.

It doesn't have much if any mechanical impact, people who have never played D&D grok it quickly, it's useful for a lot of people. If it's not useful for you, ignore it.

As far as people arguing about it, that's true of just about everything in D&D since it's inception. HP, AC, saving throws, ability scores ... the list goes on and on of issues that have been debated as nauseum. In the grand scheme of things, alignment has the least impact on the mechanical aspects of the game. It's just a useful piece of fluff.

 

[Remathilis]

Right, because we can't have discussions, that would waste time. Better to just declare ourselves right and move on.

And yes, most people were aware of alignment, mostly because we debate about it so often.

Scoring points is not your strong suit. Goodbye.

 

[TheSword]

Every Red Dragon depiction that I have seen pulls on the imagery of a ruler. They are presented as Kings and Empresses. They are isolationist, but they also create spy networks and utilize slaves to defend it.

Amusingly, the next page over is the Green Dragon, the decietful manipulators who seek to twist kingdoms and realms into dark mockeries of themselves, spreading fear, despair and ruin.

Green Dragons are Lawful Evil.




See, that is part of the problem though. Alignment is seen as mattering, it is seen as telling us soemthing about the creature, but we keep finding example after example where the alignment isn't useful information.

And this is all focusing on Monsters. Alignment also appears on the player side, and it is equally as useless in my experience. After my very first character where I spent hours trying to work through whether they were lawful or chaotic because they held a personal code of honor, but would not necessarily respect the law of the land, I never bothered with an alignment for my characters again.

Sure, they tend to be good, but beyond that, it isn't helpful. What is helpful is telling people about my characters bonds.

For example, I had an Ancient's Paladin who was part of the City Guard in Neverwinter, mostly retired because of his political views and dislike for Lord Neverember. He was the type of person to think about the proper authorities, to make reports and send information up the chain. He was also married, and would have burnt down the world in vengeance if someone harmed his wife.

Sure, I could have written LG on the sheet. Might have even been mostly accurate most of the time. But instead of worrying about and tracking how lawful or how good I was, I focused on other aspects. Former Cop still integrated with the Force. Defender of the City from the Cataclysm. Married man with a beautiful wife he loved more than anything. Those gave us more hooks, more information, and was more accurate in shaping how my character would act, than LG ever would have been.

But, a lot of people look to alignment, write down something like "LG" or "CN" and act like that is their character's personality. And I think if it were removed, then they would instead look first towards tying their character to events, phrases, or people.





Oh, I love messing around with creatures and figuring out how they fit into the world an why they work. I just don't think alignment does anything at all to help with that. It is too broad and too vague. Heck, I was able to find Neutral Evil monsters that exactly fit someone's definition of Chaotic Evil.





Why do I feel like if I say "I'm trying to show the problems with alignment and why it doesn't help us as DMs or Players" you are going to turn right around and say "Well, you are looking for problems so obviously you will find them, but if you were objective you would see the system actually works and isn't broken"?

Instead of having that conversation, how about this. Stop assuming that I am pointing things out because I lack understanding of the subject matter.





Let me ask you this, to establish a line of thinking.

If a person dives into a collapsing building to rescue someone asking for help, and that person asking for help turns out to have been a demon in disguise, who proceeds to lay waste to the surrounding countryside, is the person who risked their life to save them, with no knowledge of their nature, Good or Evil?

I think we can all agree, they would be Good. Because, it is not the result of your actions that matter, but the intent and the action itself. A person's alignment does not turn Chaotic Evil because they saved a serial killer, and thus perpetuated more Chaos and more Evil into the world.

The PHB tells us that the Law and Chaos axis is how they interact with the concepts of Society and Order.

Chaotic Evil creatures, we are told, "act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust." However, if the King says "if you speak in my prescence, I will kill you. And you speak, and then he kills you, that is not arbitrary. He set a rule and a consequence, that rule was broken, so you suffered the consequence.

Look at the other Chaotic alignments: "creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else."
"creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect."

None of that speaks to building a society, setting rules, enforcing consequences. People usually point to Barbarian tribes as being chaotic, but a barbarian who follows a set of traditions and laws, such as owing a life debt to someone who saves their life, is not chaotic. If they were, then they would not feel they owed a debt. They would hold their personal freedom above that tradition and refuse to bow.

Chaotic alignments are explicitly stated to be anti-society, so you cannot have a Chaotic Society. It is a contradiction.

Look at elves, how often are we told Elves are "Chaotic good". This would mean that they are against society. We also have a long tradition of Elvish royalty and nobility, and they respect traditions, in fact they tend to be "unchanging" to a degree.





Right, because we can't have discussions, that would waste time. Better to just declare ourselves right and move on.

And yes, most people were aware of alignment, mostly because we debate about it so often.

There is very little nuance in these kinds of arguments. You also have made several blanket statements as if they were facts.

For instance you say that chaotic creatures are against society. Whereas societies have wildly varying degrees of laws and freedoms. Chaos is not against society - it’s against rigid structures.

A nomadic tribe that doesn’t believe in land ownership could be chaotic. A polygamist society that doesn’t believe in long term romantic partnership could be chaotic. A society where guilt is determined by combat rather than trial could be chaotic.

I think from your posts you have made your decision about how you want to use Alignment and that won’t be changed.

On the other hand, I’m not sure how the inclusion of alignment in the game hurts you in any way. It’s two words on a page, can’t you ignore it?

 

[R_Chance]

Every Red Dragon depiction that I have seen pulls on the imagery of a ruler. They are presented as Kings and Empresses. They are isolationist, but they also create spy networks and utilize slaves to defend it.

Amusingly, the next page over is the Green Dragon, the decietful manipulators who seek to twist kingdoms and realms into dark mockeries of themselves, spreading fear, despair and ruin.

Green Dragons are Lawful Evil.

We apparently see different depictions of Red Dragons. Enslaving a few creatures and paying for spies to protect your vast pile of treasure in you're isolated lair doesn't strike me as particularly lawful. Paranoid and sadistic, sure. Twisting society into a dark mockery more to the Green Dragon's liking somewhat more so.

See, that is part of the problem though. Alignment is seen as mattering, it is seen as telling us soemthing about the creature, but we keep finding example after example where the alignment isn't useful information.

And this is all focusing on Monsters. Alignment also appears on the player side, and it is equally as useless in my experience. After my very first character where I spent hours trying to work through whether they were lawful or chaotic because they held a personal code of honor, but would not necessarily respect the law of the land, I never bothered with an alignment for my characters again.

Sure, they tend to be good, but beyond that, it isn't helpful. What is helpful is telling people about my characters bonds.

For example, I had an Ancient's Paladin who was part of the City Guard in Neverwinter, mostly retired because of his political views and dislike for Lord Neverember. He was the type of person to think about the proper authorities, to make reports and send information up the chain. He was also married, and would have burnt down the world in vengeance if someone harmed his wife.

Sure, I could have written LG on the sheet. Might have even been mostly accurate most of the time. But instead of worrying about and tracking how lawful or how good I was, I focused on other aspects. Former Cop still integrated with the Force. Defender of the City from the Cataclysm. Married man with a beautiful wife he loved more than anything. Those gave us more hooks, more information, and was more accurate in shaping how my character would act, than LG ever would have been.

But, a lot of people look to alignment, write down something like "LG" or "CN" and act like that is their character's personality. And I think if it were removed, then they would instead look first towards tying their character to events, phrases, or people.

It does tell us something. At least it tells me something. I gather you started D&D considerably later than me based on your extensive backstory mentioned above. I would say your backstory should establish the reasons for your current alignment. If you've thought out the backstory that carefully you should know your alignment fairly well (and based on what you say I think you nailed it). Back in the dark ages when I started there was little, if any backstory. As a result alignment was probably more useful.

As for personality, alignment is a good indication. If you think through the ramifications of your choice. Not everyone makes a short story worth of background for that matter. I don't encourage or discourage them with my players btw, and they can be useful both to the player and the DM.

Oh, I love messing around with creatures and figuring out how they fit into the world an why they work. I just don't think alignment does anything at all to help with that. It is too broad and too vague. Heck, I was able to find Neutral Evil monsters that exactly fit someone's definition of Chaotic Evil.

Well, we differ on this. I have adjusted the alignments of the beings in my game as (imho) needed, so I don't have the problem with mislabeled alignments. I also play a massively homebrewed version of the game by this time, so I'd suggest we have different experiences of the game leading to different opinions.

As always, have a good one and enjoy your game.