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.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The beauty of Alignment is that it’s broad strokes approach means it is flexible to fit many interpretations of detail while still allowing broad generalizations. An overly rigid system would be unpalatable.

If two people come to exact opposite conclusions of what 'law' or 'good' means that is not just flexible, it is an useless mess.

Oofta's description of chaotic sounds lawful to me and Mr. Gygax's description of lawful good linked earlier definitely sounds some sort of evil to me. If people cannot even vaguely agree what the description means, it is an utterly useless description.

Now I understand some GMs might like MM to have quick shorthand to give them an idea how a monster would behave. Alignment doesn't do that. Or it might for some people, but that is just a Rorschach test, no actual useful information is being conveyed. Things like 'Xenophobic and Territorial,' 'Unscrupulous and Greedy' or 'Aggressive and Hungry' are just as short and instantly tell me much more about how a creature would behave than the alignment ever could.

 

[Oofta]

But, @Oofta just told me that this character, like his barbarian, is Chaotic. Who's right? You or him?

My chaotic barbarian did not care about laws, titles, rules or societal norms. He was also impulsive, drank to excess, felt little responsibility to clean up the messes he made, was quick to anger.

He was compulsively honest because he thought lying was a sign of personal weakness. It was not because of external rules. Chaotic doesn't mean you can't develop friendships or bond with other people.

He had personal standards, but they were his and his alone. If I had to write it down it would have been something along the lines of "be strong in words and body, agree to payment first". Hardly an in depth, ironclad contract. He thought everyone should have their own unique style, following a code written in a book or dictated by someone else simply because of tradition, inheritance or law was stupid.

Other than not lying, he was not lawful in the least.

 

[Aldarc]

The beauty of Alignment is that it’s broad strokes approach means it is flexible to fit many interpretations of detail while still allowing broad generalizations. An overly rigid system would be unpalatable.

So our only possibilities are between an overly broad strokes approach to alignment or an unpalatable overly rigid one?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

My chaotic barbarian did not care about laws, titles, rules or societal norms. He was also impulsive, drank to excess, felt little responsibility to clean up the messes he made, was quick to anger.

He was compulsively honest because he thought lying was a sign of personal weakness. It was not because of external rules. Chaotic doesn't mean you can't develop friendships or bond with other people.

He had personal standards, but they were his and his alone. If I had to write it down it would have been something along the lines of "be strong in words and body, agree to payment first". Hardly an in depth, ironclad contract. He thought everyone should have their own unique style, following a code written in a book or dictated by someone else simply because of tradition, inheritance or law was stupid.

Other than not lying, he was not lawful in the least.

You obviously have a very good mental image of this character and know by heart how he would behave. How knowing his alignment in any way enhances your understanding of him, for what it is needed?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So our only possibilities are between an overly broad strokes approach to alignment or an unpalatable overly rigid one?

No, the third option is jettison this unwieldy relic altogether.

 

[TheSword]

So our only possibilities are between an overly broad strokes approach to alignment or an unpalatable overly rigid one?

No, I’m saying that the disagreements about Alignment that you claim make the system are a hot mess tend to be based on very narrow distinctions on definitions and overlaps.

 

[Oofta]

You obviously have a very good mental image of this character and know by heart how he would behave. How knowing his alignment in any way enhances your understanding of him, for what it is needed?

It helped me come up with the concept. But the more depth you have to a character, NPC or monster the more alignment just becomes one part of the picture.

But for monsters or NPCs that I don't need, want or care about that depth? I find alignment useful. Even for my PC, it was a part of the foundation everything else rested on.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But for monsters or NPCs that I don't need, want or care about that depth? I find alignment useful. Even for my PC, it was a part of the foundation everything else rested on.

But how it is useful if no one agrees what it means? Sure, you might have developed a mental idea that is coherent to you, but other people probably do not agree. That is why it is crap way to deliver the information.

Like I said earlier:
Now I understand some GMs might like MM to have quick shorthand to give them an idea how a monster would behave. Alignment doesn't do that. Or it might for some people, but that is just a Rorschach test, no actual useful information is being conveyed. Things like 'Xenophobic and Territorial,' 'Unscrupulous and Greedy' or 'Aggressive and Hungry' are just as short and instantly tell me much more about how a creature would behave than the alignment ever could.

 

[Oofta]

No, the third option is jettison this unwieldy relic altogether.

You don't personally use it so no one else can? No matter how many people do find it useful? Also, what do replace it with for the hundreds of monsters? What short-hand general descriptive are you going to use that I can grab on to communicate general inclinations and behavior at a glance>

 

[Hexmage-EN]

For me the final say on alignments is "how do the planar embodiments of these alignments behave?" This sets the standard for what the fullest expression of an alignment is.

For Lawful Evil you have the devils. They all exist in the kingdom of the Nine Hells. Asmodeus is at the very top of the hierarchy, his archdukes are granted a measure of his power to control their layers, and all devils below Asmodeus have someone to answer to. It is a crime for even greater devils to destroy lesser devils without reasonable cause because all devils are made from souls that are the property of Asmodeus. Devils exist in this hierarchy and follow the strict, consistent system of the Hells because it provides stability and because they want to benefit from it and the power Asmodeus provides his underlings themselves.

For Chaotic Evil you have the demons. Unlike the Nine Hells, there are an unknowable number of Abyssal layers. Demons can advance in power and attain greater forms like devils, but this is only a superficial similarity. Whereas devils are promoted, demons may metamorphose by collecting spiritual energy through killing, forcing other demons into subservience under threat of true death, or even by seemingly random infusions of power granted by the Abyss itself. Multiple cities exist throughout the Abyss, but these are primarily located in the Abyssal layers controlled by three of the most powerful demon lords: Demogorgon, Orcus, and Graz'zt. The denizens of these cities obey not out of a belief in a system that they can gain power through as the devils do, but because they have been cowed into subservience by more powerful demons who desire populations that collectively send them spiritual energy and can be deployed in attacking and defending against rival demon lords. The laws of these cities are not strictly codified and amount to whatever the lord of the layer demands at the time, usually with little protection for weaker demons beyond what stronger demons may provide in exchange for the weaker demon's subservience.


To digress a little, I think the main problem with alignment is that examples of each alignment are vague, generalized, and don't include a way to indicate just how strong a character's tie to that alignment is.

However, this is something the Third Edition Dungeon Master's Guide did to describe the various planes. To use a random example, a given plane's alignment wasn't just given as "Lawful Good", but as "mildly law-aligned, strongly good-aligned". Hypothetically this is something that could have been done with characters and creatures, perhaps by bolding whichever part of the given alignment had the most impact on the subject's behavior (for the character I'm playing in a campaign now, I think I'd use this idea to express his alignment as Chaotic Neutral).

Alternatively, the traditional alignments could be accompanied with a number of more specific examples for how a character of that alignment might act, such as in this example I posted before:

If I take this standard into consideration, I'd list my current character's alignment as "Chaotic Neutral, Opportunist". This character doesn't trust authority but will consult with authority figures if he thinks it will give him useful information or resources (however, he also takes whatever he's told with a grain of salt and isn't particularly inclined to repay the aid of authority figures, trying to get whatever he can from them and giving as little as possible). For fiends, under such a standard I'd define the average demon as "Chaotic Evil, Survivor" and the average devil as "Lawful Evil, Defender" while within the Hells or societies similar to it and "Lawful Evil, Enforcer" everywhere else.