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.

 

[TheSword]

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.

People looking to find problems reached those opposite conclusions based on a selective reading and representation of what Oofta said. When you go back to the source it makes perfect sense.

What me Gygax said 30 years ago isn’t only tangentially related to 5e alignment now after 30 years of consideration and refinement.

Words like Unscrupulous and Greedy tell us a lot about how an NPC sees a very small part of the world.

Alignment gives us a broad indication of how they see the whole world and we can interpret that as we see fit.

 

[Aldarc]

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>

I believe that I have already listed an approach akin to the Cypher System’s use of “motivations” as a possible viable alternative. This may just be me, but “hungers for flesh” or “consume magical artifacts” seems easier to understand than dedicating oneself to the prior study of D&D’s moral philosophy and cosmological metaphysics.

 

[Oofta]

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.

You're nit picking at details to say that it's meaningless. Every newbie I've ever played with has grasped the basic concept with no problem. Are we going to describe it with exactly the same words? No. Are we talking with the same fidelity for it to matter? Yes.

Xenophobic and Territorial doesn't tell me much of anything. That could be a group that follows strict rules and regulations while having a sealed border. It could be a pit of deceit and conflict that take great glee in torturing and murdering outsiders that get too close, that actually lure in outsiders for their blood sport games.

Anyway, nobody I've actually played with in real life has ever had much of a problem with it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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>

For replacement shorthand see the post above yours.

Alignment dumbs down the game, makes everything about team 'good' vs 'team' evil. It also easily leads to unfortunate implications as have been discussed in length with the orcs. It is an useless bad mechanic that should go, and I'm sure people who want this security blanket would soon realise that they don't really need it.

That being said, as it is pretty much have no mechanical effect in 5e, I am not super annoyed by it being there as it is trivially easy to ignore in my own games. But the game would be better without it, no question.

 

[TheSword]

I believe that I have already listed an approach akin to the Cypher System’s use of “motivations” as a possible viable alternative. This may just be me, but “hungers for flesh” or “consume magical artifacts” seems easier to understand than dedicating oneself to the prior study of D&D’s moral philosophy and cosmological metaphysics.

That is really just a way of summing up a behaviour rather than a moral outlook. I have no issue with these descriptions of monsters - I just don’t think they do much more than describe the monster.

What does a monster who hungers for flesh feel about an agreement to not eat someone? Is it likely to stick to that or not.

Will someone who seeks magic artifacts break the law in order to do. Would they kill an innocent to gain one or not?

 

[TheSword]

For replacement shorthand see the post above yours.

Alignment dumbs down the game, makes everything about team 'good' vs 'team' evil. It also easily leads to unfortunate implications as have been discussed in length with the orcs. It is an useless bad mechanic that should go, and I'm sure people who want this security blanket would soon realise that they don't really need it.

That being said, as it is pretty much have no mechanical effect in 5e, I am not super annoyed by it being there as it is trivially easy to ignore in my own games. But the game would be better without it, no question.

And yet it is ubiquitous in the game, there underlying backgrounds, magic items, races, monsters, the planes, gods, organizations, world building.

Alignment is so good it underpins the game and you don’t even know it.

 

[Aldarc]

I don’t know. How would you play those monsters in the hyper majority of games that don’t use alignment?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What does a monster who hungers for flesh feel about an agreement to not eat someone? Is it likely to stick to that or not.

Considering that @Oofta has been telling us for pages that a barbarian who always keeps his word is chaotic, the alignment of the creature will not help us to answer this question.

 

[Oofta]

For replacement shorthand see the post above yours.

Alignment dumbs down the game, makes everything about team 'good' vs 'team' evil. It also easily leads to unfortunate implications as have been discussed in length with the orcs. It is an useless bad mechanic that should go, and I'm sure people who want this security blanket would soon realise that they don't really need it.

That being said, as it is pretty much have no mechanical effect in 5e, I am not super annoyed by it being there as it is trivially easy to ignore in my own games. But the game would be better without it, no question.

I like it and think it's a core feature of D&D for a lot of people. But like you said, there's no mechanical impact so ignore it if you want. Sounds like we both get what we want if we just leave it as is. It's called "compromise".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yet it is ubiquitous in the game, there underlying backgrounds, magic items, races, monsters, the planes, gods, organizations, world building.

Alignment is so good it underpins the game and you don’t even know it.

You can literally get rid of without a problem. There are like two monster abilities and some magic items that would be affected mechanically. Changing those is barely an inconvenience. And sure it is used in descriptions, but as it doesn't actually convey any useful information, removing it will not cause loss of useful information.