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.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

What's the alignment of people who consistently effort post in fast moving threads despite those posts generally being overlooked or ignored?

That's my alignment, apparently.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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".

I'm not sure that you getting what you want is a compromise...

I guess it being presented as an optional rule would be an actual compromise.

 

[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.

Nothing in the game stops PCs being nuanced and complicated.

Alignment allows a GM to look at two words in a stat block and play a character with a complex worldview able to react plausibly to a host of situations.

 

[Oofta]

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.

Right. Ignore the reason he always tells the truth along with every other behavior of the PC. I can also see a lawful person lying their ass off because they're a spy. A lawful lawyer type may find a loophole or addendum to nullify a contract. A different chaotic person would lie all the time because they can or rip up a contract because they don't care.

Alignment is not a straight jacket that dictates every single aspect of a person.

 

[Aldarc]

Nothing in the game stops PCs being nuanced and complicated.

Alignment allows a GM to look at two words in a star block and play a character with a complex worldview able to react plausibly to a host of situations.

Or to reduce a potentially interesting and complex character down to a shallow, one-dimensional caricature of those two words.

 

[TheSword]

Or to reduce a potentially interesting and complex character down to a shallow, one-dimensional caricature of those two words.

How does it do that? And how do you know the character is complex and interesting without adding a large amount of additional text?

 

[Oofta]

I'm not sure that you getting what you want is a compromise...

I guess it being presented as an optional rule would be an actual compromise.

It is optional in 5E. The MM says "alignment is just a default do what makes sense". Alignment has no mechanical impact on the game, no requirement for paladins to be LG, no monks must be lawful while rogues have to be chaotic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Right. Ignore the reason he always tells the truth along with every other behavior of the PC. I can also see a lawful person lying their ass off because they're a spy. A lawful lawyer type may find a loophole or addendum to nullify a contract. A different chaotic person would lie all the time because they can or rip up a contract because they don't care.

Alignment is not a straight jacket that dictates every single aspect of a person.

Right. So adding this all additional information is required to make sense of the alignment. But once you've done that, you have a good description of a characters personality and then you don't need the alignment any more. So just make up that description and get rid of the alignment.

 

[TheSword]

Right. So adding this all additional information is required to make sense of the alignment. But once you've done that, you have a good description of a characters personality and then you don't need the alignment any more. So just make up that description and get rid of the alignment.

Not really, you give the descriptions once in about half and page and then it applies to the whole system of thousands of monsters, gods, NPCs, sentient items, communities, planes etc etc etc.

Why would you want to keep repeating this stuff.

 

[Aldarc]

Not really, you give the descriptions once in about half and page and then it applies to the whole system of thousands of monsters, gods, NPCs, sentient items, communities, planes etc etc etc.

Why would you want to keep repeating this stuff.

The ideas are already repeated quite often in the text.