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]

Of course I change the lore - I've consistently said this all along. Do pay attention, 007.

And if changing the lore means changing the alignment so be it; my point is that a) I had an alignment suggestion in the first place to start from and b) having that suggestion is far more useful than not having it.

The beauty of alignment is that it is open to change and interpretation. The transition is smooth and entirely up to the DM so it’s flexible enough to cope with LE Yuanti and LE Orcs. Plus a player that wants empires of Orcs can make it so!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The beauty of alignment is that it is open to change and interpretation. The transition is smooth and entirely up to the DM so it’s flexible enough to cope with LE Yuanti and LE Orcs. Plus a player that wants empires of Orcs can make it so!

Do you know what is also flexible? Not having the bloody alignment in the first place and just describing things in a sane and understandable manner!

 

[Chaosmancer]

Detect Evil (and-or Know Alignment) would sometimes be used for exactly this in a society that had access to such - I've no problem with that.

There's also many spells (Magic Mouth, Glyph of Warding are but two) where the presence of an alignment can be set as a trigger. I like these.

Never said they weren't realistic, just that they cause problems at the table.

Useful if you want to study the Minority Report as a DnD setting, but not great for a murder mystery.

Remember, I throw out the book lore for most creatures. I have Yuan-Ti as being individually variable across the Evil scale (thus some are LE, some are NE, some are CE, and many are somewhere between two of those points; the E component is constant) with a societal average of NE.

They generally only appear in small groups; there's not enough of them to form anything resembling an empire. Sometimes in the interests of self-preservation a group will attach itself to some leader or organizer or whatever, for whom they perform (usually nasty) deeds in return for safety and support.

And as my players have yet to encounter anything other than those small groups, and those very rarely, they've no way of knowing any of this through their PCs other than what their own experience bears out: Yuan-Ti are generally badasses.

So, what use is the alignment to you then?

You've dismantled their lore and made sure they run the gamut of LE to CE, so why does it matter if WoTC stops printing NE next to their names? You've never used that anyways.

Honestly, I don't understand how you expect to convince anyone alignment is useful for information on how to run monsters if you fully admit you ignore it and give them whatever alignment and motivations suite you. Seems like that proves my point. WoTC could stop printing alignments in the MM going forward, and it wouldn't change anything about how you use it.

I can't remember, in 35 years of DMing, ever having Hags show up in any number greater than one at a time. Thus, I've never had to worry about how or if they organize themselves; I can just run them as individualists and have done with it.

Right, well, that isn't exactly a useful position to talk about Hag Covens then.

Of course I change the lore - I've consistently said this all along. Do pay attention, 007.

And if changing the lore means changing the alignment so be it; my point is that a) I had an alignment suggestion in the first place to start from and b) having that suggestion is far more useful than not having it.

Right, but the suggestion isn't all that useful if you look at it, and then decide to toss it out for something else.

It is like saying it is great that McDonald's gives you fries with every meal instead of an al-carte option because you then tell them to swap your fries for a salad. Wouldn't it be easier to just the choice in the first place?

Did I say both claims are equally valid? I said that your claim "leads to a contradiction, but standard interpretive principles tell us to minimize contradictions where possible, so that's exactly the reason we shouldn't adopt it." That's not saying your claim is equally valid -- quite the opposite.

Ah, so your point was that Tribal societies are chaotic, because that makes the most sense for your interpretation of alignment, and therefore I was wrong.

I love the idea that alignment has no problems because we change it and refuse interpretations that would make it seem like it has problems.

Your complaint is that the system comes to conclusions about Chaos and Law which contradict certain premises you're asserting. This complaint would be empty unless the system did, in fact, come to conclusions about Chaos and Law. Which it does. It doesn't say "Orc culture might be chaotic, might be lawful, you have to decide for yourself"; it says orc culture is chaotic.

And yeah, it does leave some things interpretation -- this is moral philosophy in a roleplaying game, not chemistry in a textbook. But the chemistry analogy might be apropos for just a little bit more. A chemistry textbook says that vinegar is acidic. There are many different pH tests out there which operate on different principles; the book might describe some, and enterprising chemists might come up with more on their own. But the acidity of vinegar is a well-established fact and can be used for calibration of new tests: if your test says that vinegar is basic, it is far more likely that something is wrong with your test than that something is wrong with the textbook.

Right, if you start from the conclusion then clearly the system looks like it works. Orc Society us chaotic, because the book says it is Chaotic, and therefore Chaotic societies exist and are Chaotic.

But, you are missing a key point here.

I was never talking about orc society. I was talking about Tribal societies. I could make a tribal society out of any group. So, what makes a Tribal or nomadic society chaotic?

I mean, let us lay this out. We have a group of people living in a society. That society has codes and rules, the people follow these codes and rules, they allow leaders in the society to choose their profession and their life partners. Why are they considered more chaotic just because they travel instead of living in a city. This isn't a claim I'm just making up, I was told this straight up in this thread.

A culture with no laws about land ownerhship is more chaotic, a nomadic culture is more chaotic, a tribal culture is more chaotic.

Why? What aspects of Chaos are these details getting at? What makes these more Chaotic than a person living in a city? Is it because Orcs live in tribes, and orcs are chaotic because the book says so, and therefore all tribal people are more chaotic just by association?

The beauty of alignment is that it is open to change and interpretation. The transition is smooth and entirely up to the DM so it’s flexible enough to cope with LE Yuanti and LE Orcs. Plus a player that wants empires of Orcs can make it so!

Yep, so beautiful and flexible it can say anything you want it to say, which makes it a perfect blank slate. Like a blank piece of paper.

 

[Azzy]

Lol, who's winning?

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Right, if you start from the conclusion then clearly the system looks like it works. Orc Society us chaotic, because the book says it is Chaotic, and therefore Chaotic societies exist and are Chaotic.

But, you are missing a key point here.

I was never talking about orc society. I was talking about Tribal societies. I could make a tribal society out of any group. So, what makes a Tribal or nomadic society chaotic?

I mean, let us lay this out. We have a group of people living in a society. That society has codes and rules, the people follow these codes and rules, they allow leaders in the society to choose their profession and their life partners. Why are they considered more chaotic just because they travel instead of living in a city. This isn't a claim I'm just making up, I was told this straight up in this thread.

A culture with no laws about land ownerhship is more chaotic, a nomadic culture is more chaotic, a tribal culture is more chaotic.

Why? What aspects of Chaos are these details getting at? What makes these more Chaotic than a person living in a city? Is it because Orcs live in tribes, and orcs are chaotic because the book says so, and therefore all tribal people are more chaotic just by association?

No. That's a strawman argument; it's hostile and it's completely unnecessary. Let's try looking at this question charitably instead. What differentiates nomadic societies from settled societies? Well, they move around. They are changing their environs, and changing their lifestyle to react to their environs. Beyond that, we can think about how the arrival and departure of nomads creates change for others in the area, for better or for worse. Change seems like a pretty chaos-y thing. So maybe that's a plausible way to interpret the situation?

You might be racing to think of some counterpoint that will make this "change" interpretation look like another contradiction. Please, save it; I don't care. The point here isn't to set down that "change" is absolutely definitely the one answer you're asking for. The point is to demonstrate how one might approach the question with an open mind and attempt to learn from it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

No. That's a strawman argument; it's hostile and it's completely unnecessary. Let's try looking at this question charitably instead. What differentiates nomadic societies from settled societies? Well, they move around. They are changing their environs, and changing their lifestyle to react to their environs. Beyond that, we can think about how the arrival and departure of nomads creates change for others in the area, for better or for worse. Change seems like a pretty chaos-y thing. So maybe that's a plausible way to interpret the situation?

You might be racing to think of some counterpoint that will make this "change" interpretation look like another contradiction. Please, save it; I don't care. The point here isn't to set down that "change" is absolutely definitely the one answer you're asking for. The point is to demonstrate how one might approach the question with an open mind and attempt to learn from it.

Again though, you are doing this backwards.

You are saying "Nomads are chaotic" and then justifying why they are chaotic.

But, if Alignment is supposed to tell us things, I should be able to go from Chaotic, to nomads. But I can't do that, in fact, I can't even start with nomads and get to Chaotic. I have to start with "nomads are chaotic" and then justify it.

At that point, alignment is not helping me. It is prescriptive entirely, not descriptive. It doesn't tell me how a monster acts, it tells me what they are and I need to explain how they act.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Again though, you are doing this backwards.

You are saying "Nomads are chaotic" and then justifying why they are chaotic.

In the ideal Land of the Logicians, we define all our terms precisely and unambiguously and only after we have done so proceed to make cold, hard deductions.
In the real world, we often learn natural-language terms by example: our parents and peers tell us "That's a dog" and "That's not a dog" until our brains figure out inductively what makes a dog a dog.

In a way, you're right, it is backwards. Induction can be thought of as the reverse of deduction. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

It does, however, require a bit of buy-in on the part the interpreter. Imagine a kid who takes a hostile approach to learning what a dog is: "You say dogs have fur and four legs, but the cat has fur and four legs, and you say it's not a dog. Contradiction!" "You say dogs bark, but the neighbor's old beagle never barks, and you say it is a dog. Nonsense!" "You keep pointing at dogs and non-dogs and saying there's a difference, but you're clearly just rationalizing an arbitrary and broken system, Mom!"

But, if Alignment is supposed to tell us things, I should be able to go from Chaotic, to nomads. But I can't do that, in fact, I can't even start with nomads and get to Chaotic. I have to start with "nomads are chaotic" and then justify it.

From "nomads are chaotic", you can learn that change is a chaotic principle, and then when you see other elements of the setting that embody or promote change, you can associate those with chaos as well. The learning process is a back-and-forth between making a mental model from what you've observed and expanding that model outward to make new observations.

At that point, alignment is not helping me. It is prescriptive entirely, not descriptive. It doesn't tell me how a monster acts, it tells me what they are and I need to explain how they act.

A two-word descriptor is going to be insufficient as a complete explanation for how a creature acts, pretty much no matter what. (Possible exception: "Doesn't Act".) This could be taken to mean that the alignment system is doomed from the outset. But it could also be taken to mean that alignment descriptors are not trying to provide complete explanations for how a creature acts. This game has lots of descriptors, and I don't think any of them are intended to be taken as complete in this way. The fireball spell has the "Evocation" descriptor, but "Evocation" on its own does not explain what fireball does, and there are lots of other evocations that do very different things.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In the ideal Land of the Logicians, we define all our terms precisely and unambiguously and only after we have done so proceed to make cold, hard deductions.
In the real world, we often learn natural-language terms by example: our parents and peers tell us "That's a dog" and "That's not a dog" until our brains figure out inductively what makes a dog a dog.

In a way, you're right, it is backwards. Induction can be thought of as the reverse of deduction. But that doesn't mean it doesn't work.

It does, however, require a bit of buy-in on the part the interpreter. Imagine a kid who takes a hostile approach to learning what a dog is: "You say dogs have fur and four legs, but the cat has fur and four legs, and you say it's not a dog. Contradiction!" "You say dogs bark, but the neighbor's old beagle never barks, and you say it is a dog. Nonsense!" "You keep pointing at dogs and non-dogs and saying there's a difference, but you're clearly just rationalizing an arbitrary and broken system, Mom!"


From "nomads are chaotic", you can learn that change is a chaotic principle, and then when you see other elements of the setting that embody or promote change, you can associate those with chaos as well. The learning process is a back-and-forth between making a mental model from what you've observed and expanding that model outward to make new observations.


A two-word descriptor is going to be insufficient as a complete explanation for how a creature acts, pretty much no matter what. (Possible exception: "Doesn't Act".) This could be taken to mean that the alignment system is doomed from the outset. But it could also be taken to mean that alignment descriptors are not trying to provide complete explanations for how a creature acts. This game has lots of descriptors, and I don't think any of them are intended to be taken as complete in this way. The fireball spell has the "Evocation" descriptor, but "Evocation" on its own does not explain what fireball does, and there are lots of other evocations that do very different things.

Right, inductive learning works though because there is an objective (as far as we can perceive) reality to impose on it. That is not the case with DnD. We cannot "prove" that foxes are not dogs via DNA evidence or anything else. We have nothing else to base out observations on.

Let us say that we took this exact same approach to a different subject matter.

Golems are neutral. Golems are not alive, and are like robots. Therefore things which are neutral are unalive and like robots. But that does not describe druids, or Githzerai or anything that isn't a construct. And not all constructs are neutral, such as the Hellfire Engine, which is lawful Evil.

And, another point against your idea that alignments are examples of inductive learning, is that you can't give me a solid definition before labeling something. Because every definition seems to fall short and show that there is another evil creature, without that alignment, that fits the same definitions.

And yet another thing, how then are DMs supposed to, as @TheSword says, do their job and label PCs with the proper alignment? Alignment is inductive, so if a lawful good PC pulls a B&E, then we must look at why that is actually Lawful Good, not just change them to Chaotic Good, because their alignment is true, and we just need to understand why what they are doing matches with their alignment.



Look, I get how learning works. I know the difference between Inductive and Deductive reasoning, but all of that seems to be a smokescreen about the problem. Because if I am supposed to approach alignment Inductively, then you can never change your alignment to anything else after you right it down, because your actions inductively represent alignment, and therefore must be true to that alignment. And that doesn't work. And if we approach it deductively... alignment doesn't work. I've been showing that this entire time.

 

[Lanefan]

Lol, who's winning?

Season's not over yet.

At this point, though, I'd say @Hussar, @TheSword, @TheCosmicKid, @Oofta and @Chaosmancer are locks to make the playoffs. @Crimson Longinus, @Maxperson, @Eric V, @Aldarc, myself, and a few others are fighting it out for the last three spots...

 

[Dynme]

No. That's a strawman argument; it's hostile and it's completely unnecessary. Let's try looking at this question charitably instead. What differentiates nomadic societies from settled societies? Well, they move around. They are changing their environs, and changing their lifestyle to react to their environs. Beyond that, we can think about how the arrival and departure of nomads creates change for others in the area, for better or for worse. Change seems like a pretty chaos-y thing. So maybe that's a plausible way to interpret the situation?

You might be racing to think of some counterpoint that will make this "change" interpretation look like another contradiction. Please, save it; I don't care. The point here isn't to set down that "change" is absolutely definitely the one answer you're asking for. The point is to demonstrate how one might approach the question with an open mind and attempt to learn from it.

It's always nice seeing someone who is utterly uninterested in being shown to be wrong with counter examples. But, for the audience watching at home, let's see where this leads:

Death Tyrants move around when the local source of undead slaves is exhausted. They change their environs to the point that they get lair actions. Maybe they don't change their lifestyle to react to their environs, unless you count battle tactics. Their arrival and departure certainly create change for others in the area, which seems pretty chaos-y. Three out of four statements that were just used to justify calling nomadic tribes chaotic apply to Death Tyrants just as well. So what are we to make of Death Tyrants being Lawful? Is it possible that these criteria are not in fact sufficient to label something as Chaotic?