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.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes.

I’m struggling to remember what proportion of games played currently in the world are either Pathfinder, D&D, or WFRP... do you think it’s high? I reckon it probably is.

If you aren't good with running NPCs in games without alignment systems or are not actually familiar with running such games then I would appreciate forthright honesty from you over you trying to play this game where you beat around the bush in providing an answer to my question. Would you be so kind as to answer my question please?

Done arguing for the night with rebels without a cause, no plausible alternative and with people have decided they don’t like the system without understanding it. Have fun, I’ll check in tomorrow.

This is dishonest or ignorant and an ad hominem attack. There is not much room for any other explanation for someone who has been an active participant in a thread where they have engaged people who have posts with proposed plausible alternatives and people who have demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the system but may still have reasonable disagreements about its use.

 

[TheSword]

Couple of things after checking in...

Hags are like family units not organization. They literally become more powerful by working as coven. They don’t work together because it’s efficient they do so because there are certain things they can only do as threes. Three witches has been a thing since, well, Greek times.

You’re trying to look at specific creatures and say look... one aspect of how they behave looks lawful to me, and then say ha, alignment doesn’t work. However there are lots of things that influence this and you have to step back and see the bigger picture. How do they view society and the world.

You’re trying to boil big vistas into small details and draw incorrect conclusions from that. Look at that pastoral landscape, there is a houses in it. Houses exist in towns so this must be an urban landscape instead. Step back stop trying to look for reasons why it doesn’t work and you’ll see that broadly it does.

Alignments flexibility is a feature not a bug. It’s why in one campaign setting we can have fey that are playful, good natured and friendly, and in a grittier setting we can have fey that are whimsical, unpredictable, unstable and dangerous. Just by changing CG to CN. It tells me in two letters a wealth of information as DM about those particular fey. CG might say, you must go every hours you spend in our glade is like a year in the outside world. CN fey wouldn’t care, or might even think it’s funny.

Lore descriptions are fine, but they only tell us what the writer thinks to tell us. The writer cant think of everything, neither should they have to. Alignment helps to fill the gaps and act as a starting point for a creative process. Most monsters have kept the same alignments for decades. They have been able to be reinvented in multiple settings by looking at different way alignment and physiology might make them behave. There are notable exceptions (Orcs, Drow) but designers are free to their creations if they want. It’s just that most don’t.

Additionally most stat blocks (looking at the number released in the many campaign books have very little lore. Particularly the NPCs.

Alignment is a universal system that can equally apply to a monster, a plane of existence, or a magic sword. That is a pretty flexible system to my mind and shouldnt be tossed away lightly.

There is far too much nail biting based on the few lines in the PHB. The descriptions should probably be refined in a short essay in Xanathars Guide to expand on things. To help explain the difference between a moral code and a set of personal values. I’m comfortable with the difference but others seem to really find it difficult. Some need someone else to tell them what The right way to think is I guess.

Alignment is not perfect, but it’s a flexible, nuanced system that’s helpful to me. It could be expanded upon for 5e to clarify it for those that aren’t familiar with it from earlier editions, or that can’t distance earlier editions from the things left behind. No alternative proposed, with the radicals saying we don’t need it... just use a page of lore instead that in many cases doesn’t exist.

 

[TheSword]

If you aren't good with running NPCs in games without alignment systems or are not actually familiar with running such games then I would appreciate forthright honesty from you over you trying to play this game where you beat around the bush in providing an answer to my question. Would you be so kind as to answer my question please?

This is dishonest or ignorant and an ad hominem attack. There is not much room for any other explanation for someone who has been an active participant in a thread where they have engaged people who have posts with proposed plausible alternatives and people who have demonstrated a sufficient understanding of the system but may still have reasonable disagreements about its use.

Point one...I answered your question. You poo pooed the answer.

Point two... Nope lots of people have said throw alignment out with no alternative and what has been proposed by others is nowhere up to the task.

Discussing ethics with fanatics who have made their mind up about something and are determined to find the worst in something is exhausting. Hence me taking so quality time to cook dinner and sleep well.

 

[Aldarc]

Point one...I answered your question. You poo pooed the answer.

You didn't actually answer. I asked you a question about your experience with non-alignment based games, and you responded with two alignment-based games. That's a non-answer. When I pressed you about it, you made a fallacy of relevance by appealing instead to the market share that D&D and Pathfinder collectively enjoys. I don't know why you are so intent on dodging a simple question about how you run NPCs in games without alignments.

Point two... Nope lots of people have said throw alignment out with no alternative and what has been proposed by others is nowhere up to the task.

When you made up your mind that the only alternative to D&D's alignment system is D&D's alignment system, then I could see why you would think that the alternatives are not plausible, but, again, it evidences a lack of familiarity with games outside of D&D's family of games.

Discussing ethics with fanatics who have made their mind up about something and are determined to find the worst in something is exhausting. Hence me taking so quality time to cook dinner and sleep well.

Fanatics? Can you really not imagine that people might have reasonable gripes with alignment without resorting to personal attacks that depict them as "fanatics" or ignorant of the system? It seems like people determined to find the worst in a system is much better than dealing with someone who is determined to find the worst in people who may have reasonable disagreements about a game.

 

[TheSword]

When you made up your mind that the only alternative to D&D's alignment system is D&D's alignment system...

Nope, I said no plausible alternative had been provided. Not that one couldn’t be created. It’s not my responsibility to find a replacement to a system I like.

Neither should a suitable replacement NEED to be played in another game to justify it works. If you can’t explain it sufficiently to get buy in then I suggest it isn’t better than what we have.

 

[Aldarc]

Nope, I said no plausible alternative had been provided. Not that one couldn’t be created. It’s not my responsibility to find a replacement to a system I like.

Neither should a suitable replacement NEED to be played in another game to justify it works. If you can’t explain it sufficiently to get buy in then I suggest it isn’t better than what we have.

I did get buy-in for my Cypher System "motivations" proposal in this thread. I know because it has since been echoed by a decent number of people in this thread. As did a proposal someone made for factions. Just because you still prefer alignment does not mean that various proposed alternatives did not get buy-in or positive feedback.

Also, please answer my question about how you run NPCs in games without alignment systems.

 

[TheSword]

I did get buy-in for my Cypher System "motivations" proposal in this thread. I know because it has since been echoed by a decent number of people in this thread. As did a proposal someone made for factions. Just because you still prefer alignment does not mean that various proposed alternatives did not get buy-in or positive feedback.

Also, please answer my question about how you run NPCs in games without alignment systems.

The cypher ‘hungers for flesh’ is too narrow, too specific, and tells almost nothing else about the creature, god, NPCs outlook on things not related to the fact that they hunger for flesh.

It replaces 20% of the alignment system and not much more.

 

[Azzy]

While I'm not in favor of removing alignment, I have no problem with it just being window-dressing so to speak or with humanoids (and such) not having a listed alignment (or it being listed "any "). That said, I do wonder if some of the more stringient defenders of alignment have played other RPGs that do not have alignment and, if so, if they felt that not having alignment actually hampered their ability to portray NPCs and monsters (if applicable). Myself, having played several RPGs that don't have alignments, I don't see alignment as being necessary in the slightest—there are far better ways of determining a character's worldview and outlook. Again, I'm not in favour of removing alignment from D&D. To me, it's one of those weird D&D-isms that I find quaint.

 

[Lanefan]

While I'm not in favor of removing alignment, I have no problem with it just being window-dressing so to speak or with humanoids (and such) not having a listed alignment (or it being listed "any "). That said, I do wonder if some of the more stringient defenders of alignment have played other RPGs that do not have alignment and, if so, if they felt that not having alignment actually hampered their ability to portray NPCs and monsters (if applicable). Myself, having played several RPGs that don't have alignments, I don't see alignment as being necessary in the slightest—there are far better ways of determining a character's worldview and outlook.

On the individual character level I can see this.

But its usefulness as a shorthand description of the general tendency of a group or society or nation or creature type - how did you replace that without using a lot more words?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

But its usefulness as a shorthand description of the general tendency of a group or society or nation or creature type - how did you replace that without using a lot more words?

More words is fine. And considering how insanely vague and subjective alignment is you don't need to use a lot of more words to get something that is more useful. Of course more words you use, more accurate you can get.