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.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

D&D: Alignment Does Almost Nothing

Alignment in D&D is one of the most contentious things about 5th Edition, and it doesn't really do anything in the game. Here's how it works, and doesn't.

www.belloflostsouls.net

The drum beats ever louder...

Certainly a good article for pointing out how dubiously alignment is handled in 5E. I'd honestly say it was significantly better-handled in 4E, because at least it was treated more consistently, and they had Unaligned, which was incredibly valuable, and not the same thing as NN, in practice.

 

[Remathilis]

Certainly a good article for pointing out how dubiously alignment is handled in 5E. I'd honestly say it was significantly better-handled in 4E, because at least it was treated more consistently, and they had Unaligned, which was incredibly valuable, and not the same thing as NN, in practice.

I actually like the new difference between unaligned (not capable of making moral judgement) and True Neutral (attempting to not get involved/stay above the fight) made in 5e.

To each their own; alignment is dead-rule walking at this point. Sounds like the author also slipped in a "let's get rid of ability scores" rant there too.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I actually like the new difference between unaligned (not capable of making moral judgement) and True Neutral (attempting to not get involved/stay above the fight) made in 5e.

That's a different Unaligned though, which serves a different though useful role. But NN is an actual viewpoint, which is why it's not great - most people just don't have strong views, but care about their friends, feel empathy and remorse, and so on - they're not actively trying to stay in the centre in a strange way as NN often is. The only thing I wasn't keen on was retaining LG and CE as separate things. They should have had G, L, Unaligned, C and E as the alignments, with most beings being Unaligned, and only those actually dedicated to a viewpoint having an alignment (I seem to recall some d20 fantasy RPG taking a similar approach with some success).

If you did G, L, U, C, E, you could actually make it so everyone defaulted to Unaligned, and picking another alignment was an actual committment, with some consequences. Ironically that would probably have allowed you to make alignment mechanical again in a good way, because if you commit to being "Good", to this specific cause, not just being a decent person (which 4E Unaligned absolutely can be), then you can justify that being detected, impacting spells, and so on. Many "bad guy" NPCs would simply be Unaligned, because they hadn't committed to Evil, so you still couldn't just go around detecting them.

I guess a crude way to look at it is that 5E returns to a sort of "Sorting Hat" approach to alignment - you must have one - you will be assigned to Griffyndor or Snaketown or Ravenclever or Nicebutdim or whatever based on the nature or behaviour of your character, not based on an active choice to commit to anything.

You are right that it's a dead man walking though, and I think it part because it returned to the Sorting Hat approach. I literally don't know the alignments of any of the other PCs in the current party I'm in. That's probably a first. It just doesn't matter and hasn't come up. I sort of assume they're all CG from their behaviour.

 

[Remathilis]

That's a different Unaligned though, which serves a different (though) useful role. But NN is an actual viewpoint, which is why it's not great. The only thing I wasn't keen on was retaining LG and CE as separate things. They should have had G, L, Unaligned, C and E as the alignments, with most beings being Unaligned, and only those actually dedicated to a viewpoint having an alignment (I seem to recall some d20 fantasy RPG taking a similar approach with some success).

In my (short) time playing 4e, everyone I saw play wrote "unaligned" on their character sheet and forgot it. A few clerics and divine PCs picked Good.

For me, 4e's system was the worst of both worlds; it did nothing to differentiate PCs (as they were all unaligned) but put orcs, drow, and other MM humanoids in the "Evil, slay in sight" bucket. CE was SuperUltraEvil, LG might as well not exist since few PCs and almost no monsters used it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In my (short) time playing 4e, everyone I saw play wrote "unaligned" on their character sheet and forgot it. A few clerics and divine PCs picked Good.

For me, 4e's system was the worst of both worlds; it did nothing to differentiate PCs (as they were all unaligned) but put orcs, drow, and other MM humanoids in the "Evil, slay in sight" bucket. CE was SuperUltraEvil, LG might as well not exist since few PCs and almost no monsters used it.

I do think it was a problem that all the baddies were given actual Evil, even though most PCs were Unaligned and I kind of see your point, but I also think it was an evolutionary step in the right direction, whereas 5E is just backpedaling/nostalgia alignment-wise which ensured that instead of alignment maybe turning into something interesting/useful, it's just going to die.

I will say though I think putting Unaligned on your sheet then just forgetting it is pretty much objectively better than being forced to pick an actual alignment and then just forgetting it until some magic item is like "You're a chump and I hate u".

 

[Crimson Longinus]

it's just going to die.

Let's hope so!

 

[Aldarc]

In my (short) time playing 4e, everyone I saw play wrote "unaligned" on their character sheet and forgot it. A few clerics and divine PCs picked Good.

That seems like a pretty good indication regarding the value or esteem that most players hold alignment: i.e., not much.

 

[Remathilis]

That seems like a pretty good indication regarding the value or esteem that most players hold alignment: i.e., not much.

Early in, people asked "where is Chaotic Good or where is Lawful Neutral?" When told they don't exist and what the new alignments were, most wrote unaligned and then played CG or LN. One wrote unaligned and played textbook Lawful Evil, make of that what you will.

Our group mostly took that unaligned meant you did what you do, Good/Evil meant you were dedicated to the cause, and CE/LG meant you were an extremist. I'm still not sure if that was wrong.

Anyway, our group welcomed the 9 alignment system back with PF and 5e.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Early in, people asked "where is Chaotic Good or where is Lawful Neutral?" When told they don't exist and what the new alignments were, most wrote unaligned and then played CG or LN. One wrote unaligned and played textbook Lawful Evil, make of that what you will.

That seems to indicate that the alignment system was not really needed. The players knew how they wanted to play and were able to do it without the rules telling them to.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anyway, our group welcomed the 9 alignment system back with PF and 5e.

Ryan Reynolds But Why Gif, frankly. I mean, it seems like they were fine without them, arguably better-off. I guess that's I'm saying about nostalgia/tradition/etc. though - people welcome the return of the familiar, even if it doesn't actually serve a purpose, and they themselves proved they didn't need it.

So we now have this entirely vestigial alignment system that is simply there for comfort and Batman memes, as it were, because alignment was prevented from evolving, intentionally, in 3E and 5E, and was crippled by the desire to retain LG and CE because they're "iconic", in 4E, instead of moving towards something that actually maybe made some sense or was in some way useful.