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.

 

[dmgorgon]

This may be our "What setting we came in ons" talking, but as someone who came in via the 3E route.... No. Alignment was a straightjacket. All assassins gotta be evil, so, y'know, Agent 47 couldn't work in that universe. All paladins gotta be Lawful Good and hoo boy the history of bad DM decisions to screw over the paladin. And then there's Dragonlance which I actually hate its interpretation of the alignment shift and could argue for weeks about, what with a big unabashed downright evil character in that setting being called "Good" by word of authors

It has an idea of value deep in there somewhere, sure. But every single time its been mechanically enforced its been a mess, and especially when attempting to ascribe it to a group of people

That's funny because the 2e book I quoted explicitly stated that alignment was not a straitjacket. So if that's the way it was being played at your table then it was being played incorrectly. At least you admit that that.

On the other hand, I really don't understand why the alignments are so difficult to understand.

Take Lawful Neutral

Lawful Neutral: Order and organization are of paramount importance to characters of this alignment. They believe in a strong, well-ordered government, whether that government is a tyranny or benevolent democracy. The benefits of organization and regimentation outweigh any moral questions raised by their actions. An inquisitor determined to ferret out traitors at any cost or a soldier who never questions his orders are good examples of lawful neutral behavior.

now, what is the dumb guy version?

Me no break law. Morality less important than law. Me think government is right. Me no question orders


Is that really so hard?

Now does this create conflict? Of course it does! that's the entire point. Characters should be conflicted at times, just like real people are.


Now do I think that Paladins should be LG only and Assassins should be evil. Absolutely.

Do I think that an entire group of people / faction/ society/ religion can have be prescribed an alignment? Yes, that works very well IMO. It's a great guide that really helps the DM.

 

[dmgorgon]

What is good? What is evil?

Is murdering 1 person to save 1,000,000 lives good or evil?

That's a great internal conflict that just begs to be roleplayed.

There are two actions here though. Murdering one (assume innocent) person is an evil act. Saving the 1,000,000 lives is a good thing.

In this case, the LG paladin may be willing to lose his paladin hood over it. I'd have to consult the 2e paladins handbook for this. To see exactly what would happen.

 

[dmgorgon]

Sorry, but this sounds like training-wheels level roleplaying. If I ever had to rely on alignment for people to properly roleplay the situation would be dire indeed! Beside, if I wanted to do 'just whatever I wanted' I could still easily write 'Chaotic Neutral' or 'Chaotic Evil' on my sheet. It's not like anyone ever complains about chaotic characters acting in too orderly manner or neutral or evil characters acting too decently.

Paaldin's Oath is a specific thing is easily observable to the character's in the setting (they can know what the oaths and traditions of various Paladin orders are) and it is evocative of similar thing in the real life.

Yeah and that would be fine to be CN or CE, but the point of choosing a different alignment is to challenge yourself. If you do just whatever you want in game, the DM may tell you that your alignment changed to that based on your actions.

The point is that you can play as you see fit, but as the DM I will tell you want your alignment currently IS. you have no say in that.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's a great internal conflict that just begs to be roleplayed.

There are two actions here though. Murdering one (assume innocent) person is an evil act. Saving the 1,000,000 lives is a good thing.

In this case, the LG paladin may be willing to lose his paladin hood over it. I'd have to consult the 2e paladins handbook for this. To see exactly what would happen.

Would not saving 1,000,000 loves be evil?

 

[Hexmage-EN]

My personal take is that all the "Lawful" gods and extraplanar entities are still in the process of hammering out what exactly the ideal form of "Law" is. Ironically, this results in Chaos.

Chaos is basically a tree of infinite possibilities and the followers of Law want to prune it and remove possibilities. However, they don't all agree what needs to be pruned and what needs to be kept. The ultimate goal is that eventually a single, coherent standard of what Law is will be accepted by all beings.

The modrons believe that Primus would be the ultimate arbiter of Law, unhindered by Good and Evil (well, those modrons high enough in the caste system to be capable of thought and belief). A reality in which they have constructed the final, true incarnation of Law would probably be indistinguishable from their home plane of Mechanus. It would be a reality where there are no other possibilities than the ones pre-ordained by Primus. Stability, coherence, conformity, and most of all predictability would be the Law, with the former concepts of "free will" and "chance" having been purged.

Not even the Hells is that restrictive. The devils want the multiverse under their Law to be dystopian and ambition driven, not a clockwork machine that runs for its own sake with no one capable of contemplating it.

The Chaotic Neutral slaadi are fun goofballs in comparison to these things.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeah and that would be fine to be CN or CE, but the point of choosing a different alignment is to challenge yourself. If you do just whatever you want in game, the DM may tell you that your alignment changed to that based on your actions.

The point is that you can play as you see fit, but as the DM I will tell you want your alignment currently IS. you have no say in that.

What does it matter? Why would I care? Earlier you tried to claim that you can use alignment to 'force' people play in certain way. You can't and even if you could you shouldn't.

 

[dmgorgon]

Would not saving 1,000,000 loves be evil?

the general case is that doing harm, causing pain, and death = bad .

if it's the lives of 1,000,000 rotrubs probably not, but Moander might get angry.

 

[dmgorgon]

What does it matter? Why would I care? Earlier you tried to claim that you can use alignment to 'force' people play in certain way. You can't and even if you could you shouldn't.

I don't remember doing that at all. Alignment is not there to force you to do anything. If you don't want to play a LG character then don't pick it. Why lie to yourself?

 

[Aldarc]

Gygax didn't see things that way. He noticed that players would quickly forget that they were heros and do things no hero would ever do. I see it in my own games from time to time even with alignment. Thankfully, we have alignment in my game to remind players that they are role playing and not just doing whatever the players want and then attempting to justifying in character later on. There is at least an upfront analysis taking place. The players are quickly double checking that the action falls within their LG alignment, which is no different than following an oath.

The game has changed since Gygax exited the scene. I don't recall the premise of the game being about playing characters of principle, especially when one considers that his game about adventurers robbing tombs was heavily influenced by the works of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, and Michael Moorcock. The idea that these characters are heroes has been part of a gradual game in the cultural core assumptions of the game. In my games, I have noticed that my players don't need alignment to roleplay their characters well. However, if your players need roleplaying training-wheels, then that's fine.

If you can follow an paladin's oath then I don't see why you can't follow the simple abstraction that is alignment. It's probably even simpler to follow an alignment.

If you can follow a paladin's oath, then why do you need alignment? It seems like an oath is more concrete than alignment.

The point is that you can play as you see fit, but as the DM I will tell you want your alignment currently IS. you have no say in that.

I'm not a fan of any "GM as the Great Dictator" styles of GMing practices.

 

[dmgorgon]

The game has changed since Gygax exited the scene. I don't recall the premise of the game being about playing characters of principle, especially when one considers that his game about adventurers robbing tombs was heavily influenced by the works of Robert E. Howard, Fritz Lieber, and Michael Moorcock. The idea that these characters are heroes has been part of a gradual game in the cultural core assumptions of the game. In my games, I have noticed that my players don't need alignment to roleplay their characters well. However, if your players need roleplaying training-wheels, then that's fine.

Considering entire handbooks have been written on the subject I disagree that the game isn't about playing characters of principle.

If you can follow a paladin's oath, then why do you need alignment? It seems like an oath is more concrete than alignment.

I'm not a fan of any "GM as the Great Dictator" styles of GMing practices.

The answer is simple, alignment is a more broad and useful abstraction. As the DM, I don't have the time to write an oath for all my npcs or write a detailed psychoanalysis. . With alignment I can convey a wide range of principles to anyone wanting to pick up a module without having to write long lists of oaths and principles for each of my npcs, races, groups etc.