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.

 

[Remathilis]

Ryan Reynolds But Why Gif.

For the same reason they welcomed back 0-9 spell slots, the Great Wheel, and other things 4e chucked; it was the D&D they wanted.

I mean, you could solve nearly every long-standing argument about D&D by just adapting Mutants & Masterminds to be fantasy. Build your own races and classes without naming or setting baggage, customable abilities for martial and magic, ability scores revised to just modifiers, HP gone, AC and armor makes sense, no alignment, etc.

But you gotta wonder if all that was done, is it still D&D? M&M is a great system, but it's not D&D. 4e tried to innovate and got soundly rejected for it. 5e went back to basics and is a smash hit. Let D&D be D&D.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Let D&D be D&D.

That'd be a lot easier if people could agree on what "D&D" was. Worth noting too that the delta between 4E and 5E would likely have been a lot smaller if it hadn't hit at the same time as the massive rise in public consciousness (especially in "the youth") about D&D, whether via podcasts/Twitch/Critical Role, pop-culture mentions, or whatever.

the Great Wheel

This one is just not true too. Very few people have been pleased to see that back. Even a lot of hardline "4E sux" types have said "Ugh Great Wheel..." or the like.

M&M would create a bunch of problems too - people don't want to have to build classes/races from the ground up, so that's really just substituting one problem for another. But I do think you could take a lot of things from other RPGs and most players (remember, we're in the 11% who are 40+, I mean, well, I am, I assume you are, not the 89% who are younger), many of whom started with 5E, would be happy enough.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Only 40+?

Whippersnapper!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There should just be 'personality' (or something like that) line on the character sheet. And then people could write on it 'Lawful Good', 'Chaotic Neutral', 'Grumpy but decent,' 'Edgy badass', 'Hufflepuff', 'Jack Sparrow' or whatever they thought describes their character's nature. And that's it, it is just for the player and it doesn't matter if someone doesn't agree with them what the core values of 'Lawful Good or 'Hufflepuff' are.

 

[Oofta]

That'd be a lot easier if people could agree on what "D&D" was. Worth noting too that the delta between 4E and 5E would likely have been a lot smaller if it hadn't hit at the same time as the massive rise in public consciousness (especially in "the youth") about D&D, whether via podcasts/Twitch/Critical Role, pop-culture mentions, or whatever.



This one is just not true too. Very few people have been pleased to see that back. Even a lot of hardline "4E sux" types have said "Ugh Great Wheel..." or the like.

M&M would create a bunch of problems too - people don't want to have to build classes/races from the ground up, so that's really just substituting one problem for another. But I do think you could take a lot of things from other RPGs and most players (remember, we're in the 11% who are 40+, I mean, well, I am, I assume you are, not the 89% who are younger), many of whom started with 5E, would be happy enough.

While the game will continue to evolve, there is something special about D&D that makes it work for a whole lot of people. If it just appealed to nostalgia, it would have a fraction of the current customers. If other game systems were superior for what we're trying to achieve then they would be more popular.

Yes, name means something along with brand. But it only takes you so far. Every person I've introduced to D&D grasped the basic concepts of D&D easily. It hits that sweet spot of simple but complex.

That has nothing to do with us old-fogies, it's just a game that works for millions of people. Take alignment. Most people understand the basic concept, it's useful to some others can easily ignore it. Classes are limiting but support simple, easy-to-understand archetypes that people can just grab and go.

If other RPGs were so much better then sooner or later they'd make a big dent in D&D sales. That hasn't happened yet and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If other game systems were superior for what we're trying to achieve then they would be more popular.

The world just doesn't work that way, Oofta, and I think you know it doesn't. D&D is a brand name, for an entire concept, and has massive cultural inertia and brand recognition, where the concept of RPGs, especially as meaning something other than "computer games with a lot of numbers and equipment in them", absolutely does not.

If other RPGs were so much better then sooner or later they'd make a big dent in D&D sales. That hasn't happened yet and I don't see it happening anytime soon.

It has absolutely happened. It happened in the 1990s. If it's going to happen again, it'll happen in the 2020s, or early 2030s, if it follows a similar timeline.

It's also not a matter of "better" and "worse". That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation. You don't need to be the best game. You just need to be good enough, accessible enough. Most people who play an RPG aren't even thinking about whether a game system is "good", let alone "the best", they're just thinking they want to play some D&D with their friends. Many people either don't know, or only have vague and sometimes hilariously inaccurate ideas that other TT RPGs even exist. Just go on the 5E reddit and look for threads where other RPGs come up - some people, particularly grogs like ourselves, have played a bunch of RPGs and understand the differences and so on, but most of the people there have really vague and/or misguided ideas about other RPGs. I do see the beginnings of change, though. PtbA stuff for example clearly has some following among RPGers under 30 (esp. BitD and similar approaches).

What's key is accessibility, and 5E slam-dunked that. It wasn't because of the vestigial alignment system (if anything, that's slightly anti-accessible), or the Great Wheel or any of that nonsense, it was because you can create a character in single-digit minutes, and learn the basics of play in single-digit minutes, and it doesn't require to think in an unusual way (unlike PtbA, for example - albeit if you'd never played an RPG at all, including not even CRPGs, PtbA would be more natural). 5E is a triumph of accessibility. And because the brand is gigantic, and boosted by everything from Stranger Things to Critical Role, people come to it, and aren't pushed away by the rules. And because FLGSes are basically dead, and most new people are just buying from Amazon, or Beyond, unlike us, they're not constantly walking into shops were D&D is only part of what's on display, and dozens of other RPGs are there to see, or pick up, or browse through.

So simple-but-complex I agree on - that's the key. But stuff like alignment and the Great Wheel, these weakly push people away, they don't add to the accessibility except for the 11%ers, basically. But the thing is, when 5E launched, the audience was so much smaller than the 11%ers were probably the 40%ers or perhaps even higher, so they seemed important. A number of issues 5E has are because it wasn't actually targeting the massive audience it now has, but rather just trying to reunify the 4E and PF crowds.

 

[Oofta]

The world just doesn't work that way, Oofta, and I think you know it doesn't. D&D is a brand name, for an entire concept, and has massive cultural inertia and brand recognition, where the concept of RPGs, especially as meaning something other than "computer games with a lot of numbers and equipment in them", absolutely does not.



It has absolutely happened. It happened in the 1990s. If it's going to happen again, it'll happen in the 2020s, or early 2030s, if it follows a similar timeline.

It's also not a matter of "better" and "worse". That's a fundamental misunderstanding of the entire situation. You don't need to be the best game. You just need to be good enough, accessible enough. Most people who play an RPG aren't even thinking about whether a game system is "good", let alone "the best", they're just thinking they want to play some D&D with their friends. Many people either don't know, or only have vague and sometimes hilariously inaccurate ideas that other TT RPGs even exist. Just go on the 5E reddit and look for threads where other RPGs come up - some people, particularly grogs like ourselves, have played a bunch of RPGs and understand the differences and so on, but most of the people there have really vague and/or misguided ideas about other RPGs. I do see the beginnings of change, though. PtbA stuff for example clearly has some following among RPGers under 30 (esp. BitD and similar approaches).

What's key is accessibility, and 5E slam-dunked that. It wasn't because of the vestigial alignment system (if anything, that's slightly anti-accessible), or the Great Wheel or any of that nonsense, it was because you can create a character in single-digit minutes, and learn the basics of play in single-digit minutes, and it doesn't require to think in an unusual way (unlike PtbA, for example - albeit if you'd never played an RPG at all, including not even CRPGs, PtbA would be more natural). 5E is a triumph of accessibility. And because the brand is gigantic, and boosted by everything from Stranger Things to Critical Role, people come to it, and aren't pushed away by the rules. And because FLGSes are basically dead, and most new people are just buying from Amazon, or Beyond, unlike us, they're not constantly walking into shops were D&D is only part of what's on display, and dozens of other RPGs are there to see, or pick up, or browse through.

So simple-but-complex I agree on - that's the key. But stuff like alignment and the Great Wheel, these weakly push people away, they don't add to the accessibility except for the 11%ers, basically. But the thing is, when 5E launched, the audience was so much smaller than the 11%ers were probably the 40%ers or perhaps even higher, so they seemed important. A number of issues 5E has are because it wasn't actually targeting the massive audience it now has, but rather just trying to reunify the 4E and PF crowds.

Alignment is easy to ignore if you don't want to use it. But most people have a good enough idea of what it represents, it seems like only the grognards want to make it into a straightjacket or something it's not that have a problem with it. It's handy for some people, ignored by others. Much like the great wheel cosmology that I completely ignore.

Brand only takes you so far. Flown Pan Am lately? Driven your new Pontiac to get gas at your local Amoco and picked up some Chicklets and a Tab to wash it down? D&D has been growing year in and year out while several previous editions saw a boom at the beginning and then slowly fading sales. "Inertia" doesn't cause growth.

 

[jsaving]

That has nothing to do with us old-fogies, it's just a game that works for millions of people. Take alignment. Most people understand the basic concept, it's useful to some others can easily ignore it.

People understanding the "basic concept" is probably the right way to put that: lawfuls like following the rules, chaotics like doing their own thing, goods like helping people, evils like taking from people.

My recollection is that when WotC last asked why people pick the alignment they do, the most common response was players don't like others telling them what to do. And the chart Jeremy posted on the first page goes along with that, with half the player base picking the exact alignments (CG/CN) that correspond to being left alone. To me that says there is a certain level of understanding and agreement about what these core concepts mean, even if alignment by itself fails to provide much practical guidance to what a character will actually do in a given situation.

The question is whether your campaign finds any value in that. For many campaigns the answer is no, while others do find it helpful for a variety of reasons. Fortunately alignment doesn't have mechanical consequences in 5e so you can simply use it if you find it helpful and drop it if you don't.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Brand only takes you so far. Flown Pan Am lately? Driven your new Pontiac to get gas at your local Amoco and picked up some Chicklets and a Tab to wash it down? D&D has been growing year in and year out while several previous editions saw a boom at the beginning and then slowly fading sales. "Inertia" doesn't cause growth.

None of those brands were ever even close to D&D-huge, relative to the product-area they're about. None of them except Pan Am were particularly successful (certainly outside the US), let alone such a brand that they're how people refer to the entire concept. Pan Am was by far the biggest of those, and it failed because it was an industry with extremely thin margins, where a few bad decisions could lead to bankruptcy, and where competition, often from companies with heavy investments or state backing, was extremely stiff. It's not a remotely viable comparison.

If people only know the things exists, because they know about your thing, then brand is far more important than you're pretending.

An equivalent situation would be if people who wanted to travel on planes just thought of "Pan Am", and didn't think of "airlines" or "air travel", and maybe thought they were concepts more relevant to computer games than anything else. And where they never even saw advertising for other airlines, because those airlines couldn't afford it. That's the sort of situation D&D is in right now. It's the sort of situation it was in, arguably, in the mid-1980s (though it is more successful now, sales-wise). People didn't say "Let's play an RPG", they said "Let's play D&D". By the 1990s, the RPG market had shrunk, but those still playing were much more aware of "RPGs" in general. That may happen again. Given the audience growth over 5E has been so massive, and clearly involves a lot of younger people who are new to TT RPGs, I think it'll be 5-15 years before we're at the same place, though.

 

[Oofta]

None of those brands were ever even close to D&D-huge, relative to the product-area they're about. None of them except Pan Am were particularly successful (certainly outside the US), let alone such a brand that they're how people refer to the entire concept. Pan Am was by far the biggest of those, and it failed because it was an industry with extremely thin margins, where a few bad decisions could lead to bankruptcy, and where competition, often from companies with heavy investments or state backing, was extremely stiff. It's not a remotely viable comparison.

If people only know the things exists, because they know about your thing, then brand is far more important than you're pretending.

An equivalent situation would be if people who wanted to travel on planes just thought of "Pan Am", and didn't think of "airlines" or "air travel", and maybe thought they were concepts more relevant to computer games than anything else. And where they never even saw advertising for other airlines, because those airlines couldn't afford it. That's the sort of situation D&D is in right now. It's the sort of situation it was in, arguably, in the mid-1980s (though it is more successful now, sales-wise). People didn't say "Let's play an RPG", they said "Let's play D&D". By the 1990s, the RPG market had shrunk, but those still playing were much more aware of "RPGs" in general. That may happen again. Given the audience growth over 5E has been so massive, and clearly involves a lot of younger people who are new to TT RPGs, I think it'll be 5-15 years before we're at the same place, though.

Who's "pretending"? D&D is growing rapidly year after year. If it had fundamental flaws that didn't work for the majority of people, it wouldn't.

Brand name only gets you so far. But this is pointless. I don't think alignment means anything more or less than what each group wants it to. I find it useful and in my experience it's a useful handle for newbies who have never picked up a polyhedral die in their lifetime. Feel free to disagree.