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.

 

[reelo]

Wouldn't the simpler solution be to have X number of factions, but, the factions are not divided by racial lines? So, you have the "Reaver" faction, which includes members from any species that takes up the sword to go reaving on their neighbors? Or the "Peaceful coexistence faction " (Man I suck at naming stuff) includes anyone who isn't interested in ganking their neighbors. The "Hangs out with demons" factions, again, have members from pretty much any race that might want to summon a demon or three for fun and profit.

What you are describing is "World of Warcraft".

 

[JoeyD473]

I never liked alignment. My players always want to be nuetral so when they do things that might be considered evil they can say "Hey I'm neutral. Sometimes I do good sometimes I do evil" and I would smack my head

 

[Umbran]

I agree with much of this, except the way that you depict the scale of human sexuality. It is far more weighted towards heterosexuality than homosexuality.

Or, so says our common wisdom. While surveys have been done, there's arguments that most of them have significant flaws or reasons for people to under-report, which leaves us with little real data to trust.

...it should be roughly commensurate with how people self-identify, adjusted to the specific community (to what degree that information is available).

And, then you get into very interesting territory. Anecdotally, the RPG space seems to have a significant attraction to the LGBTQ+ community, for at least one of the same reasons it attracted the geek community before it - it is a very interesting space for people who feel like they don't fit in. As such, we might well find that there's a higher percentage of LGBTQ+ folks in the gaming community than in the culture at large, and thus representation in the game might be best to be rather higher too...

And there's a sort of Pascal's Wager element to this all - maybe we are in the San Fracisco of hobbies, in which case we should see significant representation. Maybe we aren't in SanFran... but are we really harmed by guessing we are?

 

[Fenris-77]

Here's the nine point Bonobo alignment matrix for those who want to use it:

Calm and nice
Indifferent and nice
Bohemian and nice

indifferent and calm
indifferent but probably still horny
indifferent and sneaky

Calm and sneaky
Crazy pants (metaphorically speaking, Bonobo's don't wear pants)
Crazy pants and parks in handicapped spaces

If any Bonobos feel like they are being misrepresented here they can feel free to speak to management.

 

[Haldrik]

what we do know is that women tended to be better nourished and much "beefier" during the hunter-gather periods than they were during the agricultural periods that followed after it.

Judging by the paleolithic figurines of women (always women, never men), the ideal image of a woman is a well-nourished and breast-feeding, pregnant, All-Mother, source of all life.

Recall that the biblical name Eve (Khava) means "life-giver", somehow preserving the memory of a prehistoric reverence of women as the source of all life, the All-Mother.

They didnt yet know that sex caused pregnancy. The nine-month delay and frequent sexuality made it less obvious. So, from the prehistoric perspective, humans only have mothers. No fathers. The female is the existential source of Being. All children, both daughters and sons, are loyal to their mother.

Thus despite being moreorless egalitarian, the friendships among mothers tended to govern what the clan decided to do, since all the children were loyal to this central group of mothers.

Prehistoric human culture strongly resembled bonobo culture, in this way. Division of male group and female group, with the female group being a friendship among clan mothers.

Also like bonobos, among humans it is the female that tends to leave her clan to join an other clan elsewhere. (Biologically, this allows exchange of DNA to keep the genepools healthy admixtures.) Of course, each young woman as she came of age, felt the instinct to leave her clan and adventure off into the unknown. I am unsure how that must have felt subjectively, this wanderlust. I guess there are women today who if they thought about it, could imagine themselves in that situation, and accurately speculate how these motives felt.

In any case, the heartbreak of daughters separating from their mothers, perhaps never to see each other again when clans migrated away in different directions, was a life event among prehistoric humans.

I like the suggestion that these figurines of mothers were ceremonial gifts from a mother to her daughter, when she decided to leave to join an other clan. The daughter would soon become a mother in a different clan. The gift would remind her of her mother who raised her. They were now both aspects of the All-Mother, and were aspects of one animistic being, and will never truly be separate from each other.

Also like bonobos, when the soon to be mother joined an other clan, she never united with a particular man. Rather. She became a member of the group of mothers of this clan. It is the women that the new woman united with. She is now an All-Mother of the clan.

The men of her new clan (including woman-to-man transgenders) would venture off to hunt migrating animal herds. When the men returned back to the women with meat, they would celebrate sexually together, with everyone having sex with everyone. Bisexually. (The sacred orgies of the Classical Age preserve remnants of these of prehistoric sexual customs.)

Over the course of years, the mother of the clan would spontaneously bring forth life of her own children. Children loyal to her.

A day would come, when her daughter came of age. The heartbreak happened again. Her daughter must now venture off to become the All-Mother of her own clan. And she would give her daughter a figurine to remind her. They are never truly separate.

 

[Mercurius]

Or, so says our common wisdom. While surveys have been done, there's arguments that most of them have significant flaws or reasons for people to under-report, which leaves us with little real data to trust.

And, then you get into very interesting territory. Anecdotally, the RPG space seems to have a significant attraction to the LGBTQ+ community, for at least one of the same reasons it attracted the geek community before it - it is a very interesting space for people who feel like they don't fit in. As such, we might well find that there's a higher percentage of LGBTQ+ folks in the gaming community than in the culture at large, and thus representation in the game might be best to be rather higher too...

And there's a sort of Pascal's Wager element to this all - maybe we are in the San Fracisco of hobbies, in which case we should see significant representation. Maybe we aren't in SanFran... but are we really harmed by guessing we are?

I agree - I think the percentage of LGBT folks in the RPG community is higher--perhaps significantly so--than in society at large, though I have no data to back it up. That's why I said "adjust it to the specific community."

I haven't kept close tabs on it, but WotC is doing a better job at this in recent years.

 

[Haldrik]

Or, so says our common wisdom. While surveys have been done, there's arguments that most of them have significant flaws or reasons for people to under-report, which leaves us with little real data to trust.

Yeah.

Surveys survey "self-identity".

Consider prisons, boarding schools, or all places where only men are present.

In these male environments, bisexuality is biological fact, but rarely a social "identity".

 

[Umbran]

In these male environments, bisexuality is biological fact, but rarely a social "identity".

You know, I think you ought to stop unilaterally declaring what human sexuality is or is not.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Judging by the paleolithic figurines of women (always women, never men), the ideal image of a woman is a well-nourished and breast-feeding, pregnant, All-Mother, source of all life.

Recall that the biblical name Eve (Khava) means "life-giver", somehow preserving the memory of a prehistoric reverence of women as the source of all life, the All-Mother.

They didnt yet know that sex caused pregnancy. The nine-month delay and frequent sexuality made it less obvious. So, from the prehistoric perspective, humans only have mothers. No fathers. The female is the existential source of Being. All children, both daughters and sons, are loyal to their mother.

Thus despite being moreorless egalitarian, the friendships among mothers tended to govern what the clan decided to do, since all the children were loyal to this central group of mothers.

Prehistoric human culture strongly resembled bonobo culture, in this way. Division of male group and female group, with the female group being a friendship among clan mothers.

Also like bonobos, among humans it is the female that tends to leave her clan to join an other clan elsewhere. (Biologically, this allows exchange of DNA to keep the genepools healthy admixtures.) Of course, each young woman as she came of age, felt the instinct to leave her clan and adventure off into the unknown. I am unsure how that must have felt subjectively, this wanderlust. I guess there are women today who if they thought about it, could imagine themselves in that situation, and accurate speculate how these motives felt.

In any case, the heartbreak of daughters separating from their mothers, perhaps never to see each other again when clans migrated away in different directions, was a life event among prehistoric humans.

I like the suggestion that these figurines of mothers were ceremonial gifts from a mother to her daughter, when she decided to leave to join an other clan. The daughter would soon become a mother in a different clan. The gift would remind her of her mother who raised her. They were now both aspects of the All-Mother, and were aspects of one animistic being, and will never truly be separate from each other.

Also like bonobos, when the soon to be mother joined an other clan, she never united with a particular man. Rather. She became a member of the group of mothers of this clan. It is the women that the new woman united with. She is now an All-Mother of a clan.

The men of her new clan (including woman-to-man transgenders) would venture of to hunt migrating animal herds. When the men returned back to the women with meat, they would celebrate sexually together, with everyone having sex with everyone. Bisexually. (The sacred orgies of the Classical Age preserve remnants of these of prehistoric sexual customs.)

Over the course of years, the mother of clan would spontaneous bring forth life of her own children. Children loyal to her.

A day would come, when her daughter came of age. At the heartbreak happened again. Her daughter must now venture off to become the All-Mother of her own clan. And she would give her a figurine to remind her. They are never truly separate.

Huh, I had never considered a lot of that. Really fascinating and beautiful thoughts

 

[reelo]

Judging by the paleolithic figurines of women (always women, never men), the ideal image of a woman is a well-nourished and breast-feeding, pregnant, All-Mother, source of all life.

Recall that the biblical name Eve (Khava) means "life-giver", somehow preserving the memory of a prehistoric reverence of women as the source of all life, the All-Mother.

They didnt yet know that sex caused pregnancy. The nine-month delay and frequent sexuality made it less obvious. So, from the prehistoric perspective, humans only have mothers. No fathers. The female is the existential source of Being. All children, both daughters and sons, are loyal to their mother.

Thus despite being moreorless egalitarian, the friendships among mothers tended to govern what the clan decided to do, since all the children were loyal to this central group of mothers.

Prehistoric human culture strongly resembled bonobo culture, in this way. Division of male group and female group, with the female group being a friendship among clan mothers.

Also like bonobos, among humans it is the female that tends to leave her clan to join an other clan elsewhere. (Biologically, this allows exchange of DNA to keep the genepools healthy admixtures.) Of course, each young woman as she came of age, felt the instinct to leave her clan and adventure off into the unknown. I am unsure how that must have felt subjectively, this wanderlust. I guess there are women today who if they thought about it, could imagine themselves in that situation, and accurate speculate how these motives felt.

In any case, the heartbreak of daughters separating from their mothers, perhaps never to see each other again when clans migrated away in different directions, was a life event among prehistoric humans.

I like the suggestion that these figurines of mothers were ceremonial gifts from a mother to her daughter, when she decided to leave to join an other clan. The daughter would soon become a mother in a different clan. The gift would remind her of her mother who raised her. They were now both aspects of the All-Mother, and were aspects of one animistic being, and will never truly be separate from each other.

Also like bonobos, when the soon to be mother joined an other clan, she never united with a particular man. Rather. She became a member of the group of mothers of this clan. It is the women that the new woman united with. She is now an All-Mother of a clan.

The men of her new clan (including woman-to-man transgenders) would venture of to hunt migrating animal herds. When the men returned back to the women with meat, they would celebrate sexually together, with everyone having sex with everyone. Bisexually. (The sacred orgies of the Classical Age preserve remnants of these of prehistoric sexual customs.)

Over the course of years, the mother of clan would spontaneous bring forth life of her own children. Children loyal to her.

A day would come, when her daughter came of age. At the heartbreak happened again. Her daughter must now venture off to become the All-Mother of her own clan. And she would give her a figurine to remind her. They are never truly separate.

As a former archaeology student I have a question: "Do you have any tangible proof for this, or at least a peer-reviewed paper to back it up, or did you just make it up?"
I mean, it sounds perfectly nice and all, but I'd be veeeery cautious with such elaborate statements concerning the minds and the cultures of palaeolithic tribes.