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.

 

[FrogReaver]

You seem to confusing a lot of stuff here.

Hyperbole is rubbish. It ruins discussions and confuses people. It masks true feelings and concrete problems under "hilarious" exaggeration. That's what I'm talking about.

If people "feel" they're being "called a racist", when they aren't, what are you supposed to say to them? Whether you're being called a racist or not is a matter of fact, not opinion. If you say "Oh, Ruin, don't call me a racist!" and I say "I'm specifically not calling you a racist." and you say "But I FEEL like you are!!!" then it's "Okay, cool, you can feel that way", but that's the end of the conversation, because there's nothing more to be said. The feeling have been acknowledged. There is no possible action to be taken. End of.

This discussion is not based on "some people" (i.e. I guess this is how you're referring to ethnic minorities?) being "hurt/offended" anyway. That's giant canard. So you're either confused or being disingenuous. It's based on people quite correctly asserting that certain tropes and approaches are outdated and harmful. It's not "offended", it's that the tropes themselves are harmful. WotC agrees and recognises this, and is keen to change a lot of that stuff, including stuff nobody asked to be changed (the stat thing is clearly a happy coincidence, not something people asked for).

The alignment thing isn't because people are "offended", it's because it was dumb and old-fashioned in a bad way, and it's past time for it to change. It should have changed in 3E, especially given an awful lot of people were already running it that way.

I feel like I’ve been called a racist about 20 times during these discussions. Are you going to dismiss my feelings too?

 

[Oofta]

I would take your umbrage as being slightly more genuine if you would apply this same language to folks who have repeatedly told us that no one actually cares about this, compares those who want change to whiney toddlers, so on and so forth.

See, if you're going to complain that you're getting lumped in with certain company, maybe, just maybe, make sure that folks know that you don't agree with their points? If you only complain about one side, it does tend to look like you're arm in arm with the other side.

How about we just all do our best to discuss ideas and not label one another. K?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

If you remove everything that could be potentially offensive to someone somewhere there won't be much fluff left to the game. I just hope WOTC finds a happy medium.

Obviously they will though. That's the thing. This is a fantastical fear imo. I've never seen it play out in the way you're concerned about. I've seen racist and sexist and other bigoted elements removed from stuff my whole lifetime. So have you. Unless is something is "made of racism", removing racism isn't going to ruin it, is it? TNG, compared to TOS, is a massively expurgated thing, massively more "PC" as some people put it. Especially after S1 and S2, when ironically Roddenberry was holding it back. Yet those post-Roddenberry seasons are when TNG starts to shine, and when it becomes this totally beloved TV series.

Ironically, the most recent TNG-relative is, if anything, not PC enough! Picard was not the natural progression from TNG, but if anything a bit of a regression in a TOS-like direction.

So this idea that we're going to see some D&D which is nothing because everything "offensive" has been cut out to me seems laughable. D&D just doesn't have that many offensive elements (really we're looking mostly at two races, and one concept - that concept being alignment fixed by birth). I mean, the basic setup is terrifying, but no-one is addressing that, nor are they going to. Kill people and take their stuff is arguably the most offensive thing about D&D, but equally it's not something that's going to be addressed by our culture any time soon.

I feel like I’ve been called a racist about 20 times during these discussions. Are you going to dismiss my feelings too?

Is this low-quality satire? This feels like a very bad attempt at satire. I guess by your own logic you can't dismiss my feeling that you're engaging in low-quality satire, if that's the sad game you want to play, but good god, this some silly stuff.

More to the point, it's outright bad-faith argument, and a transparently bad-faith one too.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I don't want to change this to another "what's the role of orcs thread". I will just say that if it makes sense to have always evil orcs, fiends or gnomes in a specific campaign I see no problem with it. Some of the wording and imagery on the other hand ... yeah. That should change.

In fiction, Gruumsh can be a supernatural influence on orcs, that doesn't mean he must be.

It doesn't make sense to have universal constants across all campaigns. Which is why I think they can emphasize that alignments are defaults, do what makes sense for your campaign. For example I use the default orcs from the MM because while orcs exist they have never been a big part of any campaign.

But the related issue is why the orcs are evil, and I'm not sure that having a race with things like violent tendencies is any better. I think that issue can be complicated and potentially full of pitfalls as well.

Sorry, lost track of which thread we were in for a moment.

But, tying this back to alignments, I think a lack of universal constants across campaigns is a great argument for getting rid of alignments. They tend to encourage those universal constants to remain. You know, seeing a monster labeled "chaotic good" tells us a lot about them... but so can something like they did in Theros, where the nymphs don't care about the people of Theros, just the natural beauty of the land. That is so much more concrete and actionable than "Chaotic Good" or "Neutral"

 

[FrogReaver]

Is this low-quality satire? This feels like a very bad attempt at satire. I guess by your own logic you can't dismiss my feeling that you're engaging in low-quality satire, if that's the sad game you want to play, but good god, this some silly stuff.

I was honest. That wasn’t satire. I’m far from the only one here that feels that way either.

So let’s address your counter argument - that you can feel something incompatible with my initial feelings and that such means a contradiction has been found in the initial principle that feelings matter. My counter is that principle is the same principle that says we should care about the pain and offense of anyone. Therefore, if that’s your counter then it’s too generic and will completely destroy a principle I think everyone here agrees with. That the feelings of others who are hurt or offended matter.

So I propose a third option. We can care about someone being hurt or offended without actually believing the hurt or offense was justified in the first place. Hurt doesn’t need to be justified for it to hurt after all. Offense doesn’t need to be intended for it to offend after all. Which Brings me to the next big thing. If you ask me to personally accommodate Your hurt and offense I will accommodate most any request regardless of your justification. If you are asking essentially everyone else to accommodate you then that’s when justification really starts factoring in. IMO.

]More to the point, it's outright bad-faith argument, and a transparently bad-faith one too.

Arguments can’t act in bad faith, only people can. I make no judgment whether your words above are against the rules, only that if they are I dont wish you punished or censored or thread banned or mod texted or anything for uttering them. If the mods will permit the question, I would love to know why you think this?

 

[Haldrik]

We know that in the next adventure the three kobolds in a trench coat will not have an alignment entry at all. If that is the direction they're going and if they are eliminating alignment from the game I personally think it would be a mistake.

As I understand it, alignment is here to stay.

The Three Kobolds In A Trench Coat will have a statblock that lacks alignment. This is because the statblock lists the creatures as "humanoid".

"Humanoid" is a specific creature type whose trait is that the individual has freewill, and can be of any alignment.

Therefore, not every Kobold trio is Evil. So, when the DM uses the trio, the DM has to decide what alignment this particular trio will be.

I am fine with that.

 

[Haldrik]

Heh, the comment by @Ruin Explorer to avoid hyperbole is still in my mind.

Now I have visions of Catholics around the world giving up hyperbole for Lent.

You know, I bet you there is something to that.

 

[Aldarc]

Sorry, lost track of which thread we were in for a moment.

But, tying this back to alignments, I think a lack of universal constants across campaigns is a great argument for getting rid of alignments. They tend to encourage those universal constants to remain. You know, seeing a monster labeled "chaotic good" tells us a lot about them... but so can something like they did in Theros, where the nymphs don't care about the people of Theros, just the natural beauty of the land. That is so much more concrete and actionable than "Chaotic Good" or "Neutral"

One approach that I find EXCEPTIONALLY helpful were the bestiary entries that Monte Cook Games did for Numenera. Creatures are not given an alignment, but a simple one-line motivation. For example...

Motive: hungers for flesh
Motive: hungers for minds and brains
Motive: hungers for vegetation, defends its young
Motive: curiosity, exploration, and hungers for experiences
Motive: survival
Motive: dominance
Motive: observe the dead or soon-to-be-dead

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So let’s address your counter argument - that you can feel something incompatible with my initial feelings and that such means a contradiction has been found in the initial principle that feelings matter. My counter is that principle is the same principle that says we should care about the pain and offense of anyone. Therefore, if that’s your counter then it’s too generic and will completely destroy a principle I think everyone here agrees with. That the feelings of others who are hurt or offended matter.

That's not my counter-argument, it's some weird nonsense you've made up.

My counter-argument was that it's not about "feelings". You're yammering on about the "initial principle", but that's not "the initial principle". You're just making up nonsense to serve your terrible ragged "argument" at this point. You're arguing with yourself. Also can I just say that I really don't think it's appropriate to act like your supposedly hurt feelings that you might have been suggested to be a racist (when you weren't) are equal to or more important than those of people impacted by tropes in material put out by WotC.

 

[Hussar]

I feel like I’ve been called a racist about 20 times during these discussions. Are you going to dismiss my feelings too?

Well, considering how calling someone racist would be against board rules, did you report the offending posts? And, did those reports go anywhere?

See, I'm having a rather tough time gathering a whole lot of sympathy here because, well, I have directly seen and I can quote if you like, several posts directly insulting me, denigrating me, telling me that I'm "manufacturing outrage", comparing me to all sorts of real world people and so on. Would you like the list?

See, you, and @Oofta are complaining that you feel like you've been called a racist. Yet, I missed all the posters getting booted out of threads for that. I do recall the posters getting the boot for all sorts of violations, but, I missed those ones.

The only thing AFAIK, that's been compared to racism is the text describing various elements in D&D. And, again, that's not an opinion. That's an objective fact. You can place the descriptions side by side, as has been done repeatedly, and demonstrate how this language is mirroring racist language. I mean, good grief, pretty much everyone now agrees that the language should be changed.

Maybe if you would like to feel like you are contributing more, perhaps pointing out when ALL people cross the line, instead of just the people you digree with, might help.