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.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Pretend I'm a new player to D&D who has either no idea what an orc is or is familiar with several different conflicting variants (Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Tolkien).

Now explain to me what an orc is in no more than two sentences. What encompasses orcdom in D&D? What makes an orc different than a human, a dwarf, a hobgoblin or a goliath?

Do not use the words: savage, tribal, raider, destructive, or evil. Or any other racist language.

Orcs are humanoids with greenish skin, tusks, and pig-like faces. There are empires of orcs, reknown for their martial prowess, but most of the orcs that adventurers interact with will be raiders and barbarians living on the edges of society.

(This took me about five minutes to come up with, imagine what WotC could do with a larger, more diverse team!)

 

[Voadam]

Now explain to me what an orc is in no more than two sentences. What encompasses orcdom in D&D? What makes an orc different than a human, a dwarf, a hobgoblin or a goliath?

Do not use the words: savage, tribal, raider, destructive, or evil. Or any other racist language.

Orcs are humanoids with greenish skin, tusks, and pig-like faces. There are empires of orcs, reknown for their martial prowess, but most of the orcs that adventurers interact with will be raiders and barbarians living on the edges of society.

(This took me about five minutes to come up with, imagine what WotC could do with a larger, more diverse team!)

 

[BookTenTiger]

Hey, you're right! How about "bandits" instead?

Basically I'm trying to focus on the role orcs play in a standard D&D adventure, rather than "truthisms" about their race.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Hey, you're right! How about "bandits" instead?

Basically I'm trying to focus on the role orcs play in a standard D&D adventure, rather than "truthisms" about their race.

Or something like:

Orcs are humanoids with hunched postures, boar-like snouts, and tusks. They have a fearsome reputation for violence, based on legends of orcish hordes and empires. Though some orcs, especially bandits and mercenaries, play into this reputation, other orcs seek lives as merchants, clerics of Gruumsh and other gods, or even students of the arcane arts.

 

[FrogReaver]

Yet, you JUST called out people for calling you racist. I'm a little confused.

I disagree. But other than affirming my disagreement I think this part of the conversation is over. When something is said and the only responses I have to it would be in violation of the rules then I end that conversation, or at least my part in it.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't. Oh wait that's not right. Sometimes I want simple sometimes I don't. That's better. Doesn't work for you? Do what does.

Anyway, just going to reiterate that I'm done because this is an endless loop. Basically 2 versions with minor differences.

Version A
1. I don't see a problem with monsters, including orcs always being evil. They serve a purpose in the game. Change alignments to what makes sense for your campaign.
2. But why not have only some orcs be evil?
3. That's fine. Do what makes sense for your campaign.
4. Okay, but why not have only some orcs be evil?
5. Go to step 1

Throw in the implied "complex orcs are better because I say they are."

Repeat.

I see the problem I think.

1) Same
2) But why do the books for the meta-level of the game depict evil orcs?
3) That's fine. Do what makes sense for your campaign.
4) But, I'm not talking about my campaign, I'm talking about the meta-level, I know I can change my campaign, but why are you against changing the meta and then just doing what makes sense for your campaign?
5) Go back to step 1

Talking about this at a campaign level isn't helping, we are talking at a meta level. And if we can just change the campaign to suit us, so can you. So, why should the meta level be restricted to only evil orcs?

Pretend I'm a new player to D&D who has either no idea what an orc is or is familiar with several different conflicting variants (Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, Tolkien).

Now explain to me what an orc is in no more than two sentences. What encompasses orcdom in D&D? What makes an orc different than a human, a dwarf, a hobgoblin or a goliath?

Do not use the words: savage, tribal, raider, destructive, or evil. Or any other racist language.

Using my own campaign since the meta DnD orc is all of those things?

Orcs in my world are a people caught between their gods, currently Luthic and her priestesses rule, trying to rebuild the orcish people after the calamities and Gruumsh's hide-bound traditional laws. Traditional orcs believe in strength, only wielding weapons or wearing armor they gathered and created themselves, but the Orcs also have esoteric traditions including being the first bloodhunters to use those magic and rites to fight spirits and other undead.




Going to try standard MM orcs now...

Orcs are a people at war with the world, urged on by the rage and malice of their gods to take everything and destroy what is left. Everything weak is culled, while strength rules over all.

I wish I could do better for the MM orcs, but, you know, that is about all they have for them.

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe we are starting this discussion at the wrong place. I think the better first question is:

Are 5e “monsters” of any kind currently depicted as always or nearly always evil?

If so then changing them to be anything else should be acknowledged as being a fundamental change to the game.

We can then discuss the merits of whether such a change is good or not. But let’s at least first establish how the game currently depicts such “monsters”.

Lets take orcs first. How does 5e currently depict orcs in terms of evilness?

 

[PrinceMorganti]

Orc
Medium humanoid (orc), chaotic evil

At least when you pull it up on DnD Beyond in the monster section. and for the player race

Alignment

Orcs are vicious raiders, who believe that the world should be theirs. They also respect strength above all else and believe the strong must bully the weak to ensure that weakness does not spread like a disease. They are usually chaotic evil.

 

[Marandahir]

I think one of the issues arises from treating some humanoids as monsters.

Orcs, Drow, Eladrin, Goblins, etc should all be in a separate section of the book, much like NPC class templates are in the back of the book.

I could just as easily create a campaign where the Elves are the tyrannical empire lording it over a peasant class of Dwarves, with no humans in sight, and that could be a fun game, in the right context. But that is not the default assumption of D&D. The default is that Elves and Dwarves have their differences, but by and large they're the heroes of the game, while Orcs are villainous cannon-fodder/mooks/nameless enemies who speak in strange grunt-like languages whose main role is to be slaughtered when the party kicks in the door.

Now, the term "Orc" as the Professor Tolkien understood it came from an Anglo-Saxon variation on the continental underworld god Orcus, often treated as a sort of demonic figure, especially once darker mythological figures were all turned into demons by medieval European religions (not, as the Professor would emphatically state, from Orca dolphins). These in his mind were essentially a lesser form of demonic entity, akin to cavern goblins in their least state but terrifying, monstrous demon warriors among the greatest of their armies where regimented. This "people," if we may call them that, is the main source material for D&D's Orcs, but also for the game's Goblins, Hobgoblins, and Bugbears. There are other mythological and narrative roots for the latter three, but those are roots that Tolkien too drew upon when he made them all the same thing in his setting. They were specifically a demonic army of the villains of his world, whose cruel origins were obscure and subject to his lifelong revisioning of the narrative.

That said, Tolkien, a dead man, had racist elements in his books. I do not believe he realised this, or ever intended them as such; he wrote passionately about the evils of racism and related discriminatory efforts. But he was also writing at a time and within an insular environment, and bad things snuck into his text. The men like half-trolls from Harâd are one of these; the Orcs are another, and one that Tolkien would wrestle with in his later life. If Orcs had free will, then they should be capable of good and choice to do differently than the slave-driving masters of Angband, Mordor, Angmar, etc. That doesn't mean they couldn't be twisted and corrupted into serving evil purposes: the narrative of LotR shows what can happen even to the best of people when under these influences (in his setting). And these are people born into a culture of cruelty. The problem arises that they're darker appearing entities, that there are no good or neutral communities of Orcs in the narrative, and that we have a White European-stand-ins vs Dark Orcs + their Asian & African stand-in ally cultures forming the main sides of the core conflict of LotR. The problem also arises that, especially since 2001 (but really with every attempt prior, too), adaptational choices have led to this white vs BIPOC conflict within the world. From a reading of the book, Sam himself could be BIPOC, and there's good evidence to say that the Numenoreans were at least a multicultured people (with a more Pan-Mediterranean story for their culture than the more Nordic stories of the 1st and 3rd Age heroic communities). Worse, there's a whole lot of blackface going on in the films, and it just hammers in this stereotype of Orcs as demonised BIPOC (or even call to mind racist ideas of BIPOC as the descendants of Cain when it comes to their history as fallen Elves and/or Men). These choices didn't have to happen this way; notice how the Hobbit films instead have Pale Orcs & Goblins for their story; it works just as well without demonising BIPOC.

What does this all mean for D&D? We need more settings, and more exploration of cultures that nuance the game. No people in the game should be all one alignment or serve solely as meatbags for the players to smash. Some settings could have evil Orcs, but if you're going to publish that setting, it has to be in context of other material you're churning out with good Orcs as a regular people. All common and uncommon Humanoids should be in the next version of the Player's Handbook. That means Orcs & Goblins for sure. The assumption should not be that they're evil. it can be a trait of a particular setting, but humanoids don't belong in the assumed alignment parts of any book.

Rare Humanoids can be kept back for books like VGtM and MTF, but such books in the future should place less emphasis in their titles on it being a book of enemies to smash. These are books of cultures to add to your game, good, evil, and in-between, and the conflicts between them (or between them and the cultures of the PHB).

Demons and Devils and Angels and Dragons and whatnot are all powerful and intelligent entities that are not humanoids, but can have complex story relationships with humanoids. These are archetypes that can and should exist to tell certain types of stories (a Dragon is a fantastically powerful archetype for heroes to overcome after all), but they can and should be subverted regularly. Not often, but regularly. if Angels can fall from grace and become Devils or consumed by abyssal rage and become Demons, then Demons and Devils can have changes of heart too. But any of that should be extremely monumental moments because they're not the norm. And most importantly, they must NEVER stand-in for a minority culture of the world. Tolkien's demonic Orcs became a muddled mess of a question in-part because they became a stand-in culture in lieu of the presence of any positive BIPOC peoples, and because he felt the need to explore their degeneration from Elves and/or Humans in the background lore of the setting. D&D Orcs are not demons. They are humanoids, and have explored tropes other than the demonic ones. They can be separated. If Tanarruks continue to be highlighted in the game, then other Demon-Humanoid crosses need to be highlighted as well, not just as the singular Cambion monster.

Dark Elves can and should be inspired just as much from Warcraft's Night Elves, TES's Dunmer, and other positive BIPOC elf interpretations. Faerûn's darker-skinned Sun Elves are a great start in that direction, as are non-evil Dark Elves in Wildemount. Some of these cultures inhabit stories about what it means to be different from the baseline Elven communities, but others are just heroic and positive cultures that happen to have darker skin. D&D has room for both types of storytelling, but regardless, it should be empowering BIPOC players, rather than telling them that these characters are evil by default.

WotC are listening to us. This is good. We can keep on the pressure, and we should. It's certainly uncomfortable for the WotC devs, but it's okay and normal to feel uncomfortable.

 

[Remathilis]

. I wish I could do better for the MM orcs, but, you know, that is about all they have for them.

Let's be honest; orcs don't have a lot because they never needed a lot. They were low level cannon fodder designed to kill PCs at levels 1-3 and be forgotten about once you can fireball them by the dozen. There was no Complete Book of Orcs, no Drizzt-like orc hero of dozens of trilogies, no setting where they played a prominent role. (In several settings, they are non-existent).

The interest in Orcs has more to do with people wanting to play orcs (inspired by a few CRPGs no doubt) and not wanting mechanical or social drawbacks to doing so. No ability score penalties, no light-blindness, no evil nature, no social stigma, regular members of Waterdeep society. Lather, rinse, repeat with drow, goblinoids, gnolls, kobolds, etc.

The question has morphed from "why are all orcs evil?" to "why are orcs evil at all?"

Eventually, I foresee the orc, perhaps with some of his "monstrous" friends, are going to end up in the PHB. They will be recoded to no longer be an evil menace, but another race among many. Further, I wager that dwarves and elves and other "staple" races will lose some of their inherent goodness, allowing for "evil" societies if them without needing evil subraces. Finally, I no longer see a need for racial deities; Gruumsh might be the God of destruction, but not the God of orcs.

I don't see any other way to fix the orc, race, and alignment problem, short of removing all of them.