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.

 

[DammitVictor]

I am very puzzled by this as well. The only thing Jeremy actually said is something everyone who's read a Salvatore book or played BG/BG2 already knows -- people can choose their own alignment irrespective of the race that is written on their character sheet. If a reminder that people have free will causes you to conclude everything in the game is subjective now, you may want to reassess some of your assumptions.

No, I've actually seen a lot of people do their solemn best to explain to me that Drow are only culturally Evil while the various humanoids are intrinsically Evil, and thus the former are free to choose their alignment while the latter are not. They're both still going to be killed on sight by any Good-aligned NPC in their games if I try to play one, though, because only Neutral and Evil people believe that morality is determined by a person's actions.

 

[Maxperson]

No, the PCs get into the seven heavens because the PLAYERS viewed what they did was good, not D&D RAW. See the list of bad behavior I mentioned in that post you quoted but left off for some reason. A whole lot of bad behavior justified as good by the players for numerous reasons. Ergo, it’s subjective. Plenty of good aligned PCs are still murder hobos and drunken philanderers and those players still consider them good.

If alignment wasn’t subjective, we’d never have table arguments about the acceptable behavior of paladins going back to day 1.

Alignment is vague and subjective. However, once the DM determines an act to be evil, it is objectively evil in D&D regardless of how any race within the game views that act. Once he determines an act to be good, it will always be good regardless of how any race within the game views that act. By RAW, good and evil within the game are objective forces.

 

[Maxperson]

Don't restrict your search space to the world's religions. Philosophers have built all kinds of secular models of morality as well. That "natural law" verbiage that was getting batted around earlier is straight out of Thomas Hobbes, whose account of morality was deity-free to the point of being scandalous in its time. To him, morality is an optimal set of behaviors for a society to keep human beings alive and happy given that they exist in a world of physical laws where actions have predictable consequences. It's kind of like a D&D character build or a chess opening, an abstract logicky-mathy sort of thing that is discovered rather than invented by a god or other lawgiver. It's stored and conveyed however those things are.

And of course Hobbes is just one example. This is a very rich subject.

Did he ever explain how the Big Bang or whatever came up with these natural laws or why the universe(not God) would want to keep human society alive and happy?

 

[Remathilis]

I am very puzzled by this as well. The only thing Jeremy actually said is something everyone who's read a Salvatore book or played BG/BG2 already knows -- people can choose their own alignment irrespective of the race that is written on their character sheet. If a reminder that people have free will causes you to conclude everything in the game is subjective now, you may want to reassess some of your assumptions.

Yet that doesn't seem enough. Saying orcs can be any alignment but most are CE has been policy since 2000 or earlier, but enough criticism has come down the pipe for WotC to have to keep coming out on Twitter or with Press Releases that discuss they are going to do more.

Which leads to the question: How Much More? Is it enough to remove the alignment from stat blocks and Int penalty to orcs? What about removing alignment tendencies from all monsters? Disassociating ability bumps from race? Maybe remove all instances of the word "race"? New lore for humanoids removing good and evil alignment tendencies? Orcs in the PHB? All alignment gone? All orcs gone?

It's easy to point at problematic elements. It's easy to say "don't do that". It's harder to say what should be done instead. And I don't think you, I, anyone in this thread, or even WotC right now has the faintest clue what to do that will satisfy the critics.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Allrighty then. But Crawford didn't say "Lycanthropy is an exception." He only spoke about the werewolf creature specifically, but not the curse of lycanthropy itself. If we take the idea that 5e does not impose alignment mandates as gospel, then lycanthropy... doesn't... work like that? I am just trying to figure out what the rules are actually saying in the context of his statement.

It’s easy. Crawford said that while the rules state that a characters alignment changes when bitten by a werewolf, the DM is free to use or ignore that rule, and besides the werewolf can be of any alignment the DM wants. In other words, barring a houserule, you are the alignment of the werewolf that bit you, be that chaotic evil, lawful good, or somewhere in between.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Alignment is vague and subjective. However, once the DM determines an act to be evil, it is objectively evil in D&D regardless of how any race within the game views that act. Once he determines an act to be good, it will always be good regardless of how any race within the game views that act. By RAW, good and evil within the game are objective forces.

No, this isn’t true either. DMs change their mind all the time, and different contexts can mean different definitions of good and evil for the same act. It happens all the time. If the DM decides PC Bob didn’t do an evil act by breaking into NPC Jills house and stealing her family necklace because of plot, that doesn’t mean the DM has ruled that it’s never an evil act to break into someone’s house and steal their stuff.

I don’t know why you keep getting hung up on race and ignoring behavior like I’ve mentioned twice already that has nothing to do with race.

But even to humor you, if we are only talking about race, then just because the DM ruled it a non evil act to kill a goblin tribe, that doesn’t mean that the DM always rules it’s not evil. You’re completely ignoring context.

 

[Maxperson]

No, this isn’t true either. DMs change their mind all the time, and different contexts can mean different definitions of good and evil for the same act. It happens all the time.

Yes it is true. Changing a rule does not mean that the rule wasn't objective before the change. Right now it is an objective rule that normal humans get +1 to each stat. If I change that rule to be +2 to each stat, the former rule doesn't suddenly become subjective, nor do all rules suddenly become subjective simply because rules can be changed by the DM.

If I as DM decide that all killing is evil, then all killing is objectively evil within the D&D world, because good and evil are objective forces within the game. If I later change my mind to make an exception for self-defense, then all that happens is that the objective morality for killing has been altered within the game. Killing does not somehow become subjective to each of the D&D races.

I don’t know why you keep getting hung up on race and ignoring behavior like I’ve mentioned twice already that has nothing to do with race.

Because we are talking about good and evil being objective WITHIN the D&D worlds, because that's what RAW says it is. Morality in the D&D universe is black and white based on what the DM rules it is.

But even to humor you, if we are only talking about race, then just because the DM ruled it a non evil act to kill a goblin tribe, that doesn’t mean that the DM always rules it’s not evil. You’re completely ignoring context.

Uh uh! You don't get to change my scenario and apply your changes to me like that. I explicitly chose the DM making ALL killing an evil act no matter what, for a reason.

Context may or may not change other scenarios, but once the DM makes a decision that an act is evil or good, that act under those circumstances is always evil or good, because morality is objective in the D&D multiverse.

 

[GiacomoArt]

My own experiences with the alignment system have been universally bad. Players argue over their meaning. Players squabble over their application. Players point to them on a character sheet to excuse being jerks to their fellow players as "good role-play". Players slap the label "evil" on their character sheet and think that somehow makes them cool and edgy instead of petty and childish. As far as I'm concerned, alignments have always been useless, meaningless, and destructive. I'd as soon see them dumped entirely.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Did he ever explain how the Big Bang or whatever came up with these natural laws or why the universe(not God) would want to keep human society alive and happy?

He was writing in the 1600s and notwithstanding his critics he actually was Christian, so he believed God created the universe. But the how and why of all that are irrelevant to his theory -- that's what makes it so distinctive for its time. When you sit down to work on chess strategies, it doesn't matter who invented chess or what they intended. The rules are the rules, however they got there, and your task is to work within them to get not what the universe wants, but what you want.

 

[DammitVictor]

Players slap the label "evil" on their character sheet and think that somehow makes them cool and edgy instead of petty and childish.

To be fair, this is the most realistic thing about D&D's alignment system.