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.

 

[Hussar]

My thoughts as well. In Star Wars we have Storm Troopers, in a lot of other games we have Nazi soldiers. How many get mowed down in movies and games?

From a game design perspective, having them as the go to bad guy serves a very specific purpose. If I'm playing a Star Wars game I know the storm troopers are the bad guys. Unless it's specified otherwise in the campaign when I'm playing D&D the orcs are the bad guys. I can set aside the real world and just roll some dice and have fun.

On one last note, I don't see how using a thesaurus to come up with different words for raiders and savages really changes anything. There are only so many words in the english language. Besides a raider is someone who does sudden attacks and assaults, a bandit is an outlaw. To me they have different connotations. Doesn't mean some of the wording an imagery shouldn't change just that it's not as simple as people imply.

In the Star Wars game (not sure which version), aren't Storm Troopers actually playable? And, well, we've got six new Star Wars movies, and at least two animated Star Wars series that show that Storm Troopers aren't quite the monolithic bad guys but are rather victims of conditioning and circumstance.

 

[Hussar]

I wouldn't put it that way. I'd say that the debate exists because some people are disturbed. I have no idea about numbers, but I don't think the outrage is coming primarily from people of color. Anyhow, I think it is more of an interpretive framework than it is an ethnic demographic. Meaning, some players of a specific ideological or interpretive framework are disturbed.
/snip

Ahh, and now here we get to the heart of it. We're back to the "fabricated issues" thing where no real problem actually exists but a (presumably small) group of people who are not actually directly affected, are "stirring the pot" so to speak just to get attention.

Good to know. And, wow, I truly applaud the effort there to avoid using the phrasing that gets you ejected from a thread on this board.

 

[Maxperson]

You said that you aren't playing WoW, and that you are playing DnD, and therefore you want things to be more realistic, because... well you didn't specifically say so if I follow that I'm putting words in your mouth.

Adding in spawn points makes it like WoW D&D to me. So yes, you put words into my mouth. After this response, if you want to continue this conversation, I'd like an apology for it.

I can only assume thought that by saying DnD is more realistic you are judging that Warhammer 40k is less realistic. By the way, I notice that you keep referencing World of Warcraft, but spore based orcs which were my example come from Warhammer 40k. Warcraft orcs are actually a complex society with both good and evil, Warhammer 40K orcs are just mindlessly destructive fungus in humanoid shapes.

WoW, Warhammer with spawn points, Skyrim, or any other game with spawn points. Spawn points don't cut it for my game.

So, why would it make no realistic sense to have other creatures follow that archetype? Gnolls are not born, they are created when a hyena eats the corpse of a humanoid killed by a gnoll. Mindflayers aren't born, they are created when a psionic parasite infests and devours the brain of a host creature. Beholders are only sort of born, being created in a fully adult form by the dreams of other beholders.

Soooo, I don't use the new Gnoll lore or the new Beholder lore. I don't like it. A parasite growing into something else, though, is equivalent to a baby becoming an adult. You can go to a Mindflayer city and kill baby Mindflayers if you want to.

How do you figure they are ugly? Legitimately, is having a blue or purple skin tone make you ugly? I do not understand what you are saying here. I mean, they aren't photo-realistic, but that Djinni is just a guy with a beard.

If you can't look at them and see ugly, there's nothing I can say. Take the pics out and ask 100 people if they are ugly, average or good looking and see how many ugly answers you get.

 

[Mercurius]

Ahh, and now here we get to the heart of it. We're back to the "fabricated issues" thing where no real problem actually exists but a (presumably small) group of people who are not actually directly affected, are "stirring the pot" so to speak just to get attention.

Good to know. And, wow, I truly applaud the effort there to avoid using the phrasing that gets you ejected from a thread on this board.

Are you trying to get me ejected, Hussar? That seems...awkward. Whatever terms you think I'm avoiding, or what conclusions you draw from that, I'm speaking as specifically as I can, rather than using political buzzwords.

Anyhow, I didn't say they were fabricated issues, I said that they were interpretive and not limited to--or even primarily derived from--ethnicity.

 

[Hussar]

Are you trying to get me ejected, Hussar? That seems...awkward. Whatever terms you think I'm avoiding, or what conclusions you draw from that, I'm speaking as specifically as I can, rather than using political buzzwords.

Anyhow, I didn't say they were fabricated issues, I said that they were interpretive and not limited to--or even primarily derived from--ethnicity.

That's very carefully phrased.

Still it dovetails nicely with the whole "fabricated issues" points that have been brought up repeatedly. As if the following were somehow true:

a) Only those who belong to a particular minority can recognize racism and be offended by it. Everyone else is just being offended for other people. Which, of course, ignores the fact that racism is offensive in and of itself, regardless of the victim.

b) Those who do not belong to that particular minority are not actually offended but, are simply attention seeking and don't actually care about the issue at hand. Again, ignoring the fact that racism is offensive in and of itself, regardless of the victim.

 

[Mercurius]

That's very carefully phrased.

Still it dovetails nicely with the whole "fabricated issues" points that have been brought up repeatedly. As if the following were somehow true:

a) Only those who belong to a particular minority can recognize racism and be offended by it. Everyone else is just being offended for other people. Which, of course, ignores the fact that racism is offensive in and of itself, regardless of the victim.

b) Those who do not belong to that particular minority are not actually offended but, are simply attention seeking and don't actually care about the issue at hand. Again, ignoring the fact that racism is offensive in and of itself, regardless of the victim.

I'm not saying either of those things, and I think you know it. I'm not sure how we can have this conversation if you keep pushing me towards a position that I don't actually hold.

We disagree on what constitutes racism, not whether or not racism is bad or a real thing or can be spotted by people of different minorities.

 

[Azzy]

WoW, Warhammer with spawn points, Skyrim, or any other game with spawn points. Spawn points don't cut it for my game.

Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop game, and does not have "spawn points". Orks in 40K are genetically engineered species developed for waging a long-forgotten ancient war. They are a hybridized fungus that reproduces asexually via spores released from their corpses after their death. Thus, unless the battlefield where Orks were slain is incenerated (preferably with holy prometheum), the spores will grow into full-fledged Orks complete with inborn knowledge of waging war and Ork Kultur. While the Orks are typically played for laughs and are presented as a stereotype of English football hooligans with a brutish Cockney-esque accent and dialect, their basic can easily be divorced from the comic elements and used as inspiration for D&D orcs that are always antagonistic.

 

[Maxperson]

Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop game, and does not have "spawn points". Orks in 40K are genetically engineered species developed for waging a long-forgotten ancient war. They are a hybridized fungus that reproduces asexually via spores released from their corpses after their death. Thus, unless the battlefield where Orks were slain is incenerated (preferably with holy prometheum), the spores will grow into full-fledged Orks complete with inborn knowledge of waging war and Ork Kultur. While the Orks are typically played for laughs and are presented as a stereotype of English football hooligans with a brutish Cockney-esque accent and dialect, their basic can easily be divorced from the comic elements and used as inspiration for D&D orcs that are always antagonistic.

And if not just Orcs, but Goblins, Hobgoblins, Bugbears, Kobolds, Drow, Sahuagin, Yuan-ti, Duergar, etc. all "spawned" from spores or other methods of popping into existence fully formed and ready to wage war, as was suggested upthread?

 

[Remathilis]

I'd say this misses two things (symmetry)

1) Your idea that they don't bring much to the table misses the fact that orcs are incredibly iconic. Unlike Goliaths which are pretty much limited to DnD, Orcs are in essentially every fantasy game there is. From Tolkien, to Warhammer, to Shadowrun. to League of Legends if an image search is anything to go by. Oh, and Warcraft, Hearthstone and Magic the Gathering. Dragonborn also bring this Cache, because, well, Dragons. Half-Orcs are really so deeply tied to Orcs though that you can't really say "Orc PCs aren't needed thematically, because we have half-orcs" because the very existence of half-orcs requires orcs.

Primarily though, orcs are the antagonists of said stories, or at least set apart from the world of men and dwarves and elves. The strongest case I hear for them is that playing a half-orc is the same deal, so why not go full Monte?

(RIP half-orc, you're going to lose the only thing that kept you separate from orcs: PC playability. Now, kneel down over here and tell us about the rabbits...)

2) Not everyone wants to be a anti-hero going against the established lore. In fact, if they are pulling on one of those other sources, like maybe Warcraft? Then playing a good orc is no different that playing anything else. And, in a society where you some orcs can be evil, you can still be rebelling against your clan. Heck, I've seen plenty of human rogues who are trying to turn over a new leaf after being raised by an assassin's guild. There are plenty of ways to get your edge, and assuming people want to play a very specific story might bot be true.

Then go play Warcraft.

You are choosing to play against type. Just because you want to play a beardless dwarf swashbuckler with a rapier doesn't mean the game is obligated to make an entire culture of beardless dwarf swashbucklers for you to hail from. Species get stories built into them.

Consider the poster-child of antihero races: tiefling. They are devil-spawn and most people view them as untrustworthy at best. Some tieflings live up to this reputation. (The PHB even states that many end up evil) but PCs end up usually being the ones who don't. Should the game reverse this because some players don't want to be viewed as outcasts or devil worshippers, they just want them sexy tiefling horns?

What about a PC who wants a Cannibal halfling? Are we now to say "some halflings are cannibals, most people in town avoid dinner invitations from them." ?

We're going to get to the point that races (species, ancestries, whatever) are just physical skins and a few powers and that's it. No distinct cultures, no unique mindsets, because that will mean people have to play those characters with certain expectations and that hurts my Indigo Soul's feelings.

My inner Grognard is showing...

 

[Oofta]

...
Well, for the rest of us, the label of evil hasn't really ever been enough to hide those facts. In fact, the point that we are supposed to label them evil with no further consideration beyond that, and therefore killing them is perfectly acceptable is again part of the problem.
...

Umm ... congratulations? Run it the way you want as I said in my post? I don't know what the heck you're getting at with any of this. Other than "a game where you kill evil orcs is a problem because I say so" of course.

I think having an easy to identify bad guy laid out in the MM is a good thing. Good for the game, good for people who like to subvert tropes.

For example if I were running the campaign that had human barbarians working with orcs I might make it more interesting. While the players decide what actions they will take I would consider a potential tangent to get to the root cause of why the barbarians allied with the orcs in the first place. Maybe a regime change is a possibility, or they're doing it out of desperation. Maybe a faction of the barbarians could be convinced to help.

But the orcs? Nah. Orcs will be orcs. I think simple, easy to grasp bad guys is good for the game for a great number of people.

Need I remind you that it is a game? Not reality or even particularly reality adjacent? Orc genocide will never be part of my game, but guilt free killing the bad guys is. If I want moral dilemmas there are plenty of opportunities but I want them to stand out as the exception. I don't tell other people how to run their games, just how I run mine and why. I don't take the moral high ground every time someone disagrees with me, I just acknowledge that they can run the game the way that they want. Last but not least no game is perfect, if there's problematic imagery and wording fix it.

But telling/implying other people that the way I choose to run the game is "better"? That something is a problem because I declare it to be? Nope.