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.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Just to add 2cp to the alignment debate.

The primary issue with alignment is that you can have five people look at the exact same situation, come up with six different alignments to describe the actions of the actors in the situation, have a couple of those alignments be diametrically opposed:

And have all of them be able to justify their interpretations within the framework of the rules.

IOW, alignment rarely tells anyone anything because it's all in the eye of the beholder. Is this character good or evil? Well, I can point to A, B, and C and say the character is Lawful Good. Someone else looks at the character, points to X, Y and Z and says the character is Chaotic Evil. And we're both right.

Which tends to make alignment not really good at anything.

This would be much more of a problem in a game with multiple DMs.

 

[Hussar]

This would be much more of a problem in a game with multiple DMs.

Your players are not allowed to interpret alignment? They never argue with your interpretations? That must be a nice change.

It was in 3e that I realized that I didn't need alignment in the game.

I had a player who informed me that his new character was Chaotic Neutral. Some warning bells went off in my head, but, I grudgingly said it was okay so long as the player was going to act in good faith. No Chaotic Stupid please. Fair enough and the campaign went ahead. About four or five levels later, I was talking to the player and mentioned that his character wasn't actually Chaotic Neutral.

Player: Oh, yes I am. I am 100% chaotic neutral.
Me: But, your character is completely trustworthy, never acts impulsively, always cares about others, and has never actually done anything chaotic in any of our adventures.
Player: My character is 100% chaotic neutral.
Me: How? In what way is this character CN?
Player: I just choose to be this way. I don't have to be.
Me: Buh? That's not how this works. If your character chooses to act Lawful Good and never does anything other than act 100% Lawful Good, then, well, the character is Lawful Good.
Player: Absolutely not! My character is CN.

And then it hit me. The player didn't give a damn about the character's alignment. He just wanted to protect his character the DM (me) so that I could never turn to him and tell him that his character wouldn't (or would) do X because of his alignment. Had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual alignment of the character. That I wouldn't do that didn't matter the player. Come Hell or high water, he was not going to give me anything like a lever over his character.

From that point on, I don't even bother asking player's what alignment their character's are. I have no idea. It's their character. They know better than me how to play their characters. So, to me, alignment hasn't been part of D&D for a very, very long time.

 

[Gradine]

It will be so nice when alignment becomes a thing of the past that we all look back at, shake our heads, and chuckle softly to ourselves, like with THAC0 and racial class level limits.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Your players are not allowed to interpret alignment? They never argue with your interpretations? That must be a nice change.

I guess. Notwithstanding all the confusion that it apparently causes on the internet, none of us find "good" or "evil" or "law" or "chaos" particularly difficult to parse in the context of a fantasy roleplaying game. Should it become an issue, we are friends who are capable of having a friendly conversation about a disputed topic and then accepting the DM's role as final arbiter. But the last time alignment came up (stabbing a rakshasa), I asked the player whether he thought his character was good or neutral, he said neutral, I agreed, we resolved the attack and moved on.

If alignment becomes a sticking point, ignore it, absolutely, it's no skin off my nose. What I'm trying to put out there is that for some of us, it really, truly, honestly is not a sticking point, and could you (general "you") kindly stop trying to convince us that we're doing something wrong?

 

[TheSword]

Your players are not allowed to interpret alignment? They never argue with your interpretations? That must be a nice change.

It was in 3e that I realized that I didn't need alignment in the game.

I had a player who informed me that his new character was Chaotic Neutral. Some warning bells went off in my head, but, I grudgingly said it was okay so long as the player was going to act in good faith. No Chaotic Stupid please. Fair enough and the campaign went ahead. About four or five levels later, I was talking to the player and mentioned that his character wasn't actually Chaotic Neutral.

Player: Oh, yes I am. I am 100% chaotic neutral.
Me: But, your character is completely trustworthy, never acts impulsively, always cares about others, and has never actually done anything chaotic in any of our adventures.
Player: My character is 100% chaotic neutral.
Me: How? In what way is this character CN?
Player: I just choose to be this way. I don't have to be.
Me: Buh? That's not how this works. If your character chooses to act Lawful Good and never does anything other than act 100% Lawful Good, then, well, the character is Lawful Good.
Player: Absolutely not! My character is CN.

And then it hit me. The player didn't give a damn about the character's alignment. He just wanted to protect his character the DM (me) so that I could never turn to him and tell him that his character wouldn't (or would) do X because of his alignment. Had nothing whatsoever to do with the actual alignment of the character. That I wouldn't do that didn't matter the player. Come Hell or high water, he was not going to give me anything like a lever over his character.

From that point on, I don't even bother asking player's what alignment their character's are. I have no idea. It's their character. They know better than me how to play their characters. So, to me, alignment hasn't been part of D&D for a very, very long time.

Players are absolutely able to chose their own alignment and shouldn’t have it dictated to them... yes. That point has been well established.

However what is wrong with alignment as a shorthand tool for DMs who have to role play hundreds of characters over the course of a campaign to be able to differentiate between NPCs possible responses to things. in a simple easily recognizable matrix.

the alternatives suggested are either long cumbersome descriptions which will get cut in products due to demands of space. Or frankly ridiculous descriptors that are just as vague like ‘spiritual nonconformist’ or whatever has been suggested.

I can’t help feeling that this is an overreaction to the Monstrous Humanoids/default alignment debate and an attempt to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

I can’t help feeling that this is an overreaction to the Monstrous Humanoids/default alignment debate and an attempt to throw the baby out with the bath water.

Eh. This issue long predates that one.

 

[Hussar]

I'm still rather taken aback the people treat alignment as an important part of the game. It's been stripped of any mechanical impact whatsoever. Alignment has even less impact on the game than backgrounds because at least backgrounds actually have some sort of mechanics attached to it.

Hey, if you find it useful, great. But, really, I can't see it lasting too much longer. Every edition strips away more and more from alignment.

 

[TheSword]

I'm still rather taken aback the people treat alignment as an important part of the game. It's been stripped of any mechanical impact whatsoever. Alignment has even less impact on the game than backgrounds because at least backgrounds actually have some sort of mechanics attached to it.

Hey, if you find it useful, great. But, really, I can't see it lasting too much longer. Every edition strips away more and more from alignment.

That’s because the most use of Alignment is in setting expectations and role playing not crunch. That’s like saying you’re surprised room descriptions aren’t removed because they have no mechanical benefit.

For the record, if you look at the DMG treasures section you’ll see fairly large quantities of mechanical relevancy from who can wear a grey cloak of the arch mage to who gets sent into the pit by a talisman of ultimate evil.

It should also be remembered that Alignment allows DMs and players to exclude unreasonable behaviors from the table without having to prescriptively list everything. ‘No Evil’ characters has been a standard rule at our table and occasionally we have ‘entirely evil’ campaigns like way of the wicked.

Interestingly way of the wicked successfully uses to Lawful aspect of evil as a tool to hold the campaign together convincingly. It worked very well.

 

[Hussar]

By and large, there haven't been great flaming row's over room descriptions.

Alignment is probably one of the most problematic element in the game. Alignment arguments have been going on since day 1. And, since day 1, alignment restrictions have been pretty steadily eroded with each edition. Sure, there's still some leftover bits and bobs, but, by and large, alignment has already been excised from the game.

 

[TheSword]

By and large, there haven't been great flaming row's over room descriptions.

Alignment is probably one of the most problematic element in the game. Alignment arguments have been going on since day 1. And, since day 1, alignment restrictions have been pretty steadily eroded with each edition. Sure, there's still some leftover bits and bobs, but, by and large, alignment has already been excised from the game.

The word alignment appears approx 90 times in the PHB and approx 90 times in the DMG, and it’s in every single monster description. There’s about a page of l description in the PHB and every race description has a section on alignment. About a dozen magic items are related to alignment in some ways.

... are you sure it’s been excised from the game?

99% of debates with alignment are corner cases involving Chaotic Neutral PvP, Paladins and Necromancers. The rest of the time it works largely as planned. These corner cases affect a tiny fraction of actual players and are mainly just for entertainment rather than having any actual impact.

In recent months flexibility around default alignment for races has become a hot topic. That relatively simple issue has been put to bed by the design team. The desire to ‘excise’ alignment from the game for does harm to more nuanced arguments about default alignments. It confirms the worst fears of those with reactionary feeling against what is by itself a reasonable measure.

I personally feel that losing alignment would be a massive loss. The great wheel cosmology is bound to the tripartate alignment system and by extention the much loved Planescape setting. It’s principals underpin key lore elements of the game like the Bloodwar. When you say it isn’t relevant to you that’s fine but it is an important part of D&D to other people.