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WotC's Jeremy Crawford Talks D&D Alignment Changes
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<blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 8027723" data-attributes="member: 7635"><p>Right, but here's the thing: if you were running a Star Wars D&D game, would you make the stat-block for generic Stormtrooper "medium humanoid, lawful evil"? Clearly, they're all not (Finn and Jana are two recent examples of that). What if the stormtrooper interacts with a glyph of warding set to affect LE characters, does the affect them or does the DM now have to determine, on the fly, if that stormtrooper is good/evil/lawful/chaotic? </p><p></p><p>I always read the alignment section on monsters are a guide to their default ideology; an orc (in lieu of something more specific) is a CE raider bound to slaughter for the slaughter-God. This is akin to the generic stormtrooper being faceless baddies for an evil military organization. Clearly, there are exceptions to the rule, Finn being the prime SW example while Drizzt the D&D posterboy for it. But the rank-and-file stormtrooper or orc was of default alignment whenever the DM didn't have anything more specific to say about them. It helps heroes mow-down hordes of orcs or blow up battle-stations full of strormtroopers.</p><p></p><p>But now what? Clearly the implicit "orcs default to evil unless the DM says otherwise" model isn't working. So we're cutting humanoid alignment tendencies. Orcs and stormtroopers don't default to Evil. Which means one of two things: either the five orcs in room 2b of the dungeon are still evil (except the stat block no-longer says it) and nothing really changed, or the five orcs could be any alignment and killing them is no different than killing five random people in a tavern. Or maybe that stormtrooper Han blasted in Empire was another Finn, questioning his loyalty to the Empire but not yet ready to live his life as a deserter. Hell, A New Hope contains some throw-away dialogue between two stormtroopers on the Death Star small-talking about a new model of landspeeder that came out; implying they have lives and dreams beyond service to the Empire... And Luke blew them up with a proton torpedo. Way to go hero.</p><p></p><p>Ultimately, this ends up going two ways: we change the orc to "orc raider" and continue use them as CE mooks (and thus nothing really has changed) or you have to make orcs as diverse as elves or humans and you have to question if the orc you are fighting is really good-but-conflicted, neutral-and-just-wants-to-get-paid, or evil-and-loving-every-minute. The story of D&D is going to go from a battle of good-vs-evil to questioning every enemy combatant's participation. It will interject a level of nuance and reality, but it will effectively end the "kill things and take their stuff" model if you give it half-a-thought. </p><p></p><p>Or, just keep plowing through strormtroopers because they're evil, whichever works.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Remathilis, post: 8027723, member: 7635"] Right, but here's the thing: if you were running a Star Wars D&D game, would you make the stat-block for generic Stormtrooper "medium humanoid, lawful evil"? Clearly, they're all not (Finn and Jana are two recent examples of that). What if the stormtrooper interacts with a glyph of warding set to affect LE characters, does the affect them or does the DM now have to determine, on the fly, if that stormtrooper is good/evil/lawful/chaotic? I always read the alignment section on monsters are a guide to their default ideology; an orc (in lieu of something more specific) is a CE raider bound to slaughter for the slaughter-God. This is akin to the generic stormtrooper being faceless baddies for an evil military organization. Clearly, there are exceptions to the rule, Finn being the prime SW example while Drizzt the D&D posterboy for it. But the rank-and-file stormtrooper or orc was of default alignment whenever the DM didn't have anything more specific to say about them. It helps heroes mow-down hordes of orcs or blow up battle-stations full of strormtroopers. But now what? Clearly the implicit "orcs default to evil unless the DM says otherwise" model isn't working. So we're cutting humanoid alignment tendencies. Orcs and stormtroopers don't default to Evil. Which means one of two things: either the five orcs in room 2b of the dungeon are still evil (except the stat block no-longer says it) and nothing really changed, or the five orcs could be any alignment and killing them is no different than killing five random people in a tavern. Or maybe that stormtrooper Han blasted in Empire was another Finn, questioning his loyalty to the Empire but not yet ready to live his life as a deserter. Hell, A New Hope contains some throw-away dialogue between two stormtroopers on the Death Star small-talking about a new model of landspeeder that came out; implying they have lives and dreams beyond service to the Empire... And Luke blew them up with a proton torpedo. Way to go hero. Ultimately, this ends up going two ways: we change the orc to "orc raider" and continue use them as CE mooks (and thus nothing really has changed) or you have to make orcs as diverse as elves or humans and you have to question if the orc you are fighting is really good-but-conflicted, neutral-and-just-wants-to-get-paid, or evil-and-loving-every-minute. The story of D&D is going to go from a battle of good-vs-evil to questioning every enemy combatant's participation. It will interject a level of nuance and reality, but it will effectively end the "kill things and take their stuff" model if you give it half-a-thought. Or, just keep plowing through strormtroopers because they're evil, whichever works. [/QUOTE]
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