Breaking Down Alignment in D&D

Tags New Player's Guide author-riley-silverman

Alignment in Dungeons & Dragons is used to define a creature’s moral and ethical perspective. This foundational concept has been part of the game’s DNA since D&D’s earliest days, and it is still an integral part of the 2024 Core Rulebooks. In the 2024 Player’s Handbook, the iconic D&D alignment chart is a roleplaying tool used in character creation, while the 2024 Dungeon Master’s Guide helps DMs use alignment to run monsters and explains how this fundamental concept manifests itself in D&D’s cosmology.

Let’s explore how alignment fits into the 2024 core rules and how you can use it as a tool to serve you and your game!

What is Alignment in D&D?

Alignment in D&D broadly describes a character’s ethical attitudes and ideals based on two key factors: their morality and their tendencies towards order. The intersection of these two concepts creates the D&D alignment chart, a set of nine different alignments that reflect typical behaviors across the spectrum of good and evil, and law and chaos.

Artist: CHRIS SEAMANA grid represents the nine different alignments in D&D.

Using Alignment When Creating Characters

When creating a new character in D&D, the choice of your character’s alignment is a decision you make after you’ve selected their class, origin, and ability scores. While your alignment doesn’t come with any specific mechanical effects, it helps you combine the elements of your character into their personality for you to roleplay.

Actions Dictate Alignment

When selecting an alignment for your character, don’t consider it a restriction that defines what your character can or can’t do. Instead, imagine it as a description of their actions and how they approach the world.

So, if you’re playing a Fighter with the Guard background who adheres to the regimens and structure of their old life, you might consider them lawful. But if they left that work because it was too restrictive and they yearned to roam free, they might be chaotic instead.

Alignment Can Change

Character alignments can change over time. For example, in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Edgin's backstory begins with him following a strict code as a member of the benevolent Harpers organization, meaning he’d have a Lawful Good alignment.

Eventually, he rejected that code for personal profit and later survival, so you might view him as Chaotic Neutral. By the end of the film, and in his official Thieves’ Gallery stat block, he’s listed as having a Chaotic Good alignment.

Morality for Player Characters

Artist: Katerina LadonA Deva talks with a Cambion and Night Hag on the streets of Sigil.

D&D is a game of heroic fantasy roleplaying. As such, the default assumption is that player characters will have a good or neutral alignment. The 2024 Player’s Handbook suggests that if, as a player, you want to be an evil-aligned character, you should discuss it with your DM first.

Good and Evil Can Cooperate

With DM permission, you can bring an evil character into a game. When playing an evil-aligned character in a party of good-aligned characters, it’s important to remember that despite having different motives, you, as players, should share the same goal while playing. Your intent in making an evil character shouldn’t be to consistently disrupt and work against your group’s ability to mutually enjoy the game.

Good and evil characters can cooperate and frequently do in all kinds of stories. A Chaotic Good vampire hunter might work with a Lawful Evil vampire to destroy a common enemy when it serves their mutual interest. A swamp-dwelling Neutral Evil Ogre might begrudgingly join a Neutral Good donkey on a quest, as long as it gets the disruptive fairytale creatures out of his home. And who knows, that ogre’s actions in the face of strife may reveal that he now has a Chaotic Good alignment.

There are ways to make conflicting moralities work well together and form interesting narratives, but it does require the players to buy into that shared story.

Using Alignment as a Dungeon Master

As a Dungeon Master, alignment can be a useful tool for getting into the mindset of your creatures. When you’re running an NPC based on the information in their stat block, their alignment can prompt you on their starting attitude towards the party and how to roleplay them during your sessions.

When you’re tracking a lot of different characters, it can be helpful to glance at a stat block and decide whether you should roleplay a creature as a scheming trickster or as a kindhearted soul who genuinely just wants to help out the players.

Similarly, understanding alignment can serve as a useful shorthand when creating your own NPCs. For instance, is your villain Lawful Evil, pursuing their ambitions within the structured hierarchy of a kingdom? Or are they Chaotic Evil, a vengeful outsider leading an army determined to raze the kingdom’s capital? Is a potential ally Lawful Neutral and will only give aid if the party makes a compelling case? Or are they a Lawful Good creature who will support any worthy cause?

Like with your players’ characters, though, an individual's actions can stray from the tenets of their alignment, and their alignment can change! If you initially envision someone as a Lawful Evil character and the players topple their plans, they might later return seeking revenge as a Chaotic Evil character. Or, in a more extreme case, a character who was Lawful Evil earlier in the campaign might have a change of heart and shift to Neutral or even Chaotic Good if the characters’ actions make them see the error of their ways.

What Are the Nine Alignments in D&D?

Let’s take a look at each of the alignments in the D&D alignment chart and what they mean for a character.

Lawful Good

Artist: DAVID ASTRUGAAn elf Cleric uses the spell Daylight to bring the light of dawn to a vampire court

A Lawful Good character feels a duty to do what society considers to be the right thing. They tend to follow rules while also having compassion and concern for their fellow beings. A Lawful Good character might be beholden to the laws of the land, but they may instead follow a strict moral code imparted to them by their organization.

Xenk Yendar in Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a Lawful Good character. He lives according to his Paladin’s oath to protect the innocent and vanquish evil. He temporarily works with the more roguish protagonists of the film, while always urging them to walk a more valiant path such as his own.

Neutral Good

A Neutral Good character does the best they can, working within the rules when they can but not feeling restricted by them. They still care about helping others, and will generally still find noble causes appealing and necessary.

Another character from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Doric, is an example of a Neutral Good character. She doesn’t trust humans because of her past as a tiefling and isn’t particularly concerned with their laws, especially the Lord of Neverwinter’s. But she cares deeply about the Emerald Enclave and is willing to join Edgin’s party and their quest to help protect it.

Chaotic Good

A Chaotic Good character lets their conscience be their guide, fighting injustice and protecting others with little regard for outside expectations. A Chaotic Good character might frequently and excitedly commit crimes to serve what they see as the greater good. Characters leading a rebellion against totalitarian or tyrannical leaders are usually considered Chaotic Good.

Robin Hood is a classic example of a Chaotic Good character. In most Robin Hood stories, Robin and his Merry Men steal from the corrupt leaders of Nottingham and return their takings to the suffering people of the town.

Lawful Neutral

A Lawful Neutral character follows their laws or traditions without regard for inherent morality. For a Lawful Neutral creature, adherence to the rules is more important than the demands of those in need or the temptations of evil.

At the start of the Baldur’s Gate 3, Lae’zel is a Lawful Neutral character. She is devoted fully to the tenets of Githyanki society and the requirements of her queen. While she might be perceived as cruel to other characters, she’s simply following the ideals of her people.

Neutral

Artist: HELGE C. BALZERThe Wizard Mordenkainen welcomes guests to his magical dwelling, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion

Neutral characters have no particular alignment towards good or evil, nor are they ruled by chaos or order. Neutral characters are pragmatic and will work towards whatever seems best at the time. Characters who serve as impartial observers tend to be Neutral. Similarly, characters whose main focus is on balance or preserving the natural order, with no specific emphasis on protecting anyone or pursuing selfish gain, are considered Neutral.

The archmage Mordenkainen is an example of a Neutral character. He is the founder and leader of the Circle of Eight, which he created to uphold his philosophy of balance across the multiverse.

Chaotic Neutral

A Chaotic Neutral character prizes their freedom above just about everything else. Their motivations are not cruel, but they’re not particularly interested in kindness either. Characters who are Chaotic Neutral are often described as “moving where the wind takes them.” Rakish scoundrels, roving gamblers, and a few anti-heroes would fall under this banner.

Returning to Baldur’s Gate 3, Astarion begins the game as a Chaotic Neutral character. When he’s first encountered in the game, he’s free for the first time in centuries. His primary drive is to remain free, and he supports decisions that serve that goal. He can be pushed towards good or evil based on choices you make as a player, but the initial cobblestones of either path are paved with his desire to protect and empower himself.

Lawful Evil

Artist: Zoltan BorosAsmodeus, the Lord of the Nine, maintains a veneer of pleasantry while inflicting agony on imprisoned souls.

Lawful Evil characters empower themselves by using rules, laws, and binding contracts. Examples of Lawful Evil creatures are dictators who impose tyrannical laws or cult leaders who force restrictive tenets on their followers.

Devils, the quintessential inhabitants of the Nine Hells, are often Lawful Evil. They have defined hierarchies and amass power through complicated contracts and cunning deals.

Neutral Evil

Neutral Evil characters pursue their own desires and ambitions without caring at all for the harm it might cause others. They think nothing of putting a whole population of people in danger if it gets them the things they want, such as wealth or power.

Acererak, the infamous lich and architect of deadly tombs, is an example of a Neutral Evil character. He operates without regard for law or chaos, focusing solely on his relentless pursuit of power and immortality. He traps adventurers in his dungeons for his own gain and is entirely unbound by allegiance to any higher principle or authority beyond his ambitions.

Chaotic Evil

Characters that are Chaotic Evil harm others without hesitation and may even go out of their way to do so. They might do this out of bloodlust, out of hatred, or just a general desire to watch the world burn. Characters who kill with reckless abandon or spite tend to be Chaotic Evil.

Demons in D&D are Chaotic Evil engines of destruction, originating from the multiversal embodiment of all things perverse and gruesome—the Abyss. Demons follow no rules or hierarchy, opting instead for sowing chaos in every form. Outside of the D&D universe, the Joker or Mr. Hyde serve as strong examples of Chaotic Evil villains.

Aligned For You

Like your character’s class, species, and background, their alignment is a piece of the overall puzzle that makes up who they are and how they react to situations.

Alignment enables you to know how a character interacts with the morality of their world and how likely they are to follow (or completely ignore) the rules set before them. While a character’s alignment can change and isn’t a restrictive definition of your character, it acts as a guiding light for their ethical attitudes and ideals.

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A smug mage looks away as an explosion goes off behind them. Text reads, Adventurers wanted! Join the D&D Discord today!

Riley Silverman (@rileyjsilverman) is a contributing writer to D&D Beyond, Nerdist, and SYFY Wire. She DMs the Theros-set Dice Ex Machina for the Saving Throw Show, and has been a player on the Wizards of the Coast-sponsored The Broken Pact. Riley also played as Braga in the official tabletop adaptation of the Rat Queens comic for HyperRPG, and currently plays as The Doctor on the Doctor Who RPG podcast The Game of Rassilon. She currently lives in Los Angeles.

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