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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 9528404" data-attributes="member: 177">So, the problem with how this question is that it is formed discussing alignment from a real-world perspective, in which alignment's only impact is upon those who are treated in a good or evil manner.But, in a D&D world Gygax was setting up, Good and Evil were not merely concepts.  They were forces of the universe.  Magic actually interacted with alignment.  One side or the other winning would have cosmological impact.  Therefore, you can't discuss the topic without knowing the cosmology and metaphysics of the universe in question.Anyone interested in this topic should read the 1995 novel Villains by Necessity by Eve Forward.  It is a D&D with the serial numbers scraped off, in a world in which Good has, in fact, won.But, in a D&D world of the Gygaxian form, it isn't philosophical.  Alignment is as much a real force as gravity is for us.Um... this assumes the universe was created by a single sentient being with motivations we can actually understand.  There are others.  For example:5.  The creation of the universe was a combination of forces (gods, natural phenomenon, Wyrm, Weaver, and Wyld, or whatever) such that imbalance of those forces breaks the underpinnings of the universe, and it unravels if any of the original founders are too weakened or eliminated.5a. (in standard D&D cosmology) The Prime Material Plane happens at the joining of all the elemental planes and the Positive and Negative energy planes.  If Good or Evil were to win, the Prime Material would be flooded with the corresponding energy.  The godly forces of Good and Evil would be okay with that happening, but it ends natural processes as we know them in the Prime material.</blockquote>

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