Downfalls of the Alignment System
As a Lawful character, it was against my creed to kill him, since he was Lawful. But as a Good character, it was against my creed NOT to kill him, since he was Evil. So I accidently cast a Delayed Fireball and teleported away before I could hear him screaming.
It's obvious that when WotC made Alignments, they were looking for a cool way to personify the bad guys so that no one really had to do any work in defining them, but everyone felt justified in killing them. As a result, they threw out 4 labels: Chaotic, Lawful, Good, and Evil.
Good people are kind and just. They're very nice, and value life. Of course, they don't mind smashing Evil peoples' heads together (at least in a D&D setting, they don't)
Lawful people are rule-followers and obey a law of the land that the PHB kind of insinuated was universal.
Evil people were portrayed by WotC as "I KILL EVERYONE" or "I KILL EVERYONE AND THEN RAISE UNDEAD". They were usually out to destroy the entire world--the whole thing was pulled straight out of a poor action show like Dragon Ball Z. Or an LOTR book. Same concept.
Then there are chaotic people. Those who are chaotic, by observation (since the PHB gave a crap description), range from vagabonds who are trying to save the world to beings of chaos energy who spawn themselves in other humanoids to Giant Frogs that Giant Frog with the powers of Giant Frog.
Honestly, none of these really correlate. The Good/Evil scheme is stereotypical and understandable, but the whole Law/Chaos theme is very fuzzy and undevelopable.
But I'm sure you guys already knew all that. And Frank made some interesting options available for consideration in his Tome works (or was that someone else? It never cited anybody else there, so I'm going with Frank..).
Here I have another option. It's got more options, and better, more sensible definitions.
Law, Anarchy, Good, and Evil
Don't respect me because I'm an aristocrat. Respect me because I cast Blasphemy and Holy Word at Caster Level 122.
NOTE: So, because it has such a variable connotation, the term "Chaos" has been split up. The vagabond-style brand of chaos is "Anarchic/Anarchical" (and yes, those are real words) instead of "Chaotic", while the Giant Frog is still "Chaotic". But we'll get to Giant Frog later. For now, check out what's going on here:
Lawful: The concept of being lawful is no longer obeying the unwritten rules of the land or upholding a vague kind of justice. It's a respect for the chain of command. If you know that someone is your superior, no matter the reason why (maybe you're in a society that favors diplomats, maybe it favors white people, or maybe it favors ugly gnomes), you feel that it is important to cooperate with them. Lawful people do not usually oppose arbitrary leadership positions like aristocrats and all that. Even if they're stronger than their "superior", they'll still obey that person.
Of course, one of the big problems about Lawfuls is that, upon entering a new society, they probably don't have a full grasp of it's culture. This inherent side-effect upon Lawful characters creates a second facet of Lawful personality, the need for understanding. Naturally, Lawful characters support social awareness. Lawful characters get a +2 competence bonus to Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Geography), and Knowledge (Nobility and royalty), and either try to understand the political situations of new societies they encounter, or blow right through them and attempt to enforce other governmental systems.
NOTE: Count Geiger, using his personal experience, suggested combining all of the above [useless] skills into 1 skill--Civics (Int). This is actually a pretty good idea, and I'd recommend throwing all of the above 4 skills together to either make Civics or Knowledge (Civics). Either way, you're still getting that +2 competence bonus to related checks (putting all the skills into one category does NOT give you a +8 bonus. Don't be a cheater.)
Anarchic: Rogues, swashbucklers, bandits, pirates, and barbarians are all usually Anarchic. They don't care much for the idea of following a chain of command--because usually, the better of two people is considered "superior". Anarchic characters can range from those who don't follow the rules of the kingdom (because the kingdom doesn't help his or her family/brother/village/city/whatever), to barbarians who live in the forests and only listen to their chief because he could mop the floor with any of them. Anarchic characters can still have leaders, but those leaders are based on competancy in whatever relevant category they preside over. Usually, anarchic characters don't support their superiors, though that doesn't mean an anarchic society should actively try to stop its ruler from doing anything.
No, anarchic characters don't get free knowledge competence bonuses. Suck it up.
Neutral: People who are unopinionated about Law/Anarchy usually have an opinion about their political system or the status of their superiors, but it's not strong enough to merit the title of a "Lawful" or "Anarchic" attitude (or it balances itself out with opposite ideas in other situations). Neutral people range from the uncaring to the wishy-washy to the strange radicals who flip-flop between ideas with extremist fervor.
Good: Now, the whole idea about the Law/Anarchy side of alignment is based on opinions about superiors. So how about the people below you? Good/Evil is about that, and good people are the people who help those that they see as inferior (not condescendingly) and able to improve. A powerful preist of Pelor will try to educate weaker preists and converts in his ways of magic and religion so that they too may become powerful and in turn help others after them. Those who support Good usually do so to further a cause they believe in (everyone should worship Pelor, Ehlonna, St. Cuthbert, etc.), or to help the next generation become more competent (eg. school, self-defense classes for women, and science camps). The Good are generally apt to helping the poor and desperate, and show sympathy for the disadvantaged.
Evil: Evil is the opposite of Good. Instead of wanting to help the weak, Evil subjects are more inclined to wiping the weak off the face of the planet (or maybe just making them work for you at a minimum wage job). A stereotype about Evil people/creatures is that they are cruel and/or enjoy torture. But that's not it--evil is just the desire to impose upon the weak.
Of course, one would think that this is hardly self-sufficient--evil would wipe itself out as people pitted themselves against each other. But that's not true. Evil people aren't all about killing or torturing. In fact, they're fine with making their inferiors subordinate to them, maybe killing a few here and there to keep the rest in line. And as a result, evil subjects are also totally OK with raising undead, making constructs, and calling all sorts of ridiculous beasties to do their bidding, since that's the equivalent of enslaving a couple hundred people.
This also means that Evil beings need to stay around longer. Hence: liches, fiends that live forever, body-hoppers, and soul-stealers are all the most powerful evil beings out there (and don't forget dragons!). Now keep in mind, not all evil creatures will be enslaved to one another. Laziness or apathy can keep a person from taking over another country--especially after he or she has taken over most of the surrounding countries and could send legions of undead to destroy any resistance anyway. I mean, why bother? So some creatures are still around.
Neutral: Well, if you don't go Evil or Good, then you're either apathetic or you waver so much that it balances out. A neutral person might be a little of Evil or a little of Good, but it's not enough that it merits the title "Good" or "Evil". One could also fluctuate so extremely between the two alignments that it balances out to the Neutral.
Alignment Augments
I'm the God of Exalted Chaos and I--ooooh a pretty bird...
So, in the above section, the generalization was made that a character is Neutral if their Good and Evil balance out (they act in both manners with equal magnitude overall). Now that's not being what we typically consider "Neutral", but the simplification is good enough. The following section includes a couple additions that will expand upon the set alignments, making them more comprehensive and sensible.
NOTE: The stuff below makes the characters lose one of their alignment descriptors, which kind of hurts the game. To compensate, treat any alignment descriptor that isn't there as "Neutral". As a result, if someone is Detecting Law and there's a character in the room who is Exalted Good, the Exalted Good character is treated as Neutral Good for the spell's effect. So if there was some way to seek a Neutral person out (on the Law/Anarchy spectrum), the Exalted Good character could be found that way.
However, being Chaotic and/or Exalted will not qualify you for alignment requirements involving classes, weapons, or whatever (You can't be a Chaotic Evil character and count as "Neutral" for the Druid class).
Chaotic: You flip-flop between alignments, maybe just enough to be weird, or maybe drastically (call 'em Slaad, call 'em insane, call 'em passive-aggressive or whatever you want...). Chaotic characters are typically disliked for their unpredictability, and most are solitary due to their refusal to adhere to any one characteristic in society. When a character chooses to be Chaotic, they pick one alignment on either the Good/Evil spectrum or Law/Anarchy spectrum. This yields: Lawful Chaos, Anarchic Chaos, Neutral Chaos, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Evil, and Chaotic Neutral (all 6 are different! yay!). The character adheres to their non-Chaotic alignment descriptor (helping the weak as a Good person, not paying taxes as an Anarchical person, etc.), but goes back and forth on the alignment that she didn't pick.
Exalted: Exaltation requires extreme devotion to a cause. Exalted characters take 1 facet of alignment and fully devote themselves to it, ignoring other alignment descriptors. A character picks 1 alignment descriptor on the Good/Evil spectrum or Law/Anarchy spectrum, and then tacks on "Exalted" or "Exaltation": Exalted Good, Exalted Neutral, Exalted Evil, Lawful Exaltation, Neutral Exaltation, and Anarchic Exaltation (NOTE: Exaltation is, I do believe, the correct term to use in the alignment descriptors here. But I don't like it because it's a long word, so I just use the term "Exalted" for everything, even if it's improper in some sense). Characters adhere to this as much as physically and mentally possible, blocking out everything else (this is where closeminded people come in).
One little tweak to the system is that you can be Exalted Chaos. An Exalted Chaotic creature is completely Giant Frog.
NOTE: So, with extra alignment bits, Spells and effects should extend to include them. There should be Magic Circles for Exalted/Exaltation, Chaos, Anarchy, Law, Evil, and Good. Since there are classically less Exalted and Chaotic creatures/people normally... I was thinking about just meshing those together. So whenever you Detect Chaos, you also Detect Exaltation.
Alignment Magnitude
"Wouldn't it be great if the we could track the intensity of someone's Alignment?"
"I think that would be as great as us only being allowed to talk with words starting in vowel sounds..."
Before you read this (IF you read this), keep in mind that it's a completely off-topic story-ish-thing that really doesn't say anything except "This is why I don't like a system that's not in place." You really don't need to bother.
Alignment Magnitude was something that came up when I was DM-ing a campaign a little while ago. The players wanted to have different alignment strengths, and thought it would be cool if they could have effects work on creatures differently based on those creatures' alignment strengths.
I shut them down. My reasoning was this: If you start putting Alignment Strengths/Intensities/Magnitudes on characters, you start severely limiting their choice capacity. Characters' moral decisions would be limited by a ratio of good to evil or law to chaos that is put in place based on their "intensity" or "magnitude" of alignment. And that's dumb. Sometimes Good characters wake up and feel like burning down a preschool, while Evil characters occasionally get the strong desire to help an old lady across the street. In essence, everybody's got a little Chaos in them. Throwing alignment intensities down takes out that element of occasional kindness/cruelty that makes the game interesting every once in a while.
Plus I'd have to change stuff in the SRD so that it scales with alignment, and I'm just not willing to do that... t3h lazy.