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If Good simply meant your allies, and Evil simply meant your enemies, and Neutral was everyone else,
and if, in cases where you cast spells or abilities where you were either Law or Chaos attacking your opposite, we defined Law and Chaos in the same way as appropriate,
and if, therefore, there was no inherent good or evil, law or chaos, anywhere, it was simply defined subjectively in this manner,
what would break in the Pathfinder RPG, and how could we fix it?
Richard
It surely is a nice idea for everyone who dislikes alignment but still wants to play something based on D&D.
It would make all good/evil-users slightly more powerful, no use to ever need a smite-good or protection from good as those people are always your friends.
Do you want to make everyone of your allies lawful? Sounds weird. So you basicly only would have 2 things, allies and foes.
By using feats of 3.5 you might overpower things, like spells that no longer affect good creatures or something like that.
Try to restrict all unnecessary alignment uses and you should be just fine.
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I like the idea of having allies, foes and neutrals.
I've been thinking, though, that "foe" needs a bit more definition, if we simply set "ally" as being party member. You see, if you attack someone, and they defend themselves, I wouldn't count that as your foe, so how about we define foes as being anyone who the GM *knows* wants to hurt you or otherwise anyone who strikes a first blow against either you or your allies?
Richard
P.S. One thing that does need sorting out is DR, which I think should in all cases be simply DR X/holy. Align Weapon is then simply Make-Holy Weapon
LazarX
I think you miss the point, you view this world without alignments from a point of view that has alignments.
It's not about generalizing or facilitating alignement use, it's to replace it, if I understand it correctly.
An "Evil" party would still cast "protection from evil" against foes, because it actually would be "protection from foes". (Making this spell somewhat better than normal).
d20 Modern got rid of alignment and added... I forget what they called them. Something like "loyalties" I believe? Basically a number of core tenets that your character believed in.
You can definitely rework this similarly into Pathfinder, and change the alignment spells around so that they affect people who either have or don't have your particular loyalties.
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Just thinking a bit further (and a little bit arguing against myself :-) ):
If you can choose who are your allies (good) and who are your foes (evil), then I would suggest:
1) that the level of all spells which use good/evil to determine effect goes up by 1 level
2) that the paladin's Smite ability be limited - perhaps by halving the effect
Richard
augmenting those spell-lvls by 1 would help, perhaps even overdo it.
The Paladin, as a class based around going against evil is really hard to figure out, because under your redefinition of alignments, he would be an anti-ennemy character, not an anti-evil character. And as every oppose those who oppose them, the paladin is by no means special, and his codex doesn't really make sense anymore.
I would consider removing the paladin from that world.
The cavalier should more or less cover that non-alignment-paladin.
Other possibility:
As about 50% of all ennemies in common campaigns are "evil" (if you are a good group), all alignment based boni could just give half the boni. As they work against every ennemy now.
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I personally have always enjoyed the Alignment system. Even all the way back when it was only the ethical axis (Lawful, Neutral, & Chaotic).
However if you want a good example of a Fantasy RPG that does not use an Alignment system, check out Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I prefer its Second Edition over the new Third Edition though. It just plays more smoothly.
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d20 Modern got rid of alignment and added... I forget what they called them. Something like "loyalties" I believe? Basically a number of core tenets that your character believed in.
You can definitely rework this similarly into Pathfinder, and change the alignment spells around so that they affect people who either have or don't have your particular loyalties.
The term your remembering in d20 Modern is "Allegiances". It was a good mechanic too.