Let’s remove the neutral ethos. It’s redundant with the chaotic ethos. There is nothing in the game that separates neutral and chaotic ethos (religion choice?). Let’s make the game a simpler place and not mislead newbies/serious RPers with more than what is really enforced and used in the actual game. It will also move us one step towards a more unique, less DnD/ROM system.
There are only two kinds of people in regards to ethos: Those who support the Tribunal law (lawful) and those who don't. Why do we divide those who don't into two separate, unneeded categories (neutral + chaotic)?
pulls at his hair Can't...keep...quiet any longer!
Okay, fourth edition removed the neutral ethos. Fourth Edition DND that is. The neutral ethos has subtle differences from the chaotic ethos depending on the situation, especially where power is concerned.
Neutral evil vs. Big Bad Nasty: Yes, yes....grovel grovel after big bad nasty kills him. Waits for nice opportunity (read easy) to take out BBN.
Chaotic evil vs. Big Bad Nasty: Go **** yourself! You don't rule me, *****! And later, chaotic goes back for me.
Neutral good vs. Tribunal: Okay, okay, I'll listen, this time.
Chaotic Good vs. Tribunal: What?! You can't infringe upon my individuality! Drop dead, Demon!
above good alignment examples vary with opposing alignment
Neutral neutral vs. well, anything...: yawn I don't care.
Chaotic Neutral vs. well, anything...: Interesting...Don't care....Whatever....YES I DO!
difference being fluctuating emotion vs. need to be motivated
Because not everyone supports either the law or the lawless. I have no trouble seeing the difference between someone who vows to uphold the laws, someone who breaks the laws, and someone who upholds the laws only when it benefits them.
A neutral ethos should generally be indifferent to chaos or order. They are what one would call "on the fence".
I understand the conceptual difference in DnD between chaotic and neutral ethos.
In FL, it isn't watched, enforced, or even cared about.
edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is that in FL, 'on the fence' isn't noticed, even in Tribunal RP. You are either lawful or non-lawful. Individual players might use the ethos as an RP baseline, but we hardly need a coded mechanic for that. I could rp my non-lawful as a neutral or chaotic as I see fit. We don't have a mechanic for personality types, but we can still RP those just fine.
edit2: But what this mechanic DOES do is mislead new players into thinking that we take ethos very seriously. It is much like how the dk/communer/paladin help files say that RP is more carefully watched/expected in those classes. Completely misleading...
edit3: We could add a question in the character creation process that asks if you wish to be lawful (y/n). The question would explain what lawful means in the game and why you would want to choose it. It would be much like viewing the adventurer class information or the ruthless/moderate explanation. Ethos would be removed from the game and those characters that selected yes would have some tag in their score/stat sheet that allows them to join the militia and to show it to IMMs/Tribunals as needed.
What I'm sayin' is, DND pretty much already took some of the ethos away from me. As a matter of fact, neutral doesn't even exist anymore. It's called unrestricted or something.
The nuances between neutral/chaotic ethos is helpful to me. Even if it's not something that's enforced, anyone serious RP'er would still want it there.
What good would this change actually do though? I don't think the difference between neutral and chaotic ethos causes much of a problem now, so I'd rather concentrate on fixing things that do cause problems 
