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Okay, I have been completely perplexed by this. You see, a bunch of stuff my characters do are based on alignment. This would be no problem, but recently, one of my PCs did something that changed his alignment. Alot. I mean 2 steps alot.

And now the part where I sound like a moron. I never under stood what the alignments went in in steps. When ever a book has the alignment chart, it's always in a 3x3 box, so I didn't know which way the steps went.

That and I don't quite know how certain actions are lawful or chaotic.

So the questions are as follows:
What order are the alignments from worse to most goody-two shoes?
What type of actions are "lawful" and "chaotic"?

Thanks in advance.

Yeah, but I would think that the Violence part would go into the good - evil axis. Like when a LG Paladin Dwarf rapes a person in an inn that he had previously gotten drunk with full intention of rape. That's obviously an evil act, but doesn't that effect his lawful alignment too, seeing as rape is, undoubtfully, a very unlawful act?

... woah, I just realized he needs to be stripped of his paladin powers...

You can be chaotic and still follow the local rules. For the most part though, you follow your own rules and morals (think of a hippy-type person). A person in a campaign who is chaotic, would tend to believe that certain missions are for the betterment of their morals and coincide with their own rules, and will follow it.

As far as the steps go, it really just depends on what they did and what their reasoning/thinking for such action was. For (an extreme) example, a Paladin kills an ally. Does the Paladin automatically become a fallen Paladin? Not necessarily. What was his reason for killing such an ally? Did his/her deity tell them that this person was evil and that they were judged to die? Did the Paladin honestly believe that the person was evil? Or did they kill the person for their own needs? If it is the last question, then the Paladin would become a fallen Paladin.

Just as in life, D&D's alignment's aren't necessarily black and white. Laws vary from town to town, so a lawful character in one town, may end up unlawful in another. It is the DM's job to help the players understand what the laws are (that their character would know of, of course) if alignment is going to play a pivotal role in the campaign.

Also, what has been said is very true as well.

Still don't fully grasp the who thing, but it makes much more sense to me.... after reading the Player's Handbook [Alignment area] about 30 times...