Is it just me or are Slaad too... evil?
Everything I read about them involves them being violent and attacking things. If they're truly embodiments of chaos, shouldn't they do everything and anything? I'd expect an exemplar of pure unadulterated chaos to be more... unpredictable. Not just angry and hungry.
Yeah, that's from Hellbound: The Blood War. On the Lower Planes they tend to be more chaotic good, while on the Upper Planes they tend to be more chaotic evil. The goal is to provide moral balance while advancing the cause of pure Chaos.
In short: yes. The recent canon material missed the point. 
I don't think new material is the issue; I remember reading a passage from the PS campaign setting to the effect of "Slaad would just as soon chew your face off than talk to you." If that's not evil, I don't know what is. I think that which ever DM came up with the slaad was just looking for a mindlessly violent monster to throw at his PCs that the paladin couldn't smite. Myself, I either give slaad an evil alignment or modify their behavior to actually reflect a CN alignment.
TS
I once had a Slaad fortune teller in one of my games. If you wanted your fortune told you had to climb into his mouth ... most of the time you came out a little wiser ... sometimes he swallowed.
Like any Planescape monster, Slaad should be played to the story.
A Chaotic Neutral character might just as likely chew your face off as talk to you ... but he might just as well talk ... depends how he is feeling.
I have always fealt Chaotic Neutral characters should be Chaotic AND Neutral ... not Chaotically Neutral.
That's the best way of putting it I've heard in a long time.
I've never liked the way Slaad have been portrayed, particularly in recent materials. They're the personification of chaos, entropy, randomness, chance, and mutability. Yes, they might try to eat you, but they're just as likely to kidnap you and force you to sing in the opera they just wrote, or throw money at you, or follow you incessantly for three weeks. They do probably get a little more violent with your average Lawful berk, but even then they're not just going to charge and attack. Unless their whimsy says they should. . .
Well here is my opionon about Slaad (wich are beside modrons my faworites), and here is several factors to consider:
1. Slaads are outsiders, and all outsiders represent their aligment to extreme.
2. What Slaad represent: they represent negative aspects of chaos: disorder, unstability, entropy, cahnge trough pain and destruction (while Lilendi for example represents positive aspects like art and creation). In way slaad behaviour is simmilar to natural disasters like: floods, earthquakes and twisters. They produce panic and chaos but they seem "evil" becouse of the damage they cause.
3. Slaad mindset: they just want to spread chaos (their natural habitat, but in some way every outsider wants that), in way Xsaositects try to emulate Slaadi behavior and they do it in creative maner, but most common of slaadi (red and blue) are not creative or smart so they resort to most basic forms of chaos: fear and destruction.
4. Slaadi's way of life: they live on the Limbo, wich is one of most inhospitable plane out there, I mean they have to compete with githzerai and chaos beasts and even worse things that float out there, on top of that their reproduction system depends on implanting their eggs in living beings. It is not surprising that they are considerd evil and mosters from mortal ponint of view. From Slaadi point of view I guess that they simply "shoot first and ask questions later", they bear no malice (unlike demons) but that is they way of life.
To conclude: Slaadi are planar predators, and like natural predators they bear no malice towards their preys. But unlike natural predators they are being of chaos and they incorporate that in their way of life: and it is normal that chaotic predator is considered evil (at least from the veiw of lawful and organised societies).
EDIT: But at least you know what you can except from Slaadi (excspect the unexcepted)and Demons. Far worse are Eladrin, who claim that they are good, that they walue life and all things beautiful: but they are venegefull, quick to anger, cpricious, pridefull, and will not even flinch to chop your head of if you do not worship the ground he is walking on.
I kind of liked the Slaad since the 1st ed Fiend Folio, but sice that was way before planescape, exemplars, etc, there has always been the question in my mind and in a subtle way in my PS campaign, as to whether Slaad are 'natural' exemplars at all.
We know some outsiders aren't really exemplars. Baatezu are not, for they displaced the Ancient Baatorians. Tanar'ri are, because they arrise spontaneously from the Abyss. In fact, Tanar'ri are way more chaotic, in form if nothing else, than Slaad. Heck the frogs're even color-coded! The chaos beast is a way better candidate for an exemplar of chaos than Slaad are.
Of course, that's not to say Y'gorl doesn't have his ambitions.
Wh0?
Y'gorl, you know ....
(CRUNCH ... chew ... chew ... chew ... gulp)
Baatezu sometimes arise spontaneously from Baator (according to Faces of Evil), so they're as much "exemplars" as tanar'ri are. The tanar'ri displaced the obyriths, after all.
Slaadi are true exemplars of Chaos, though their forms have been somewhat limited by Ygorl and the Spawning Stone.
As far as I'm concerned, they're truly chaotic. If you meet a slaad, it might eat you, yes, but it's just as likely to dance for you or shower you with gold coins, if it thinks doing those things will advance Chaos. They concentrate on inciting rebellions, freeing prisoners and slaves, disrupting bureaucracies, and changing the status quo. And feeding their bottomless hungers.
But then, my interpretation of slaadi is non-standard.
Oh, check out Wikipedia's "slaad" article, by the way. There was recently a fight to protect it from the deletionists, and I'm proud that I helped bring it up to Wikipedia's standards.
Well, the color coded bit is more of a racial curse than a natural occurance as far as I recall.
[FR novel spoiler below]
What do people think of the portrayal of slaad (slaadi?) in the Erevis Cale novels?
Yeah, certain castes of Slaad have been corrupted by evil, most noteably the Death Slaad and (I think?) the Black Slaad from Epic Level Handbook. Maybe the Queen of Chaos is to blame? Didn't she used to be a Limbo native, before she took up residence in the Abyss? Musta turned bad after hooking up with Miska the Wolf-Spider! (Somebody oughta bring these guys back with 3E stats for a new adventure!) Wonder if they'll be in 4E...?
*blinks*
And now you've got me trying to figure out what name you're editing under over on Wiki. Sneaky sneaky.
Haha, I'm poisonink.
Ancient, ancient bump. Apologies if this is bad form on my part, but the topic is still solid and I like the slaadi.
I personally have come up with a minor caste of slaadi called Quiver Slaadi (as in, quivering in fear). They don't follow the color system of the usual slaadi, and they're afraid of getting eaten by things that are bigger than they are (which would be most things in Limbo). They also live quite distant from the Spawning Stone. Their overall alignment bent CN/CG, rather than the usual Chaotic Monster that slaadi are usually portrayed as.
The one Quiver Slaad character I've developed has a tendency to slip over to Ysgard whenever he gets a chance, to go drinking with the fighters there (though he usually avoid actually getting into a fight himself). I suspect that he also nips off to Pandemonium on occasion to listen to the nice sounds the winds make.
He's curious and affable, though he finds it difficult to maintain a coherent line of thought and his/its language get convoluted from time to time. He hasn't seen much playtime though, but his primary shtick is acting as a guide to any would be adventurers trying to get around Limbo (or Ysgard, I suppose).
I think you could do a lot with the slaadi as exemplars. Sticking them into pre-defined roles based on their color, whatever the in-game explanation for doing so, has never really meshed with me all that well. They're supposed to be to Limbo what the Modrons are to Mechanus, and that doesn't really shine through.
Slaad tend to contradict the moral alignment of whoever or whatever is around them (except, of course when they don't). On the lower planes and against evil foes, slaadi might be closer to CG. In any case, this seems to be a flaw of the MM, not the planscape descrition.