Alternate tunings are a wonderful way to break into new harmonic ground with your guitar playing. They allow you to take advantage of many new voicings for chords which would be impossible to achieve using standard tuning. This can feel like a complete breath of fresh air if your feeling a little stuck with standard tuning on guitar.
While there is a learning curve involved with most alternate tunings on guitar any work you do in researching the harmonic possibilities within them will be well rewarded. If you're a songwriter you should find that they will instantly create many new idea's for songs. The tonality of chords will seem fresh to your ears and inspire you into new directions.
One of the best ways to truly get into guitar alternate tunings is to buy a book where the most common ones are taught. There you should find that the most common chord shapes are listed along with scale positions. These books will hardly be exhaustive but they will give you a leg up and allow you to enter into the tuning in a faster way.
You can also find some great resources online in terms of software. There are some great programs, completely free, where you can simply set up the stings on a virtual guitar to match the tuning your using and then enter any group on notes to produce a complete map of where the shapes would appear across the entire fretboard. This allows you to explore alternate tunings in the greatest depth possible and to make your own studies.
There's no need to just stick to the most popular ones like Dropped D tuning or DADGAD (D modal) either... you should let your mind run free and experiment with your own tunings. This is how to truly open up the instrument and make it something personal.
Using fingersyle with alternate tunings on guitar produces wonderful results, try the combination out for yousrsel!