I need to understand the basic mechanics behind the dice and points systems.  I have played before, but I'm still not sure where to begin.  I have the original idea and the general first campaign set, I just don't know how to do skill sets and dice and don't know how to decide which die system to use.

Am most familiar and comfortable with d10 d20, but don't know how to actually go about making the system.  Help please.

welcome to the Forge!

first step: do a search on the forums for the phrase "standard rant" in the subject line with "Mike Holmes" as the author. this will give you one article about what games you should read as prep before designing, plus a couple commentaries on typical overused design elements.

next: get RPG Design Patterns on John Kirk's website. it has a number of design patterns and how they are used in specific games. there are more articles you could read, but this will get you started.

what I would recommend if you don't know where to start with dice mechanics, skill systems, and the like is to not worry about it. start with a simple one-die, yes-no mechanic and no skills or classes. write down what the players do around the table and what they describe their characters doing, using the yes-no die roll as your only mechanic. once you have an idea of what the players should do and what the characters should be able to do, you will see holes in the system, places where a yes-no mechanic doesn't support what you want to happen. this is where you will make your changes.

another technique: write down what's important to your system. is magic important? you will want to have more detail in the magic system, then. do you want personality to come into play? then you need personality mechanics. you probably want only three or four unique features, combined with a basic resolution mechanic, embedded in a reward system, plus any "generation" systems used before play (character generation, setting generation, etc.)

good luck!

Ok, that unmuddied it slightly.  But I don't understand how you can't have classes especially when I have about nine different race skill sets to be accounted for.  Personality is a must for this game because a lot of it depends on interaction with NPC and each other.

I will look into reading the things that you pointed out to me, but I'm still a bit new to all of this so I'm still pretty confused.  But I'm getting to the point where I at least know the direction I'm heading, We know what the backbone of the storyline is though it is quite open-ended.  I guess what I'm saying is thanks for the info, and I'll try to get back to you when my head stops spinning.

I must be insane, I mean I have always loved rpging, but we used a kit-bashed system that combined a d10 and d20 system (It was a system my GM had designed), so i'm not really sure where to go from here.  I'll try what you suggested because I can sort of see where you are going.  Getting a 'base' reading of what the 'norms' would be, but I'm still pretty lost.

new, and still quite lost...

Hi and welcome to the forge!

Ellepepper, (what's your name, out of curiousity?  We tend to go by real names around here, even us weirdos with 'tags') I'm going to rewind and contradict Talysman slightly.

The stuff he gives is really good advice, and is pretty much 'step 1', but there's a Step 0:

Play. :)

If you've got a gaming group you play with, at least a couple of them have a game sitting on the shelf they've never played.  Start with that one.  Go to rpg.net and buy some of the games that look neat and have good reviews. 

I couldn't wrap my head around the whole 'races/no races, classes, skills' thing until I'd played some games that didn't have them, and started to see what it actually looked like.

Hands down, nothing has helped me design my games more than just sitting and playing other people's games.  Hands down.

Hope that helps!

James

Elle Is actually just my first intial.  I'm Laura by the way.  I just don't like going by my name online.  EllePepper is also one of my psudonyms for writing, So, I guess it boils down to call me Elle Or Laura.  I'll answer to either. 

Unfortunately, the friend who has the kit-bash system I like is no longer within my sphere of friends,  (All I'll say is he's a crazy ex and leave it at that)  and I will have to go out and get myself some more books for some of the other systems.  Being a writer and not fond of any sort of math, I never paid attention to the system itself, and I'm a little rusty.  (Most of my books were lost when I moved from college, I think someone took them by 'accident')  Not to mention a lot of it was the one-of a kind system my ex had created.

As to gaming groups, I don't have any in the area that play at a time when I can get there.  So I'm going to look into the RPG connections online.... sigh, so much to do, not sure where to start.

Howdy, welcome.

To quote a great philosopher, "Forget what you know... or think you know." :D

Seriously, though, system does matter.  But, what really makes the system is what you want the players and characters to do.  For example, class systems are good for games where you want a rigid social structure, where priests are priests and barbarians are barbarians, and they generally avoid each other excepting in certain cases where they are geased into clearing out some noisome dungeon.  Or, if you'd rather have characters live in a world where, sure, this guy is a priest, but he's a fighting priest, but not really a monk or paladin, and whatnot, then you'll find that class really isn't that important at all.  Similar issues with race, attributes, skills, etc.  It's all arbitrary, and only the elements that enhance your experience are significant.

Thank you to who ever told me to read the RPG design Patterns Maual.  That helped some. 

My biggest problem is, right now, that I am going to be using a conflicted gague and a trauma gague, on some of my characters, so how do I deal with the ones to which they don't apply? 

Most of my 'creatures' are shape shifters, (Conflicted gague) but since this is a 'rebellion' story there is a trauma gague' and I don't know how to make the humans who do not have the conflicted gague as effective or as...um.. I don't want them getting skunked in other words.  I mean in a contest, my others win hands down, so I have to find a way to make it possible for human (mortal) team members to play as such.  And I'm going to use a race profile system because there are some attributes that are unique to each group, but I think classes are not the best way to go.  Am I making any sense?

Ok, The crux of my problem is this:

I need to find a system that is flexible enough to use with an open-ended storyline, which is based off of the character reactions, and yet is solid enough to sustain a trauma gague/conflicted gague system. 

I don't want to do the race/class system because it doesn't allow for the flexibility, but I am not sure how to define characters and traits otherwise.  (I'm used to the strict pattern RPG's but I don't like a. the book keeping, and B. the rigidity.  I need something fluid enough to allow a result other than combat.

The game is both tactical and Character based, but it MUST be played with group interaction.  The individual stats are nice, but no one character can succeed. 

Hello, Elle. I think we may all be getting way too technical way too fast. The technical stuff is important, absolutely, but it's just a tool, and if you dive into it too fast, you start tearing your hair out over questions equivalent to "should I use a computer-controlled anti-lock braking system or retro-rockets?" when you haven't yet decided whether you're building a sportscar or a spaceship.

If I read your earlier posts right, you've mainly (only?) played with rules derived from D20 and/or the Tri-Stat D10 system? Those games (along with GURPS, FUDGE, Storyteller/World of Darkness, and many others) are all fine, but they are all variations on the same theme -- they're all cars, as it were: They all have a GM, who determines some kind of difficulty number, which the players compare to the sum of various character statistics and modifiers and die rolls to see if they succeed, and they're all focused on combat.

But there are some very different games out there (spaceships, bicycles, submarines -- okay, enough of that metaphor) that use totally different approaches: Some don't have a GM, or don't use dice, or don't have character stats to add up, or they use the same rules for both combat and someone having a moral dilemma, whatever. You'd be very well served by checking out a few of these games.

There are three good ones available free over the web (the hyperlinks should work, but just in case I've typed out the links as well):

Torcherbearer - http://njyar.thesmerf.com/wiki/torchwiki.html
Legends of Alyria - http://alyria.blogspot.com/
Capes (demo version) - http://www.museoffire.com/Games/downloads.html

And there are some story-generating techniques that might be of interest to you that I summarized in this thread here - at the ungainly address http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17169.msg182305#msg182305, in case the hyperlink doesn't work.

I'd recommend that you skim these links, ponder a little, and then get back to us. Make that spaceship versus sportscar decision first, then we can worry about conflicted gauges and character classes.

I've tried the non-gm system for a few games, and I didn't really appreciate it, yeah, there was a lot of character interaction, but little story development, and the stories all too soon became disjointed so that no one could remember what the orginal goal had been.

As for the dice, no dice thing, I'm comfortable with d10 and d20 systems, I don't know anything else.  I'm going to try it, but the format I want to use does include a GM.

Hi EllePepper/Laura,

Welcome to the Forge!

One of the coolest tricks I learnt fromt this site, is to make a mock up of play. Just write down a made up account of exactly how you would like play to go. You only need to write down a paragraph or two of what you think would be the most exciting part of the game. In particular, write it as the players would say it...especially noting where and about what you think they'd start getting excited.

Anyway, it really helps out. Tell me if I was just confusing. :)

That "mock up of play" thing is cool -- an example of it was made into this sticky thread, here - http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=1896.0).

EllePepper wrote:
I've tried the non-gm system for a few games, and I didn't really appreciate it, yeah, there was a lot of character interaction, but little story development, and the stories all too soon became disjointed...

That's what I thought too; but I've also played in a GM-less campaign for, oh, maybe six months now (Capes, full version), and we've actually told a story that works. The trick seems to be rules that realize "no GM" actually means "everyone is a GM" and then allocate the shares of that power very carefully. And there's no one way to do it.

For example, on Ben Lehman's new game Polaris , if I'm sitting across the table from you, then when you play a scene with your PC, I'm playing all the bad guys ("the Mistaken"), and the person on one side of me is playing all the people you love, and the person on the other side of me is playing all the people you have some duty towards -- and then, when it's my turn to play a scene with my PC, you're playing my Mistaken and all the roles switch.

I mean, who the hell who'd've thought of that? (Yes, Ben would've. I know. It was a rhetorical question. Sheesh).  And for your game, probably, that exact solution is not going to be the solution; and some of my favorite games are still ones with very powerful GMs who drive the story hard (e.g. Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard, Paul Czege's My Life with Master). But the point is I had never even imagined all the possible ways of doing things until I looked at a bunch of different games -- played a bunch is even better, but just reading is a real eye-opener. I came to this site with one game idea, read some stuff, chucked my whole idea, and am now working (slowwwwwly) on two others. Reading games that resemble nothing you've seen before just makes a huge difference, and it's a fun learning process.

[deep breath]

And I'll stop ranting now. But, any questions, just post or feel free to PM me (little icon thingies on the left margin; I can never remember which it is until I've clicked half of them.).

Bloody mistyped tags. Sorry about the formatting in that last one.

No problem.  I get what you are saying, but with the types of characters I'm using I don't know that that would work.  And with some of the people I've played with a non-gm is a BAD idea.

I like the flexibility, but I think for what I'm doing  it's too simple if that makes sense.  Reading the game patterns thing helped quite a bit, and so I understand that a class pattern is not right either.  I'm thinking of a modified template system perhaps.  where you are assigned a set of particular skills or abilities for your race with all the pluses and minuses, but any you want to add after that, is up to you and your resources.  You can learn anything you want, if you have the time and the ability.  But you cannot change the 'static' abilities of your race.  I'm also using a conflicted gague for most races.  (Partially to make things more interesting, and partially to prevent the 'god' chararacter complex.)

Sorry, let me back up, Replying to the post directly above me about gm-less system.  I can see some merits, and am implimenting a few of the good things.  (I hope)  Like I said I'm trying to do a more chararacter driven storyline, so I made the GM more of a ref and less of a schoolmaster.  He isn't quite so arbitrary (I hope) 

Shapeshifters, excellent.  But they still have races that define certain physiological/social/cultural traits.  So, I would guess it's partially defined, partially up to the player.

What I'm curious about is how fast a shape is shifted.  Is it evolutionary or spontaneous?  Are you dealing with doppelgangers or werewolves, or both?

Also, I'm very interested in how humans react to the shapeshifters.  You mention that you'd have to find rules balance to keep humans at an equal effectiveness, so do you imply that shapeshifters are more powerful than humans?

Sorry if I'm talking bollocks, but I want to encourage you.

Well, Ok, firstly, it is non-evolutionary.  The premise is that MISTICs were created by a company who were trying to engineer soldiers.  They got some interesting results and in the end decided to liquidate the entire project.  They started with a town that the mistics had set up as a safe-haven.  A place called Seaview (This is the location where the game starts) 

Each Race has particular traits, stats and triggers that are locked (Static) everything else is user defined.  How ever, each trait that you give must affect at least one other trait.  Or must add a Trigger to their humanity table.  Most shifters are dual natured.  (For instance, werewolf.)  A werewolf (Lycan) has a human side and a wolf side.  When 'shifted' they gain all the pluses of their other side, but they can only stay shifted as long as their defense and humanity last.  The longer they stay shifted, the more chance of problems (Lycan, for instance, in wolf form have a much shorter temper, so a lycan who starts out 'hostile' when stuck in a 'humanity shift' will immediately become 'super hostile' or 'enraged' they will attack whatever THEY percieve as a threat.  That could be a team member or an object, or anything.  (user defined triggers)  A low humanity score also affects them in this way, anything that must be thought through logically is hard for them.  They act on instinct not on rationality. 

Sub-mistics can be dopplegangers, they can have up to two Static abilites (Depending on what racial traits they have) and up to three user defined abilities.  (Which means that yes, you can be half Vampire half werewolf, as long as you define your static traits for each and what happens with your humanity gague.)

Mortals may be for or agianst you.  They can be aligned with the company (Mystic) or with a particular race (lycan) or with a particular side (Mistic)  This affects their diplomacy rating with others.  The more hostile a character (mortal or not) the lower this rating is.  That's all well and good, but if you need a free pass across Lycan territory and you killed their last messenger...they will think twice about letting you in.  "Diplomacy is all RP.  You must Convince the person challenging (Maybe played by the DM maybe (with permission) played by another member.  But the lower your diplomacy rating, the less willing the person is to listen to you.  (At a one or a two, they may attack without even letting you open your mouth.)

Grr, should be GM,

Sciences (Flying, telepathy and other interesting effects) are able to be learned by almost everyone.  Particular races are precluded from some, however. (Since they would have no effect, they are precluded.)  Sciences may be discovered by accident, or intentionally learned. 

For instance:

(Keeper)  ok Ev(Lycan), you went Feral, you still have three attackers and cannot unshift.

(Evan)  Ok, three to one, (Rolls humanity) Can't shift.  Out of desperation I use Science Of Banshee,(Previously undiscovered) and shift to a Second form and attack the three hunters.  Because I shift in desperation to a larger form, I have most of my normal attack  (Rolls as if he were uninjured and applies normal penalty.)

(Keeper) (Notes the new discovery and rolls for attribute success.) Ok, you manage to kill one, maim another, and fall to the floor unconcious, (Rolls a D6) It will be two turns before you awaken.  You take another negative to your humanity if you use this science, and must add one trigger.  But you gain one Knowledge point, and one unskilled science.

(When he actually 'learns' it later at one of the libraries or archives he can fill in the rest of the why's and wherefores.  Such as, "can only be used when all other rolls have failed, or to use must fail humanity roll twice.  However, the person discovering it cannot change associated penalties.

If they are not convincing in the RP though, the ability is not taken away, they simply fail in activating it.  (Before they learn it they must successfully Activate it in RP.)

Clear as mud?  I know, probably bad example, but that was what I came up with on the fly.  You can give yourself any attribute as long as you can properly explain why you didn't have it before.  (out of desperation, or because of the silver in the air)  (However, it is something that once discovered anyone can learn, assuming they follow the rules.) a 'science' may only be learned on the fly by one person.  After that, all others who want to learn it must go to the archive or library.  The same rule holds for weapons, you may 'pick up and use' a weapon (say, a sonic rifle) if you come across it, but in order to be good at it, or to be able to modify it (Add any bonuses or use accuracy,) you must go to the archive and study 'proper use and handling of Sonic Rifles.' 

Hey Laura,

Are we going to see that mock up of play posted?

Laura, at this point you might benefit from reading Troy's Standard Rant #2 and thinking about the "big three" questions:

• What is your game about?
• What do the characters do?
• What do the people at the table do?

But really, read Troy's post first before answering, because it has a good explanation of what I mean by asking those questions.

Basically, it looks like you've already put a lot of thought into setting and mechanics. But do they really accomplish what you want for this game? None of us can really help you until we know what you actually want. It does look like you've thought about that, too, since you've stated that a GM-less game won't have the effect you want. I'm just asking for a little more detail.

Elle, those last few posts made things much clearer for me; thanks. Let me (like Selene - crossposting goodness!) put my own spin on some of those Standard Forge Questions (tm)*:

1) What do the characters do in this game?
From your example, they clearly get in fights and develop new superhuman abilities, and also do research. Is there anything else (e.g. politics, romance, wrestling with long bouts of depression)? And what do you expect them to spend most of their time doing?
(N.B.: We're all indoctrinated that only right answer to "what do the characters do?" is "anything you can imagine!" Which isn't an answer at all, because you gotta have focus; a game meant to be like Star Wars should have a very different answer than a game meant to be like L.A. Confidential or Toy Story).
Some people like to answer this in terms of a "core story" (or sometimes "franchise"): the thing that anyone playing a session can expect. For Dungeons & Dragons, the core story is basically "a bunch of heroes go into a scary place (dungeon, wilderness, whatever), kill a bunch of monsters and take their stuff, and therefore become more powerful"; for Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard, it's "vigilante exorcists ride into an isolated frontier town, discover its secret sin, and try to balance justice with mercy as they make things right."

2) What do the players do in this game? What does the GM do, if there is one?
What do the real people sitting around the table do? Again, to use D&D and Dogs as examples:
- D&D: "players listen to the situation the GM presents, choose tactics, describe what their characters do, and roll dice, then follow the GM's clues to the next scene; the GM controls all the enemies and all the neutrals, tries to make the fights hard enough to be challenging but not so hard as to be impossible, and guides the players through a more-or-less predetermined plot"
- Dogs: "players investigate the town and townsfolk the GM invents, fight for what's right or back off if they have to, dispense judgment or mercy; the GM plays the townsfolk to (a) show the players' what's wrong and (b) make it hard for them to have an easy fix, without every having a "right" solution in mind"

3) Why is this fun?
More commonly put as "what's your game about?" But the "about" that really matter is not the world you've made up or the character types people can play, but the thing -- whatever it is -- that makes you excited about playing the game: tactical challenge? Wish fulfillment? Exploring a cool world? Telling stories about brutal moral dilemmas?

* Some good compilations of questions include The Power 19 (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17286.0) and Troy's Standard Rant #2, (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16996.0) which includes some leading designers' answers to a version of the "big three" questions above.

As much of all of the others as they wish to do.  They interact just like everyone else.  If they wish to have a love affair with a game character, so much the better, more fodder for the game. 

If they run into a moral issue they have to choose, what do they do.  No dice rolls, no fancy math, just what do you do?  Do you kill this guy to save your friend even though you are forbidden from killing perhaps?  Or do you just consider it a lost cause?  That is up to the character.

As for what to expect, when you boil it all down I guess the aim (depending on if you are playing the Mistic or Mystic line, is to either free the city (mistic) or Kill everyone who isn't like you, (the company Mystic.)  Depending on which view is yours, you aim to complete one of those two goals.  How you complete them is up to you.

The characters explain the world through story as they see it through the eyes of their character, develop tactics for war, roll some dice, The GM plays some townfolk or some NPC's in order to challenge the players, keep the game fresh, and keep the storyline moving toward the eventual end.  He is not the only arbitor, and there is no static script.  But the overarching goal, if you are playing as a mistic is to free your people and rebuild the town, if you are playing one of the doctors or their minions it is to destroy any mistic or anyone who knows of them.

As to what the game is about, I would say that it is life, love and loyalty in a war zone.  Who do you trust and why?  How far do you trust them?  What could make that change?  Who are you willing to risk yourself for?  How much are you willing to risk.  If you are a pacifist, what will make you take up arms, if you are a warrior what will make you throw them down?  And how do you see the city?

as to the about question, I would have to say moral dilemmas.  In essence throughout the game the characters must decide who lives and who dies, and what drives them in those choices is what makes the game interesting, the dynamics of the characters.  (Of course then, I could be the odd duck who likes things like that..)  But I would also have to say, the vicarious thrill of being not just able but allowed to do all the things that people tell us we cannot, should not or would not do, just to see what would happen.

EllePepper wrote:
As to what the game is about, I would say that it is life, love and loyalty in a war zone.  Who do you trust and why?  How far do you trust them?  What could make that change?  Who are you willing to risk yourself for?  How much are you willing to risk.  If you are a pacifist, what will make you take up arms, if you are a warrior what will make you throw them down?  And how do you see the city?

EllePepper wrote:
as to the about question, I would have to say moral dilemmas.  In essence throughout the game the characters must decide who lives and who dies, and what drives them in those choices is what makes the game interesting, the dynamics of the characters.  (Of course then, I could be the odd duck who likes things like that..)  But I would also have to say, the vicarious thrill of being not just able but allowed to do all the things that people tell us we cannot, should not or would not do, just to see what would happen.

An interesting system, kind of what I am doing with the diplomacy but different.  Diplomacy affects the whole group, But each individual has a rating, though I guess you could say it affects the group dynamic as a whole since it will tell you how much mistrust you will gain from certain races.  So if your diplomacy with the lycan is low, even the lycan on the team might not trust you. 

What if the Lycan on the team is a player character? Is that player then required to roleplay the lack of trust, with someone (e.g. the GM) saying, "no, you can't do that, you're showing too much trust in this other character"? (That's basically the way D&D does Alignments, e.g. Lawful Good vs Chaotic Evil). Or, as in The Mountain Witch, is there some mechanical bonus/penalty to reflect relationships of trust/mistrust -- say, the players can make whatever choice they like, but if your character is mistrusted by Lycans, the Lycan PC gets a bonus to any action that shows his/her mistrust of you (e.g. stabbing you in the back, not letting you be the one to guard the Mystic Whatever) and a penalty to any action that requires trust (e.g. "okay, sure Lycan Guy lets you treat his wounds, but he gets a -5 to his recovery roll because you touching him stresses him out")? These are two very different approaches, the former being more flexible at the expense of giving near-dictatorial power to the GM to say what's "good roleplaying" or not, the latter being more concrete and objective, which may feel restrictive.

EllePepper wrote:
the aim (depending on if you are playing the Mistic or Mystic line, is to either free the city (mistic) or Kill everyone who isn't like you, (the company Mystic.)  Depending on which view is yours, you aim to complete one of those two goals.  How you complete them is up to you.

Perhaps I over-generalized them.  The uper echelon are evil to the core, they just want to destroy everyone, but I make no requirements as to why the person is still following them.  perhaps fear, perhaps Mystic is holding something over them.  (And who says those who work for Mystic can't change?)  Some of them will be npc's but if they want to play mystic, it is up to them to formulate a history of why they are still with them.  What end do they hope to achieve?  Do they see the mistics as fanatics, perhaps they had run-ins with mistics. 

Well, I guess I could say that the theory behind Mystic involvement is that they want to destory and as a whole that is true, but I never tell you why Each Character signed on to mystic, do they stay to perhaps do some good from within?  But as far as the mistics are concerned they are bad one and all. 

As to the penalty for mistrust, I think I would again use the diplomacy rating, and have that affect the in-team diplomatics as well,  While I don't think it would directly correlate to a penalty, it would also depend on what the lycan's trigger's were.  I mean if he doesn't like hunters and happens to have a trigger on a hunter item (Say the black crecent)  then he would have to continually fight not to attack that particular team member.  I don't know if an artificial means like a penalty would work or not, I'd have to test it both ways.

Hello Laura

Surprisingly, I think no-one has asked you this yet, so here goes:

What is your publishing goal with this game? I suppose you are not just planning to play with some friends, if you are prepared to go to all the trouble of creating a separate game, instead of just taking and adapting an existing one. If so, are you headed for a PDF or something more solid?

Cheers,
+ Mikael

Generally, talking publishing at this point is putting the horse before the applecart.
System is Important Step #1. Once thats laid down, the rest can follow.

errr...Applecart before the horse. Curse the lack of caffine in my veins! *rushes off to guzzle some java*

Nate

daMoose_Neo wrote:
Generally, talking publishing at this point is putting the horse before the applecart.
System is Important Step #1. Once thats laid down, the rest can follow.

I admire the curiosity, umm, as to publication, my friends and I have been dorking around with it for years, I would love for other people to be able to play it.  I've had so many people over the last two or three years look at some of the related storyline and say 'this would be a great RPG"  or 'is there a game?"  And I would sadly tell them no.  As to adapting another game, that was where I started, but most of the ones i had access to were too rigid.

Back to the topic before I got sidetracked by my coffee swilling friend...

I am considering, for now, leaving the Mystic storyline 'open' and not doing anything with it.  possibly adding it in once I have the Mistics done.  Just so you guys know.  MISTIC is an acronym, Manufactured, intelligent, Shifting Tactical Infiltration Corps.  Mystic is the company that created them.  It was a sort of play on words.

As long as we're discussing your setting, let me recommend that you don't have to elaborate every last detail of the company, the city, the various factions and forces, etc. etc. ad nauseam: In fact, even if you could do that much work, it'd be a bad idea, because then there'd be no room left for anyone else (GM or player) to be creative. One interesting suggestion on Vincent Baker's blog Anyway (www.lumpley.com) was to start with a few basic principles and then use those almost like algorithms to generate new details whenever the game/story ran into something previously undefined, be it a political faction or a coat closet -- an idea I summarized in this thread (in case the link breaks, that's http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=16425.msg175442#msg175442) and discussed at length in the original Anyway thread (http://www.lumpley.com/comment.php?entry=73).

Actually, I was going to leave them open so that the why's and wherefores would be generated by the people playing the characters.  That would, essentially give infinate playability.

I was also thinking about putting a little character info in about each race, so they can 'listen' to them, and understand the way they think.  So that I don't have to say this race hates that race, I can let the character say, never trust a lycan or what have you.

The White Wolf/World of Darkness books do that very nicely -- there's a little in-character quote from each race/clan/whatever on what it thinks of each of the others -- and it has its uses. But, a big caveat: If you put in the rules "here's what group x thinks of group y," people will tend to read that as a rule, with no exceptions, when often the real fun of such "rules" is in the breaking of them. There should be room to play, say, the vampire in love with a werewolf (Underworld, anyone?).

Indeed, the general problem with defining "races" is that it's easy to fall into the assumption that every member of a given group is alike, and (besides the disguised racism thing), that just gets boring. So as you write up your groups, I'd urge you to make it very clear that there's variety within each, and indeed that (just like real life) the same individual may believe two things that contradict each other.

Of course, and i am keeping that in mind.  In fact one of the speakers directly contradicts his superior in whose behalf he is speaking.  But then he goes on to explain his difference in opinion.

And of course, 'race' is probably a bad term to use, and yet it does fit because there is a lot of I don't like them because they aren't like me.  and especially from the older ones among the races who have lived long enough to be cranky.