MGuy wrote:In my own anecdotal experience no player actually cares about the second. I would also like to note I also am not writing something for mass consumption so... that.
I think this is the crux of the entire argument. One side argues for the "experienced" roleplayer (not as a qualitative statement, but as a quantitative one), the other side argues for the mass market/general appeal. Once you played your standard generic races over and over, you tend to fall into one of two camps: those who play nothing but humans anymore, fed up with special snowflakes and those that want to play something new, something that can still excite them and that they haven't played before, at least not in the way they envision it to be.
There would still be a large chunk of players left that are happy with the standard choices, but they also tend to not be as vocal about it.
Now, if you argue about "what races should be in a core rulebook", it boils down to which camp you are trying to please: The "newbies", the "happy with the status quo", the "humans-only" or the "more weird shit" camp. And that boils down to whether you aim for the commercial market or a niche market (and I consider the "more weird shit" camp a niche market).
If you aim for the commercial market you will likely choose the "status quo" with your bog standard base selection, enriched by some psychological choices:
-elves
-dwarves
-humans
-big strong race (e.g.: Goliaths)
-some dark and menacing race (e.g.: orcs)
-some freakish race, that is seen as outsiders and shunned by society (e.g.: Plant-People)
-some supernatural race with special powers (can share domains with the upper two) (e.g.: Tieflings)
-some dangerous and feared race that is essentially misunderstood (e. g.: Drizzt/Exile Drow)
-some Fetish race (can also fall into the "freakish" category) (e.g.: furry race)
Now, if you were to aim for a niche market, you'd have a much different setup. Even a niche market can have a narrow selection (like TMNT), but in the niche markets you can also aim for mass diversity and it is here where your race-generator concept starts to kick off, but at that point you're basically building a sandbox and not an RPG. You want players to design the cultures and races and their relationships and while that is all fine and dandy, it's also overbearing on newcomers. You basically relegate yourself into this corner of the market, unable to entice or retain new players in any significant number.
So, the question should be: what type of RPG are we arguing the race selection of? General statements can only be applied to a general audience, excluding niche markets, so we need to quantify our statements if we intend to argue about a different subgroup. Personally, I have been arguing about mass appeal, as that is how I understood the OP.