I sometimes think about all the races (and genders) in WoW and how I have a difficult time getting into playing some of them and a much easier time filling the shoes of others. And because I’m feeling verbose, you get to read all about it! Exciting, huh? …maybe, at least? Hello? Bueller?

Anyways, let’s take it from the top…

/hops onto the RP Box

Humans:
I’m not gonna lie. I have a hard time playing humans. And the main reason, to me, is because hey– I’m playing a fantasy game, I don’t wanna have to play something I already play IRL. Ya know?

Though to be fair, it’s very easy to come up with just about any personality role that a human can fill. And I’m biased and love the stereotype of the brave human paladin smashing your face in with a hammer. It fits really well. Still, other options just seem more exciting to me, so I lean more towards the other options. I do like human lore and I love Stormwind, so it balances out.

Night Elves:
Weird love hate relationship with this race. Overplayed? Check. Difficult to RP well (in my opinion)? If you are going for default-night-elf, then check. But on the other hand, smexy long ears? (My fetishes are weird. Deal with it. >.>) Check. Oh, and fun to RP when you come up with something more unconventional? Yeeees. I love Tawyn’s character. Love it a lot. When I first made her she was more reserved, a Neutral Good character who was still rather Night Elfy, and she was okaaaay… but then I went “Aww what the heck” and turned her into a Chaotic Neutral misanthrope and now she’s an absolute blast to RP and write stories about. Tamaryn the Tree is very shy and reserved and I sort of think of her as having some sort of stuttering problem or something; though I really haven’t put as much thought into her as I’d like.

Conclusion: Taking a Night Elf character and going in the opposite direction that most people take them (i.e., giving them some sort of unappealing or repelling characteristic) is a lot of fun. But at the same time, there are so many Night Elves out there that I only make them very rarely.

Gnomes:
I LOVE GNOMES. Oh my gosh. They’re so fun and steampunky. Love ’em, love ’em, love ’em. I only wish they had more class options. As it stands they are unable to be either of my two favorite classes (hunters and druids) and it saddens me immensely. WTB gnome healer or hunter. Lemme rephrase that. WTS my soul for a gnome healer or hunter.

Dwarves:
I like dwarves in theory but I have a difficult time playing them. The number of female dwarf hunters I have stagnating between levels 8 and 12 is depressing. I love the female dwarf voice, too. I think I just have a hard time coming up with good personality ideas for them because their personalities always seem so… set already. If that makes sense at all. Someday I really want a high level dwarf, though.

Draenei:
Awkward thing about me and draenei, it took me forever to get one past level six. Eventually I realized it was because I kept making female draenei and female draenei come off to me as already coming prepackaged with a personality. I think it’s the voice. Because of that I had a hard time coming up with a good female draenei character that wasn’t super cliche.

So when I rolled my baby paladin, I made him a male draenei, and it’s worked out quite nicely! Male draenei seem more malleable to me. They can be heroic and stoic or more bumbling. Mine is absolutely horrible at speaking Common so everything that comes out of his mouth is some sort of innuendo that he’d never dream of saying in his native tongue, and he doesn’t realize it. (“The Light’s hands roam and touch you in a special way!” /Hand of Freedom) I lurve it. <3 Orcs:
The number of times I’ve made female orcs and then given up is similar to the number of times I’ve made female dwarves and then given up: A lot. And it’s not that I don’t like orcs, it’s just that I have a difficult time coming up with non-cliche character ideas for them.

Though, I have this really deep-seated longing to make an old, gray-haired, grumpy, male orc warlock. That would rock. Someday, I will. When I can get into playing warlocks. (You guys have no idea how many times I’ve tried. >.>)

Trolls:
I LOVE TROLLS! Love them all. Though I’ve never actually made a male troll for some reason, but I love them too.

…well, that was an easy one to write…

Tauren:
If there is anything I love more than trolls and gnomes, it’s tauren. The best race in the game. Love their culture, love their models, love their home city. <333 I mostly make female tauren because I think they're so cute and pretty (yes, pretty, deal with it), but I've made a couple male tauren too. Seriously though, female tauren need more love, so I support them (and make more of them) anytime I have the excuse to do so. *nods* Undead:
It took me a long time to warm up to the idea of undead. I was never really one of those people who was into creepy/Halloweeny/gothic stuff, I mean, I don’t dislike that genre, and there are aspects of it that I do appreciate… but it’s not really a favorite either.

Plus, I was always making female undead, and female undead have the same problem that female draenei do to me: I have a hard time giving them an original personality because their voice and look is so very convincingly default that you kind of have to stick with that. I do, anyway.

I have since figured out that I really like male undead though. They’re so cute when they do their little froggy-hop run, and I love the male undead voices. Seriously, some of the male undead vendors sound absolutely lovely; that smooth little “Heeellllooo”. Om nom nom. I have a baby male undead mage with a backstory I love; a magically-inclined farmer boy from the Lordaeron area who was studying to become a mage when tragedy struck! And now he’s undead and he thinks it’s wickedly awesome because he has the mind of a scientist. He likes blowing stuff up. I like that character a lot. I should play him more often.

Someday I am going to make an undead priest because I love the dichotomy of an undead character wearing shiny glowy robes. XD

Blood Elves:
I have long ago given up trying to play female blood elves. Like the female undead and draenei, female blood elves seem so personality-infused right from the start that I can’t RP them as anything but a haughty jerk, and I was never good at RPing haughty jerks, so it doesn’t work very well. x_x No offense to you female blood elf players out there of course.

Male blood elves would have the same problem except for two things: a.) they’re hot (why yes, I am shallow), and b.) I had to give my male blood elf a rather complicated backstory which essentially gives him the excuse to be A Nice Guy. Which, I have come to learn, is kind of a faux pas among more serious roleplayers because it’s so commonly done with blood elves, but ya know what, nobody roleplays with me anyway, so there! /cough

Anyways, now that my male blood elf is A Nice Guy and also very kind to the eyes and ears (even if it is just Liquid Snake /cough), I’ve played him a lot. He’s currently level 42 and a half and I’ll probably play him some more after I finish this post. I actually briefly played with the idea of him and Tawyn meeting up in some story and potentially “hitting it off” but it didn’t take long for me to realize that they’d probably hate each others’ guts, so I’m sure that‘ll never happen. Might be fun to chronicle a story of the hatred, though. /muses

And there you have it. Why I play what I play!

/bow

/hops off of the RP Box