I figured I'd pipe in.
In WoW dragons can disguise themselves as any race they want to, many people ran with this and started RPing as dragons. In all my years in WoW, I have yet to personally encounter one person RPing this well (I'm sure good ones were out there, I just didn't run into them) They had a large tendency to god mode: "Rawr I'm a dragon I can do whatever I want and I'm stronger than you are!" There were so many dragons (and vampires) running around that many guilds made policies that if it's not available on the character selection screen, you can't RP as it.
As far as starting out with cliches, I'm plenty guilty of that. When I first started Jethren in WoW, he wasn't very original, family killed by orcs and undead in the war vowing vengeance on the Horde etc. Then decided a couple weeks later to change Jeth and he became a carbon copy of Edmond Dantes from the Count of Monte Cristo... As I became more experienced his personality and backstory changed drastically and he ended up being my most fleshed out and original character by far. It all has to do with RP experience and being aware of the cliches.
When you're aware of the cliches you can either steer clear of them, or RP in a way to make them interesting. When people aren't aware of them they come up with many of the same ideas and then don't understand when people don't enjoy RPing with their "awesome" character.
As always, having more information can only make you better at what you do.
In WoW dragons can disguise themselves as any race they want to, many people ran with this and started RPing as dragons. In all my years in WoW, I have yet to personally encounter one person RPing this well (I'm sure good ones were out there, I just didn't run into them) They had a large tendency to god mode: "Rawr I'm a dragon I can do whatever I want and I'm stronger than you are!" There were so many dragons (and vampires) running around that many guilds made policies that if it's not available on the character selection screen, you can't RP as it.
As far as starting out with cliches, I'm plenty guilty of that. When I first started Jethren in WoW, he wasn't very original, family killed by orcs and undead in the war vowing vengeance on the Horde etc. Then decided a couple weeks later to change Jeth and he became a carbon copy of Edmond Dantes from the Count of Monte Cristo... As I became more experienced his personality and backstory changed drastically and he ended up being my most fleshed out and original character by far. It all has to do with RP experience and being aware of the cliches.
When you're aware of the cliches you can either steer clear of them, or RP in a way to make them interesting. When people aren't aware of them they come up with many of the same ideas and then don't understand when people don't enjoy RPing with their "awesome" character.
As always, having more information can only make you better at what you do.
"In a perfect world you and I probably wouldn't exist so lets not hope for one." -ZeFrank
