Races... useless?

[Ebenezer]

Fun fact: It started snowing outside when I started reading this thread.

Anyways, I love reading threads like this. Just thought I'd say that.

[Kira13]

Man. I don't think I've -ever- given so many likes on one thread alone.

Regardless, the things I have managed to gather here, in this very thread (as I'm not that old, just one year, hehe), is that, well, if you can bring reason to your character being the way that s/he is, then just do it.
Then you'll be able to tell all those 'Your-character-wouldn't-do-this' dudes and dudettes to just look on the wiki. If it's approved, it has most likely been through GM reading. And lot of it.

But if your character is not approved, well, I believe most players that tell you to BE the stereotype race, are just suggesting a <insert race here> wouldn't really do this, but it is, nonetheless, possible.
(as long as, well, you don't go too damn far :P. In which case, though, you should contact a game master)
EDIT: I've actually had one of this crazy ideas just the other day. I wanted to make a mute shaman draenei that will use the very wind to tell his targets what he wishes. I have directly confronted this idea to the GMs, both from reasons of not being exactly sure the wind would answer, and from reasons of, well, maybe-being-OP-or-copying-a-lore-character. Which is exactly what happened. The both. I've been expecting it, so I just left the GM 'interogation' chair with an "Oooookay." I mean, was there anything to add? Mnope. Could I convince the GMs and myself? Mmmmmnot really.



..
My two cents?



EDIT2:

Spoiler:

HAVE I JUST GROWN UP ?! :O

Don'tkilltehKira.D:



EDIT3: Oh, and in case you've seen me using caps lock in this thread. I wasn't yelling. Just.. pointing a.. point. I've used and will use bold instead. :P

[Dae]

Abnormal characters? No problem. A well played technomage with a fixation on creating cybernetic mustaches or transgender Tauren? A druid who wishes to become one with the mighty wild turkey? If you make it work, sure, whatever.

What bothers me about certain unusual choices is when people play something normal for one race/class/sex with another, inappropriate member of the aforementioned group and do not acknowledge the repercussions of it. 

Female nelf Druids are a major example. If your character has decades of experience, you've probably learned your trade from a lone deviant or under some other particularly odd circumstance and the gender roles of nelf society have huge meaning for you. If you're not going to make this a big part of the character, just suck it up and play a male Nelf.
If you're a rambunctious, uncultured scallywag of a belf, don't be. Just play a human. Only make a scallywag a belf if you're prepared to own up to the culture, tragic history and innate magic affinity of the sindorei. 

I suppose I am asking people here to justify their character a bit. But what reason is there to use an unusual race/class/etc combo when there's a perfectly normal background for you to go with if you're not going to capitalize on their abnormality? It reeks of special snowflake to me and contributes nothing to the whole of the role playing experience for the other parties involved. Roleplaying IS a group activity, after all. It wouldn't hurt to  contribute a bit of normality into the server for the sake of atmosphere, especially if you really aren't making good use of an unusual character trait. 
As for the general lack of racism, I'm not too concerned about that. It feels like one of many fantasy shows where the main characters aren't racist in a world of complete bigots, and as long as the racism is acknowledged as a real element of lore, fine, whatever. With a server population this small, this sort of thing is within the interests of people having fun. Still, I appreciate someone who does a good, classic arcetype with all the racism that entails. 

Also, I'm writing this mob ally because my computer is dead again. That happens a lot. So, insert preemptive "screw you, autocorrect" here.