"So what is your favorite playable race? Is it also the race of your main character? Do you have several characters of your preferred race, or are you disloyal like me? Why do you prefer your favorite race?"
I've actually been asked these kinds of questions every so often since back when my primary experiences with games that had multiple playable races were StarCraft 1 and WarCraft 2. My answer has always been the same, and oddly enough, so has the response I receive whenever I provide said answer. My favorite playable race is Humans* because of heroes like Jim Raynor, Anduin Lothar, and Uther the Lightbringer. I'm not sure if it was because computer games were still growing into their role as a storytelling medium and thus game makers were unable to overcome the human experience when trying to craft relatable tales, but to me the human race always seemed to have a greater sense of depth and complex morality than other playable races. Part of what made human heroes so amazing to me was the fact that they could have chosen to take a different path - to negotiate away their convictions for the sake of pragmatism when faced with terrible odds - but they instead chose to stand by their ideals and fight for everything the very word "humanity" itself represents.
It was awe-inspiring, and those human characters in those games with non-human playable races did more to shape who I am today than any other playable race I've run into since. As a result, humans will always have a place in my heart as my favorite playable race, and as it turns out, Human just so happens to be my main character's race, both in and out of the game. =P
In regards to alternate characters - though they may as well be nonexistent based on how infrequently I play them - they're all different races. World of Warcraft's story is so rich and detailed that it feels like a wasted opportunity to have multiple characters of the same race while I still haven't leveled all of them. Since the likelihood that I will actually manage to level a character of each race up to the point where I'll begin to feel like can start creating duplicates is pretty much zero, I doubt I'll ever have more than one character of any given race - and that's perfectly alright by me. =)
*: Oh, and if the first reaction that crossed your mind when I answered that was "Humans? Isn't that a bit unoriginal/unimaginitive?", then I'll give you a moment to just let the irony of that thought sink in...
