So, I kinda want to make a Void Elf, because I like the idea of someone balancing on the line between madness and sanity. The difficult part tho, is that I am not really a fan of WoW elves, and Void Elves are usually more Elf than Void. This has so far made it hard for me to invent anything about the character, because I don’t particularly feel like doing any of the standard elf things.
Could any elves here help me learn to like elves?
You might as well play a non-elven spriest then
I would, but I despise Shadow Priest.
Human but more arrogant, more sophisticated, and more life experience. Also, at risk of plummeting into insanity on a bad day.
That’s honestly all you need.
That is a good tip, thanks.
This is tricky. There is a certain set of character traits that I associate with elves, which obviously vary from setting to setting. Warcraft elves are not Tolkien elves are not Dragon Age elves.
What I did was consider how my character would interact with others in RP. I knew that I wanted a night elf character who would be friendly to outsiders, relatively open-minded, and with intellectual inclinations. From there, I set to think what kind of backstory such a character could have in night elf society, and what kind of experiences could have shaped her into that kind of person.
I also grounded the character in some of my own inclinations that I found useful when roleplaying an elf: my fondness of nature and forests in particular, of soft music and exotic languages. Finally, I thought of fictional characters who displayed some of the traits I wanted to portray in Lintian; some of the inspirations for her were Solas from Dragon Age and Liara from Mass Effect, who, while not literally an elf, belongs to a species that fills a similar niche in a sci-fi context.
Just roleplay them as you would any character concept you like/could reasonably get behind. Race hardly matters besides from looks and their backstory.
I’m finding that my biggest problem with this is backstory.
What I find helpful when shaping backstory is asking & answering some basic questions about them, to yourself. There’s plenty of ‘100 questions for your character’ pages out there online.
https://www.miniworld.com/adnd/100ThingsAboutUrPCBackGround.html
Here is one such example. Some of them might seem more catered towards a modern setting, but can easily be changed to fit the WoW universe.
Aight, i’ll try it out. Thanks!
Don’t really need to play/RP a shadow priest. There’s plenty of NPC “classes” we see using void. Shadowmoon void axes for example. A warlock can likewise specialise in void spells, I imagine.
Don’t particularly agree with this either, as there’s much more nuance to the elven races especially because of their history. Too many purple humans about in all the elf racial communities, so would take this advice with a grain of salt tbh.
The Scourge Invasion, exile, transformation, becoming traitors, betraying your faction and the prejudice they face make for a pretty solid groundwork. Maybe you can set a few character traits and just imagine your character going through these stages.
My trick is always to simply leave the backstory as boring and dull as possible except for some note-worthy key points. RP is about the character’s creation and onward, not about what happened prior.
Yeah, it’s hard to tell what you will enjoy in the long term when you start a new character. It’s best to create a foundation and leave details undefined.
I definitely would not leave the backstory blank and dull. As our personalities in real life are formed by important interactions and experiences of our past, the same goes for your character. If you leave much incredibly vague and basic, you’ll have trouble answering the reasons -why- your character reacts a certain way in specific situations, what his little quirks are and his personality strengths and weaknesses. Especially with a long-lived race, you should at least work out the most important formative years and social bonds that made him what he is currently, then present RP develops his personality onwards, potentially changing him in certain ways but the core will likely remain the same (as personality remains fairly constant throughout our lives).
The past influences the present, so it’s definitely not something that should be neglected or you’ll end up with a fairly one-dimensional char that does things “just because” imo.
Absolute agree there. The way to build a real character is the same way a real person evolves: their experiences make them who they are. So when you have a set personality you want to RP, ask yourself why; the present is the answer.
What experiences led them to believe this? To think that? To feel said way? (that’s why having a character that breaks away from their race’s social norm is so glaring—you’ll be hard-pressed to explain why consistently)
Say you have an elf who despises camaraderie—that’s your answer. The question is what led them to hate it so. Link their main personality/character to recurring themes throughout their life (guaranteed consistency) with key points and events allowing for sudden changes of heart (especially good example for WoW being the Third War and high → blood division in ethics; a society/people don’t change overnight, unless).
And while I usually approve of the ‘have a few key points’ concept for RP characters (since then you can flesh out the why-s through RP, following the same idea I mentioned—the two are not contradictory) elves/other long-lived races sure need much more to that. What the character is currently experiencing is not a fifth of their life. It’s a cherry on the cake. A cake with 36 cherries on it already. So a bit more detail than just key points will certainly help you.
Who would want to play an elf?
I do. 
Eh, I disagree. A foundation (the most notable moments, like Tehya mentioned) is usually enough for a new character as long as you have some idea of what type of person your character is. You can very easily figure out after the fact why your character reacted the way they did by filling in the gaps in their background, but there’s absolutely no need to have all of that determined beforehand.
Not to say you can’t do it like that (some people prefer being meticulous), but I personally have always had more fun just playing the character and figuring out the logistics as I go along/it comes up in the RP. Makes for more organic interactions, as much as I dislike that buzzword.
First step would be playing Blood Elf instead