I sitting at Blacktop Comedy using Flipboard a few days ago, learning about new video games (Halo 4, Assassin's Creed 3, and Black Ops 2 to be precise), and came across a very interesting article about Guild Wars 2. Please! Don't tune out! I know this sounds like some nerdy talk about dwarves, and elves, and orcs, but it's more a story about people. And, it applies to improv, and theater, and even film.
The article focused on the players overwhelming tendancy to choose to be human. A player has the option of five disctint races, but the majority opt to be humans.
In fact:
"Players of MMORPGs do have a known bias toward creating attractive human (or very human-like) characters. Researcher Nick Yee, who studies World of Warcraft player behavior in depth, found in 2005 that Human and Night Elf were far and away the most popular character races in WoW."
Why does it matter gamers enjoy being human? It's a great reminder for an improviser. I've taught dozens of classes in Roseville and Sacramento where students worry being a human and dealing with human issues would lead to a boring improv scene. However, those are the most interesting stories, because they're human. A human issue is relatable, the audience will be engaged with something they can connect with. Consider the popularity of reality programming. If humans were a dull subjects, there wouldn't be dozens of reality programs, and the Guild War 2 players? They opt for a human avatar when they could be anything else.