In terms of their in-game/rp situation, they're cannon fodder. The lowest of the low. They're like high school jock wanna-bes; they think they have a claim to fame because they're scaly like dragons, but even the dragons use them as trainable maggots.
And you don't think that sounds like fun? C"mon. A kobold who acts like Joxer the Mighty, Don Quixote, or any other delusional "Too big for their britches", "Way in over their head and don't know it" character?
I love kobolds. I do.
I love their mentality. You know those survivalists, the ones that stockpile ammunition in their bunkers, paranoid the Government will take their guns, or the apocalypse is coming? Take that, and add it to a Napoleon complex, and a severe chip on their shoulder about the tall races picking on them. Finally, add in a little communism about making sure The Nest survives, and Voila! Kobold.
It almost requires you to either: 1) Be comical, or 2) Be a sneaky, craven little bastard who is always looking for an opportunity to stick it to the opposition.
Besides. Kobolds are
the underdog. They're weak, every gamer and his brother looks down on them as ants. Not to mention their status as the whipping boy of the D&D world, being weak and so, it's just more motivation. So, being able to play one, and kick ass with it, is a definite attraction.
There is
still a character I want to play. A kobold rogue/paladin. A normal ol' sneaky kobold sniper who got into a dangerous situation, and was "Saved" by Bahamut, and given a vision that kobolds were created to serve the Metallics, but they were corrupted by the Chromatics. So his goal was to create nests and convert them to the Metallic way of thinking. He was a holy sniper, the kind of guy who wanted to subdue guards with subdual arrows, and sneak in to battle the BBEG without harming the help.