I’ve RPed dragon characters in the past, and I even have some dragon characters active right now.
For the most part, I have them keep their true heritage a secret because:
- People may try to hunt them given that dragon scales/eyes/etc… (are rumored to) have properties that may be beneficial in alchemy/magic.
- Mortal pushback. My characters do not want to be hassled with constant questioning- “Why did you not help us do something about something?” “Why are you not sharing more of your knowledge?”
- The threat of seeming arrogant, or not of their right mind. As you said- dragons are few and far between. Imagine if an almost total stranger told you they were a dragon with little reason for you to believe them. They probably wouldn’t look totally sane. Dragons interact with the murder hobos, sure, but they are the murder hobos. RP toons aren’t, however, necessarily the murder hobos (unless they’re RPed as one of them, but that’s a whole different ballgame.)
- OOC pushback. Dragon RPers tend to have a bad reputation (rightfully so, I would say.) I try to avoid all of that OOC stuff entirely, so I tend to have my characters keep mum if they’re something strange or fantastical (i.e. dragons) lore-wise.
People can RP whatever, whoever they want. However, it is important to remember that not everyone will want to RP with whatever and whoever. I try to take that into consideration when I make characters that are dragons or ‘other’, and in doing so I have created the above ‘rules’ for myself and my characters.