If I get to create my party I try to cover as much different races and classes as possible. Also I always try to have at least one reasonably attractive woman in my party (by reasonably attractive I mean that I don't count something like including a thri-kreen as fulfilling this criteria).
Also, if a game has odd races that aren't common in games, those races have precedence in my party. The last party-based crpg I played was Dark Sun: Shattered Lands so my party had to have a mul, a thri-kreen and a half-giant. The fourth character had to be a human, elf or half-elf female.
If I can include a male dwarf in a party without breaking the above principles, then I always will. I usually think of one character as my main char, the main char is usually some variation of dwarf, gnome, lizard, undead/necromancer, spellcaster, or a firearms guy. My main char is always male.
In games that give you random default character names, I always use them. If I have to think of a name myself, I usually just use my real name, an antiquated variant or anagram of it for my main char. If my main char is a lizard, I'll make my name weirder but start from my real name or a variant of it.
Another habit (I'm guessing this is common around here) is that I tend to hoard consumables. Also I'm very stingy. For instance I played Hero's Quest (Quest for Glory 1) last year and after I had discovered it I always rested and ate at Erana's Peace cause it was free.
Also I try to maximise the useful use of game time and get as much done within a game day as possible, this often amounts to wasting time in real life. Basically I postpone resting until it's night or I really have to cause I can't get anything done without resting. I usually won't waste consumables to postpone resting though. This doesn't apply in games which limit resting to campfires (Dark Sun, KOTC), in such games I rest always before heading away from the camp fire.
Also I avoid guides and if I accidentally read about an OP build (like in a forum thread) that I didn't think of myself, I usually won't use it cause I consider it cheating if I didn't think of it myself. This applies to first playthroughs or replays when I haven't played the game in question in years.
Also this:
If I get information from an NPC, die without saving and reload, I will go get that information again, even if no flags are being set and there is no in-game consequence to that particular dialogue, because my character still doesn't have that information.
And this:
Also, try to avoid going through the door I'm sure leads to the next part of the main objective. I'll leave that to last and explore all other directions first.