I always imagined they'd be kinda like Cruella De Vil. I can definitely see one wearing a blink dog fur coat..
Formally polite to a fault. Arrogant. Dismissive. Casually cruel.
Depends on the head!
Often, they possess the heads of great cats (such as a tiger or panther) or a snake (like a cobra or viper), yet other heads are not unknown—apes, jackals, vultures, elephants, mantises, lizards, rhinos, boars, and more are possible. In most cases, the type of head a rakshasa possesses speaks in some way to its personality—a tiger-headed rakshasa is stealthy and ravenous, while a boar-headed one might be gluttonous and crude.
For tiger-headed rakshasa---the best kind of rakshasa---Yqatuba and Haladir are quite correct. Plus that stealthy & ravenous stuff when appropriate.
Now bow before our glory, foolish mortals!
Like Scar from the Lion King. Bonus points if you include musical numbers.
A typical evil noble- a desire for more personal power, control over others, extravagant cruelty/blood sport, but unlikely to stick his own neck out without the opportunity for significant gain.
The more interesting part for me is how they interact with other forces. Since they love this world so much that they prefer a reincarnation system over the great beyond, they might view the fights between great powers of other planes as 'quaint', and they would wish not to get involved. They could even be convinced to join against certain large threats- no one wants their doorstep to be the next world wound.
They like this world, and they would prefer their plaything to be left in one piece.
There's not much more to be say... basically a Rakshasa is an evil well-mannered noble with wealth, power and dominance over others.
A boar-headed Rakshasa might be crude, but... how many times have we seen an oversized noble whose sheer size doesn't rival its influence ^^; ?
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I got to play a Rakshasa in a monster campaign and it was a blast. I treated him like a scaled down Lord Beerus. "I am amazing, you are vermin, and you should all be glad I deign to bestow my glorious presence upon you in a way that doesn't involve obliterating you and consuming the remains. Speaking of which, when is lunch? I'm famished."
Would it be a cliche for me to say "Shere Khan"? I feel like this is like saying "Legolas" when asked "how should I roleplay my elf?"
What would a snake headed rakshasa be like? I imagine really sleazy and untrustworthy?
Yeah, as native outsiders, dead on prime material is dead all over.
Although rakshasa have their own reincarnation thing, which lets them start over after getting killed.
But that requires a birth and a growth period that is only slightly faster than normal (14 years), and that is a long time period for the rakshasa's evil organization to fall apart (which means it might take even longer to get back to the same threat level). So for most parties, that only means "reoccurring villain if we decide to reuse our player characters as NPCs in a later game set decades later"- it is a long enough time period that your party doesn't have to care in game terms.
Honestly... I am not sure if it is really worth the trouble to permanently destroy a rakshasa (or seal its soul). Sure, removing an evil from the world... but they aren't exactly high on the rung for 'things that must be exterminated immediately'. Rakshasa tend towards the 'evil mastermind that wants to rule the kingdom' sort, not the 'destroy the world' sort. Heck, Rakshasa seem unlikely to cause excessive damage to human societies- they want to take over, so they would rather not damage their 'property' and lower their profits. So they are below devils in terms of danger rating (devils are similar in disposition, but have bigger plans/organizations).
Once the party kills the rakshasa and removes the immediate problem it poses to them... it isn't really worth it to go much further unless it is a particularly powerful and high level one (like an rakshasa immortal).
An idea worth thinking about is how the 'little' rakshasa play? We've got the basic ideas for rakshasa higher up on the ladder, but Pathfinder has made the species into a whole category with lesser rakshasa who aren't in any position to act high and mighty (at first glance, anyway). So how do you roleplay something like the raktavarna or the dandasuka?
How would I explain them? That kind of depends on the caste of Rakshasa. Regardless of caste though, all Rakshasas believe that each and every creature in the universe has a proper role to play, and that success comes from understanding one's position and working to improve it. They have no issue however in regarding other sentient beings as little more than food or slaves. To them if your incapable of securing power and wealth for yourself with your own hands then you pretty much deserve to be a slave or worse. It's not an issue of good or evil, to them it's an issue of the law of nature. The strong survive and prosper and the weak fail and die.
I suppose the lower level rakshasa is a classic underling- meek and obedient when dealing with a superior, and completely arrogant and cruel when dealing with those it views as beneath it.